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theletterkite-blog · 7 years

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(he may have been the first one to die, but I’m the one who paid for it. I’m the one who paid for it)

Here it is for you. For those of you who have been asking and even for those of you who haven’t. What am I doing? What happens next?

Let me bring you up to speed.

This summer I wrote and completed my thesis for my degree. I wrote on leadership at arts and cultural organizations undergoing substantial change.

It was completed in August. My marks came back in October. It passed with Distinction.

I am very proud of it, and as such, will be revising the work for publication. (That in itself is a long road and a different story for another time.)

And to answer a popular question: no, you may not read it right now.

At the time I was finishing said thesis, I had the pleasure of working for the Edinburgh International Festival as they put up their landmark 70th season this August. It was quite a new experience working on the press team and working through a festival that was spread out across the city and compacted into four weeks, as opposed to ten.

That opportunity there was worth the investment of coming to undertake this degree. I can hear some of you now raising an eyebrow about the value of work experience versus academic institutions, and I’ll tell you that by a long series of complicated and convoluted UK working laws, that experience would not have been possible without undertaking the degree.

Since that time I have been working at various locations that don’t need going into, as I have hunted for a more permanent position here. To be clear, I have been hunting for such position since April of this year and one can surmise that rejection after rejection might make a person feel rather defeated. And given this, it took me quite a long time to realize that I was not the problem. It took the Director of Development at a Scottish National Performing Company telling me that I had a strong application and did several things that the application required that no other candidate had done to realize that though I was young, fresh out of school (again) and seemingly too eager, I was playing in the same league as other Edinburgh arts managers. The problem, as people have been telling me, and as I have now realized, is not me. The problem is the system.

You would not enjoy me going into the details of what it would take for me to secure a full-time, permanent job in the arts and cultural sector here. Feel free to research it on your own, but essentially it comes down to UK Immigration Rules Appendix J: codes of practice for skilled work, which is a document that limits the categories of jobs eligible for sponsorship under a Tier 2 working visa. There are other requirements of the sponsoring organization, such as who can be hired from outside the UK or European Union without having to undergo the Residency Labour Market Test. Essentially, there are about four large, immovable factors that bar me from being employed here long-term. And due to this, I am returning to the United States.

[Those of you who do NOT want to hear me pontificate on this matter, this is really all you need to know. See you soon.]

This has been hard for me to stomach, especially while watching the successes of my friends. Any of my pals from mainland (or island nations) Europe that are from countries with in the EEA who are reading this, you’re about to be mildly offended. You don’t know how easy you have it. You can move and work freely within the EEA without trouble. There’s potential to even be employed in two or more EU nations at once. Unless an organization wants to go through the time, money and paperwork of making a case to the Home Office for me to remain here in the UK, I cannot get a job. I don’t have the luxury of a fancy legal loophole by which I can trace my ancestry back through to Europe and thereby apply through said European country’s US embassy for citizenship: all of my ancestors who might serve as proof of such are dead. No tricks, no workarounds for me. You can see why the complaints of Europeans not being able to find a job in Edinburgh’s oversaturated arts market fall on deaf ears with me. You can work abroad so easily, experience different languages and cultures with so much more acceptance. I know many of you want to stay in Edinburgh but YOU CAN GO WHEREVER IN EUROPE YOU WANT.

Some of you might make (and have made) the argument that I am able to work wherever in the US that I want (true), and that each state is like its own tiny little nation (not exactly), and isn’t that the same thing? No. That’s like saying the cultures of Kentucky and Montana are as different as those of Ireland and Greece. I think you’ll find that if you went there, Kentucky and Montana are actually quite similar in a lot of ways and then go ahead and tell an Irishman he’s basically the same as a Grecian. See what happens. However, without the lived experience of working in the US, I suppose you’ll never really understand, no matter how plain I make my explanations. You’ve never been refused letting of a flat in the UK based on your nationality because your status as an EEA citizen supersedes it. It makes your application, from one important angle, irrefutable (Well, at least for now.)

So yes, we’ve all had it bad. We’re a crew of smart people who have been shot into a market already teeming with talent in our field and because we are millennials living in an age still controlled by Baby Boomers, they expect us to rise to the top as they did when they “were your age.” As they did when $6 an hour working in a mailroom but them through college. Today, to put oneself through college at any reasonably-priced university (because hey Europeans!, I could never go to uni for free!) we would need to be making $18 an hour. Too bad the Federal minimum wage in American is only $7.25. But the fact of the matter is, that I have to return home because the UK will not move mountains to employ me, and strangely, I believe that is because it simply does not want to.

This, I find absurd. Long have we Americans hailed Great Britain for its utopia-like public funding for the arts, purely because their government has chosen to make arts and culture a policy priority longer than the US has. (And the Prime Minister, unlike the current US President, has not tried to entirely defund the National Endowment for the Arts in a political budget move...) American arts managers have had to contend with steadily diminishing budgets for years, and that mentality has now more visibly crept into the UK as well, with the rise of far-right values that hearken back to a darker age of Westernized war. “Devastating” arts cuts in the UK may be coming this January, as the public and the policymakers begin to question whether continued publicly funding for the arts is worth it. To combat this potentiality, I have watched as organizations here have scraped their budgets for salary money to hire fundraising managers to pilot, embolden, or overhaul individual giving programs. One would think that these organizations who haven’t had to grapple with the task of asking audiences for additional funds on top of what they pay in taxes, would be most interested to take on someone who has experience in working at organizations who have had to stake their livelihood on these exact kinds of donations. Just the other day I was told “Try and get some experience in fundraising, the UK is looking for fundraising people right now with all these cuts.” This individual, clearly unfamiliar with my background (I may not be the Region’s Best Individual Fundraiser but I’m not stupid) completely underscores my point. With such a demand for individuals with these skills, why on earth would they evict someone with these skills, when that person could be of great assistance?

Because of UK Immigration Rules Appendix J: codes of practice for skilled work. That’s why. If you’re not British, not working in hard science, and don’t have a PhD, you’re nothing. There, I just saved you having to read all 26 pages of the document.

It’s lunacy. Here I am, a smart, capable person, now defeated by a webpage that says “you don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here.” What to do as a monolingual in modern Europe? Little. You try getting an EU Blue Card (yes, it’s exactly what it sounds like.) That prospect is tragically unlikely. So back I go, to a political nightmare in which fetuses are due to be classified as individuals for TAX REASONS upon passage of the #goptaxscam, 13 million Americans will lose health care coverage with the rescinding of the PPACA individual mandate, and the Federal Communication Commission is so interested in providing flawless internet services to only the wealthiest that without a job, and without a reasonable income, I may never be able to afford to update this blog again.

So here we are, right at the end. That’s the story, that’s the update. And it makes me mad. I undertake one of the best experiences of my life, and as a result, find that upon reentering society from the haven of academia that society wants to remind me:

YOU’RE NOTHING

The older and wiser of you reading this are likely thinking “That’s what we call life/it’s not always easy/you just have to figure it out/take your lumps/can’t expect to have everything handed to you.” You probably think I sound like a self-entitled millennial. But I didn’t come here to please you. I came here to put down my thoughts, to take one last wallow. To metaphorically prepare for battle through extended complaint.

I didn’t write this for your pity. I didn’t write this for your comments. I wrote this to explain to everyone why when I say I’m leaving I don’t want to see you pull a sad face and say “Don’t go!” “Don’t go” is not an option anymore. I have to, and you know that. It’s a first world problem for sure, being able to hop right back home to a welcoming family in what seems to be one of the only states who actually knows what they’re doing: don’t think I can’t see my privilege (white, and otherwise) in all of this. But this is not a joyous homecoming. This is a return marked by having been defeated by a sector that has been influenced by a government that hate and fear have crept into. America is the cause. And while others my run from it to the other side of the ocean with their bought passports or observe from far away, fortunately-fated with a heritage they didn’t get to select, I will be flying into the thick of it. Biding my time. Preparing my next move. I will celebrate the turn of the new year and cope with the coming age. And when the UK’s arts cuts come and Edinburgh finds itself in need of someone like me, I might pause to glance at the news. Until then, I’ll leave this place that opened me to academia and then turned around and told me I was nothing and return to the fray. (How’s that for a “Welcome to hell?”)

It’s been something, Edinburgh. Thank you, David. See y’all on the other side.

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theletterkite-blog · 7 years

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(Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow creeps in this petty pace from day to day)

Well, here you were thinking that I had abandoned this for eternity. Not the case! It’s been a long few months comprising my second semester of this programme and between back-to-back assignments and lamenting the lack of instruction from one module in particular, telling all 0.65 readers at home how things have been progressing fell somewhat off the radar

It’s interesting to note this happening, because historically with this course, the second semester turns out to be easier for most people. The way it was originally designed (ie. the proper way it’s intended to be delivered and received) the theoretical and broader fundamental concepts comprise the first half, and those ideas are illustrated in the more functional components of the second half. Surely there’s an argument to be made there about swapping the order, but to invoke a Scorpionic line of thinking: let’s all agree that those arguments are far outside the scope of this discussion and also irrelevant.

Yet somehow, this semester seemed to slip away from me.

With that said, it was eight months ago today that I landed here in Scotland, exhausted and grumpy and entirely unaware of just how much more philosophical my life was about to become. So it seems apt, as in about three days I am about to make the journey back to the United States of Political Hell for the first time since then to conduct some research, that I write to catch you all up on some things I have thoughts about from the second semester. So, without further preamble:

THINGS I HAVE THOUGHTS ABOUT: ‘AND THAT’S WHAT YOU MISSED’ EDITION

Marc Brew Company Some of you may recall in the vague depths of your memories that I had taken on an internship this semester with an inclusive dance company. Working with them for three months with a recent graduate of my degree programme gave me quite an education. Working for a small organization is something I had done previously but never with an organization THIS small. The international differences between governance, fundraising, networking: all striking. It was an excellent opportunity to start putting into practice some of what we’d been covering in lectures. We also helped produce an impressive dance/rock gig show, BREWBAND, which is now touring Scotland (people in Edinburgh: it’s coming to the Traverse on 6 May, you should see it it’s great call me). It’s my first assistant producer credit and I want to especially thank Susan for entrusting me with all the kinds of work she would do herself as the producer, having only met me twice prior to starting with the company. And also for driving me to Glasgow and back a number of times!!

Six Nations rugby match Alright so I lied somewhat when I said that this blog slipped my mind completely during the semester. In February I was very lucky and went to the Scotland v. Wales rugby match. It was unseasonably warm and Scotland won: two things to which merit, as my mother would say, a “Well, wouldn’t you know!” It was a fun afternoon watching burly men try to pummel each other and drinking to “excessive noise” amongst shouts of “DAY-VID!” and “STEEEE-VEN!” (You had to be there.) Notable takeaways (not the food kind, the learning kind) from the day include that rugby is actually really interesting once you understand what’s going on and also that Welsh fans like to go out for Chinese food after the match, apparently. You will be sitting in a restaurant alongside a sea of red jerseys.

your New Year’s resolutions may have been too lofty As we know, I’m not really one for making these. But this year I did come up with a few, one of which was “don’t glare at library people as much.” Suffice it to say that it is now May and this particular effort is not going well. I can understand that we all have different learning styles and we all work differently, but when there are only two plug points in the LRC, and therefore when using them it does not make sense for you to

a) spread the entire contents of your bag across the table, which includes, but is not limited to, 15 hand-drawn inspirational Post-it notes (yes, I counted) and two purple sparkly My Little Pony horses,

b) loudly sing Leona Lewis’s Bleeding Love when you can’t think of what else to write in your dissertation

c) complain that you don’t need a degree and therefore want to give up on your dissertation because you just don’t know what else to say when it was YOUR CHOICE TO COME BACK FOR FOURTH YEAR AND YOU TECHNICALLY COULD ALREADY HAVE A DEGREE and then go lay on the floor by the movies continuing to sing Bleeding Love

d) try and jam six people in a space for three, maximum, and then openly debate WHAT A MARGIN IS and HOW TO MEASURE ONE WHEN THE HANDBOOK SAYS CENTIMETERS AND YOUR COMPUTER IS IN INCHES. Clearly four years of university education is wasted on some people if by dissertation season they’re still arguing over what a margin is and aren’t clever enough to use Google to convert units of measure. Or,

e) kill three hours applying makeup and hairspray in preparation to take photos with your bound dissertations in the exact. same. spot. you had been writing them for three months, and then loudly lounge about with your feet on the table beside EIGHT other people singing Bleeding Love while people who are trying to work on assignments for what might arguably be considered a more complex degree are trying to work at the only plug point that allows them to sigh loudly without being excommunicated from the quiet room. I get the “being done uni” feeling: been there. done that. But you can compare mascaras LITERALLY ANYWHERE ELSE.

I understand that we don’t have a silent or even a quiet library rule, but like, maybe try being considerate? I think this resolution might need to be stricken from my list.

Bread Meets Bread In my eternal quest for the best poutine in Scotland, let it be known I have found it here.

the Onion Witch You know her or you don’t. 25 and counting at any given time. There’s really nothing more to say.

one year, one degree David told us once (and I’ve quoted this to every living being I meet since then) that one of the great things about the UK master’s scheme is that you can do a degree in a year, but in order to do so, they have to remove any period where you might have a break. We had a short winter break that we were working during because we had assignments due in January, and we’ve had this past week “off” between assessment due dates and the kickoff to our third/dissertation semester. But that’s all. I’ve done an entire taught degree programme in eight months nonstop. The only thing between me and two capital letters is a three-month thesis period and a board of external examiners. We may not take electives like some States programmes do, but we take practical trips, we spend hours on reflexivity, we sit in seminars that steer us towards different ontological perspectives. And that means more to me than taking a module called “Digital Technologies in the Arts,” which frankly I got for free by going to Digital Cities: Glasgow and hearing it right from the source of four varied arts organizations. What I’m getting at here is I’m extremely proud of not only what I’ve done but the time I’ve done it in.

I came away from September’s induction terrified. David tried to strike the balance of selling this to us as challenging and not being open enough about the realities. For me, he came down on the side of challenging, and I was very afraid. But from it I’ve found that compression pushes you. It pushes you to try and it pushes you to care. Half the work is just showing up, or whatever it is they say, and that’s true with this. And completing it in the right order (ie. the order in which it was designed) without having a moment to pause and realize what you’ve done makes getting to the end that much more rewarding. Somehow, I’ve emerged on the other side of this with a group of (very) international friends, a respect and serious interest in a subfield I never would have considered, a love of the word Bourdieusian and the man who it stems from, and lastly but certainly never least, a new source of mentorship and inspiration in a bald man with a PhD and a penchant for striped sweaters.

Eight months ago today I was too sleep-deprived to believe it possible. Somehow it is.

And that’s what you missed.

recommendation Margaret Atwood’s The Heart Goes Last. Classic Atwood. Terribly possible. Unbelievably real. The only book I finished this semester that wasn’t for school.

#Things I have thoughts about

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theletterkite-blog · 8 years

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We starve, look at one another short of breath Walking proudly in our winter coats Wearing smells from laboratories Facing a dying nation of moving paper fantasy Listening for the new told lies With supreme visions of lonely tunes

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theletterkite-blog · 8 years

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(Who lives, who dies, who tells your story)

Perhaps one of the most widely-known beginnings to any novel is that of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.”

Jane and I have our many disagreements (this is one of them) and because of this, I have adapted the sentence to fit my own observations of the world thusly: It is a truth universally acknowledged, that every dance organization in possession of a productive staff must be in want of an endless supply of coffee.

If you haven’t forayed into the world of the dance non-profit, or really most arts non-profits, you’re unaware of the tirelessness of the people running them. This is in part due to the hella caffeine we all intake to get through everything we need to, but also in part to the love and dedication we have for what we do in a political climate that has habitually been rather disinclined to help us...in comparison to some other nations.

We spent a fair amount of time last semester in our Critical Issues class discussing cultural policy and comparing the systems of federal/state (state in the sense of national government) support across a variety of countries, and the implications therein. We discussed the issue further in our fundraising lecture this afternoon as well. So when I saw this today, 19 January, 2016, I panicked enough to be reminiscent of Election Night: Trump Reportedly Wants to Eliminate the National Endowments for the Arts and Humanities. For those of you not familiar with the NEA, this would cause absurd damage to almost every organization I can think of off the top of my head right now.

I’ve written previously here about my concerns about the incoming administration and what their effects will mean. I’ve been thinking all day about what I want to say in this last post on the actual Last Good Day, because as with any day, but more importantly the 20th, who knows what could happen tomorrow. And I think of all the identifiers I put on myself that make me afraid for the upcoming choice a select group of wealthy people will force our country to make:

public school student

friend of LBGTQ+ people

friend of people who are of racial minorities presently experiencing hate

stander with Standing Rock

believer in equitable, affordable health care

beneficiary of the ACA stipulations

decent human being

woman

And out of all those things, out of everything there that I call myself, it wasn’t until I saw that article and identified again as both “artist” and “arts manager” that I froze. We’ve been bombarded every day since this wretched campaign started with information about potential social program cuts and how they will affect millions of people. not to mention people I personally know, that somehow I felt desensitized to it. Each successive news item was just another in a long line of abuses and usurpations* that seemed inevitable. It wasn’t until I saw the above article and found that if that were to happen it would have a fantastically HORRIFIC impact on THE VAST MAJORITY OF OTHER PEOPLE I KNOW that I felt really helpless. Just sitting here. An ocean away. Amongst a bunch of people who make disappointed faces and shake their heads sadly and try to compare it to Brexit and don’t really try to understand how some of us are feeling. (Non-Americans, I know this sounds belittling, but I really do appreciate your support, even if you just look sad and awkwardly don’t know what to say when this subject arises. Also, if you’re not an American and you read this, please tell me?)

Because it feels like tomorrow, for all the people that are out there that are gung-ho on activism and fighting back and saying “Not My President” and “this is not the end!”, it feels like tomorrow we mourn the death of freedom. As if in one moment with one man’s hand on the Bible the whole country regresses to what it was in 1770 or something. The 1984-inspired fear in me thinks that this is the last chance I’ll have to freely post something before he tries to regulate the internet. That’s the paranoia I’m experiencing.

Let me be clear: I’m afraid. I’m disappointed. I am very, very concerned.

And I think it’s important to recognize that. It’s important to acknowledge that people have feelings. These are some of mine.

But it’s also important to recall what Kristy tells Macy in The Truth About Forever (great book for all you middle-grade readers out there) : “Don’t be afraid. Be alive.”

Admittedly her context is very different, but the sentiment is the same. And here, alive means fighting for what you want to see happen. Making change that only the strength of people united can make. And finding a leader who represents you when the one you have doesn’t. Break out those fake Galleons, kids and wait for them to grow warm. We gather at the date on the edging.**

So with that, I’m taking a deep breath, and acknowledging, universally that the sun will rise tomorrow, and that each day we see the sun, it must mean the world wants to go on.

And that at least for now, as long as we can make coffee, we can make dance.

*See what I did there? This was a bad attempt at sad, sardonic federal document humor.

**Oh my god, guys. Just read Harry Potter, ok? Please.

---

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theletterkite-blog · 8 years

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(Hamilton faces an endless uphill climb)

[Would you believe that there was only one reference to climbing in that whole musical? Not quite as fitting as I would have liked but I suppose it will have to do.]

Greetings, happy readers. Glad New Year’s tidings to you in these last days of relative normalcy before the U.S. inauguration in a few day’s time. (Don’t roll you eyes, it’s on everyone’s mind.) Those of you from the old days (she said, as if her blog was either a., popular or b., had “old” days) will be pleased to see here that this is not another existential rant about questioning one’s reality or a lengthy piece about how truly excited I was this Tuesday to have a week’s worth of reading to sit down and get through for this coming semester. Instead, I did something fun (yes, I hear your gasps) and documented it (ok, pick yourselves up off the floor.) But first there’s some news to share (you knew it was too good to be true, eh?)

This semester I’m excited to work with Marc Brew Company as they tour their new work, BREWBAND, in Scotland and England. Myself and a recent graduate of my programme are sharing the role of Assistant Producer on the project, and at the time of this writing I’m slated to be in Glasgow early next week to see the rehearsal of the work and take class (!) with the company. I’ll fill this role until May when the work premieres at Sadler’s Wells in London (!!!) before starting work on my dissertation, which is both unbelievably and very believably, right around the corner. So with that said, on to the main event.

There are thousands of posts, probably, on thousands of abroad blogs just like this one about people who come to Edinburgh and climb Arthur’s Seat. You can read about it on this curious little page here (or if you’re my parents -- hi, guys -- read about it in Magnus Magnuson’s history of Scotland) but it’s really a large mountain-type hill which the city has been built up around over the ages. Any tour guide or trip book will tell you that giving Arthur’s Seat a climb is the Thing To Do in Edinburgh. So having made it a third of the way through my time here and having not yet done it felt a tad like I was neglecting some serious obligations to my traces of Scottish heritage.

Today was partly sunny and windy (read: typical) but also 32 degrees (that’s 0, for all of you operating in Celsius, but you probably knew that). So, freezing. If you really know me (and have been reading this thoroughly and are now chuckling to yourself because we have our own little blog in-joke now) you know how I feel about hiking. You know that I have been taught to be efficient with movement and feel that it should be purposeful and ultimately achieve an artistic end. You know I don’t often see the draw to hiking as others do because I’m still working on this whole “movement to reach beauty” as opposed to “movement as beauty” thing. So why of all days would I choose to buck this and climb a steep hill the day after it’s just “snowed” (I use the term lightly here) and there’s ice all over the rocks and the wind is fiercely blowing?

Because I’ve been a climber of all kinds of furniture, snowbanks, and craggy hills from birth. You can take the girl out of Vermont, but apparently not the Vermont out of the girl.

So I donned three layers and my Bean Boots and was fueled by the excitement of an outdoor adventure as well as a Slytherin-esque thirst to prove myself with this hike, and the grand feeling of getting to “dress for winter” in the most New England sense of the word for the first time since arriving here. Any research you do on the subject of climbing Arthur’s Seat will repeatedly tell you this is a “good, hour-long hike but not for the faint of heart!” I have been mulling this over since about halfway through the climb, and my feelings on it are admittedly probably influenced by the fact that it was muddy and icy and frigid on the way up. And I tend to agree that it’s not for the faint of heart, but I don’t consider myself to be in Top Shape and also there are a number of ways to get up to the summit, so you really have to pick the best one for you. You need proper footwear (a given for any life situation, I like to think...) and you have to be prepared for it to feel like exercise if you’re not traditionally inclined to take part in some cardio daily. I wouldn’t call myself faint of heart, but nor would I consider myself an outdoorswoman. Then again, I kind of did try to run up the whole thing. I don’t know: just try it for yourself. Pick the path that seems most suitable.

You can also do what we did and not really be able to identify which route was which based on Google’s directions and wind up taking the fast, steep, cliff-like windward route up. That also will get you there.

(As a sidebar: apparently there are people who make this climb without singing ‘Climb Every Mountain’ from The Sound of Music the whole way? I am not really sure how these people exist.)

The long and the short of it is that you can’t really describe the experience by anything other than cold, because everyone has their own path and own experience making the climb to any part of Arthur’s Seat. Did I get to the top and have a sentimental experience about the city or my time here? No, it was freezing. Did I reflect on the journey up and the time stretching ahead of me to come? No, it was freezing. Do I want to write heartfelt paragraphs making something up about these ideas to give you something warm to read about here? NO, damn it: it was freezing.

I will say, I haven’t felt as Scottish as I have climbing Arthur’s Seat since I bought my first tartan, so I guess that’s something. And I am a firm believer that a brisk walk in the cold reminds you that you’re alive, so that’s what I took away from the climb today. A January trek up Arthur’s Seat will remind you that you are alive. There’s some nugget of wisdom, if you like.

Now I know you’re all really in this for the pictures, so here are some selects for ya. (And all of you over the age of 50 who want to download these and “post them to your page,” please don’t. You know who you are. 😘)

#arthurs seat #edinburgh

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theletterkite-blog · 8 years

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Poutine princess #latergram #sorryformyface (at South Bridge)

#latergram #sorryformyface

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theletterkite-blog · 8 years

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(But damn it’s gettin’ dark so let me spell out my name)

The last time I returned to the States from studying in the UK, our box office manager told me she knew that people always got asked the same questions after studying abroad, around about what the “best part” was, or their “favourite thing they did there.” She then said that she always asked a different question because she wanted to make people think, and because making people pick a favourite part of their experience was kind of unfair. So she asked me who the top three most interesting people I met were. What I don’t think she was prepared for was a long story about the two German ladies that sat on either side of me on a flight into Dusseldorf, but what can you do.

My point here (and I promise I do have one) is that I have found an individual to add to my list of most interesting people I have met here on this trip to the UK. Now before you go getting excited like some of you did when you read my post years ago entitled “Avec, avec...” and thought I had fallen in love with a French person when the reality was I had fallen in love with a French coffee shop, I’ll just remind you that this is the very last place I would choose to announce something like that, so let’s shift our focus from whether you’re getting grandchildren or not (you know who you are) to the kind people of East Lothian. Capisce?

Depending on where the person is from and the relative thickness of their accent, when Scots use my name, Les, it often sounds more akin to “lace” or the perennially-used term for a young woman, “lass.” You can imagine that this is mildly confusing when strangers address me as lass, because in the context of their sentences and the quickness of their speech, it often comes off as people whom I have never met before knowing my name. This being said, the man who drives the Tesco bus on Tuesday mornings told me today “Thanks, lass, you have a good day,” as I thanked him while exiting the bus. His voice is accented just enough that I swear for a moment I thought he knew my name somehow. This momentary confusion was very comforting, almost like I had a new friend, considering my history of having interacted with this individual. I’m a little bit well-known at this Tesco, I think, as the Girl Who Wears Bright Colours. I tend to only go on days where it’s nicer out and I often wear two of the same things every time because of this, which is a green pullover and my Nikes. It’s been pointed out to me that I have “certainly chosen bright colours for a day like today!” by the greeter/security guy at the front of the store because apparently unless you’re wearing all black on a cloudy day, you stand out (mind you, EVERY DAY is a cloudy day at some point here.) Other shoppers (mostly older women, to be honest) have openly stared disdainfully at my laser-red shoes with bright orange laces (that’s the colour the box billed them as, ok?) I choose to wear my aviators when the sun is out because eye protection, hello. And when I’m the only twenty-something on a bus full of grey-headed individuals, all often does make me pretty distinct. Long story short: this bus driver knows me on sight.

He also knows me as the girl who didn’t get the hang of the bus timetable in mid-November and was not aware (because there was NO SIGN AND IT WAS NOT PRINTED ON THE WEBSITE OR IN ANY LITERATURE) that while the bus did come by on the :18 of the hour as well as on the hour, the later time was the T2 to Wallyford and the T1 that went by the uni really did only come at the top of the hour. (I’d like to point out here that the timetable online is extremely misleading and again, there is no linguistic evidence of this fact anywhere.) He knows me as the girl who waited for an hour in the bus shelter in the rain with three older ladies (who all interrupted my irritated listening to my third consecutive Billy Joel album of the day,) in a kelly-green pullover and pink Nikes with three bags of food at her feet waiting for the bus to come back around. He chuckled at my misfortune that day but I think also felt bad for me. He now knows that I only ride between Tesco and the uni and I never have to ring the bell on the bus to signal the stop.

Which is why today when he addressed me in reply to my thank-you, I honestly wondered if he knew my name, even though I was logically certain he couldn’t have. And not to get Saussurean, but when people casually address you with a noun here of any positive kind that is not intended to be a replacement for ma’am, I get the feeling it signals just a tad of camaraderie. We’re pals now, I think, and that may be the only interesting thing about him, the fact that he plays the best radio stations of any of the Tesco bus drivers notwithstanding. The Girl Who Wears Bright Colours and Tesco Bus Driver Man: collectively using the same two greetings twice an hour once every two weeks. A strange choice for the list, perhaps, but I’m just going to keep pretending he knows my name.

And if you’re by some strange chance reading this, Tesco Bus Driver Man: stay cool.

recommendation Again, I know that normally I save my recommendations for my Things I Have Thoughts About posts, but I finished an audiobook this morning I think anyone who takes the time to read my blog would like. Kate Siegel’s Mother, Can You NOT?, which is the book that more deeply chronicles the Instagram conversations and stories of CrazyJewishMom, is read by the author and her mother. While I’m not Jewish, I can indeed relate to the push-pull dynamic of a mother-daughter relationship, an very much feel that anyone who has every used the above italicized phrase should give this a listen. Your life will seem saner by comparison.

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theletterkite-blog · 8 years

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(And there you are an ocean away, do you have to live an ocean away?)

Each December for more years than I can remember, in one fashion or another my father has read me the same Christmas picture book from the 1960s. When I was a kid I would demand he read it every night from the first of the month to the the 24th. When I went of to university it became more challenging to carry on this tradition, but we worked around it to the point where at least some time in the month of December before Christmas morning we would read the book together. We’ve done recorded dramatic readings, written parodies, and read it backwards and forwards, with both the original words and our own to keep the tradition alive. (Because if there’s one thing I hate, it’s change, and if there’s one thing I get extremely indignant about, it’s breaking with tradition.) Today, with a five-hour time difference, we video-chatted and he read me the story, turning the pages so I could see the illustrations as I sat alone at the kitchen table in my uni flat with a cup of coffee in a completely different country. It may seem rather uncomplicated, but the lengths this man has gone to to preserve the maintenance of traditions forged in my childhood is remarkable. He is my very favourite and very only dad. His commitment to making sure I have happy holidays is, in my experience, unparalleled. (Thanks, Pops.)

Christmas, for those who celebrate, often finds us thinking about family and food and others in and amongst all the stress and challenge of the time period. We listen to the same songs on the radio and in shops and in our homes year after year and get hit with “I’ll be home for Christmas/you can count on me,” “Oh, there’s no place like home for the holidays,” et cetera, et cetera. I’ve heard these phrases thousands of times in twenty-odd years. We all sing along to them absently when we hear them but don’t often stop to internalize the words anymore. Not being with my family for Christmas has me cognizant of all those who don’t get to be with their families for Christmas, or anyone at all for that matter, for reasons far less practical and much more unpleasant circumstantially than mine. And it makes me highly aware of my privilege and thus inordinately thankful to have the ability to connect with my family and do things as simple as see their faces and read 30-page book together. I am thankful for their time and their love and their willingness to get up at 8am and stare into a tiny camera for two hours. What wonderful people they are to birth and raise and educate me and all the while try their best to make sure I’m happy while they’re doing all that. Thanks, guys.

“Wait couldn't present Christmas this, gate his jumped and scampered he!”

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theletterkite-blog · 8 years

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(So what you think gon’ happen when they try to tax our whisky?)

If you’ve followed me since my London days, you’ll know that I often find the way that things are worded in supermarkets over here amusing. Like the fact that Heinz is tinning beans, or the section of Sainsbury’s that’s called “adult cereals.” But grocery shopping in Scotland has gotten to be rather irritating because the Tesco here is gigantic and everyone is constantly in everyone else’s way; and I refuse to have my groceries delivered because it would mean having to let someone into my flat and also having to talk to them, which we know is not ideal. And the people at the Co-Op (which, my Vermonters, is not at all like a City Market-variety co-op, it’s kind of like a chain and it makes me very confused) actually openly dislike me, which is unfortunate because while both places are in walking distance, the Co-Op is closer. (However, they don’t sell beets. Who doesn’t sell beets?!)

Anyway, while I have much to say about my grocery shopping experiences thus far, there are some particular things I have thoughts about, so without further preamble:

THINGS I HAVE THOUGHTS ABOUT: SHOPPING EDITION

scented toilet paper In ‘mixed spice,’ just in time for the holidays. This does not make any sense to me. Facial tissue I completely understand; I wouldn’t buy it, but I understand. This, not so much. Nor am I looking to have it explained. But boy, has Tesco got it on sale on at least three aisle endcaps. Why are we artificially scenting paper at all?? (Moreover, why do we choose to artificially scent humans? Tumble into that sociological question, eh?)

“mansize” facial tissues Still on the paper product train here, I just can’t come to terms with this gendering of household products. The blame’s on Kleenex for this one, and through my disdain I can’t discern if the box of them volumetrically is supposed to be bigger, if the box itself is just bigger or if the tissues themselves are a different size than the “regular” tissues meant for everyone else, because I haven’t deigned to pick up the box. But on what empirical research does it make sense to gender something as inane as facial tissues? SERIOUSLY? The box is of course a stereotypical black and silver pattern, two colours that I, as a woman, wear a lot of and enjoy, so swing and a miss there, Kleenex. Even if these are supposed to be somehow superior to normal tissues, I just can’t bring myself to buy them to find out.

smooth pasta sauce PRAISE and EXALTATION, someone understands. I’m sure my father, chief heirloom-tomato-grower and pasta-sauce-crafter of my life will be sorry to be reminded here that I do not even remotely enjoy remnant chunks of any cooked vegetable in my pasta sauce. (Hey, Pops.) If you’re going to put tomato sauce on pasta, I personally feel it should be lump-free. (Anyone who right now is trying to make the comparison to crunchy peanut butter and call me a hypocrite, bring it. That’s a hill I’m willing to fight and die on. Such different textures. Such different flavours. ANYWAY...) And if you DO want hunks of this divisive fruit in your pasta, I think it’s far more sensible and probably more delicious to just get a ripe tomato and cut it up and toss it in fresh. I have very similar feelings about fruit on the bottom of yogurt and how that should be dealt with, but let’s not go there just now. Long story short: I’ve been hunting my whole adult life in which I have purchased pasta sauce for the smoothest possible kind. Every once in a while I find one that has very limited chunks and I buy three of them to stockpile in case the next time I go back I find they’ve stopped making it. But today I found something marked SMOOTH PASTA SAUCE, and sure enough, I turned the jar over and over and over and shook it and not one chunk hit the glass. I have not yet opened it but go tell it on the mountain, I believe this is a jar of smooth pasta sauce indeed. I’ll do a report later for the sake of consistency, but for now I shall simply revel in the joy that others too do not enjoy finding lobs of this fleshy fruit among their al dente semolina strands.

the post office in the Poundsavers Boy do I wish that was the title of a mystery novel because finding the post office in our town is indeed like trying to solve the most annoyingly simple, could-be-made-more-straightforward mystery. Prior to my pasta sauce acquisition this afternoon, I went to mail some things at the post office. Having made sure to find the best route on GoogleMaps prior to leaving home, I thought I was sure of where I was going. On the bus into town, I opened the map app on my phone to have a look at the directions when I notice that on this device the post office I’m going to is marked “permanently closed.” This was not the case an hour prior on my computer, and choosing not to believe the office had both faced sudden, permanent closure and had the time to alert GoogleUK about it, I decided to take a walk by anyway. As I’m walking past the Poundsavers (think dollar store or CVS-sans-pharmacy, Americans) I take a look above to see if there’s any indication by sign that the possibly perished postal place is indeed right next door. (This is not the place to drag my issues with the placement of signage in this country up again, but what can you do.) There is a small sign next to the Poundsavers sign that does indeed say Post Office. So I look next door. I walk back again and look at the other next door location. No post office. So, deciding that perhaps it really is closed and the sign just a vestigial artifact, and having done research about the next closest mailing services location on the bus as backup, I walk another three blocks to the Royal Mail office, as Google indicated I ought. (Perhaps a better title for this paragraph ought to have been “Let Me Bitch About Google Maps For A Minute,” but the mystery theme rang so much more of intrigue.) As it turns out, this was the Royal Mail enquiry office, which does not mail anything, but does handle complaints. A very nice man told me that in order to mail things, you have to go to the Poundsavers, because all the way at the back of the store is the post office: an entirely separate operating entity that just happens to be right next to the racks of 3-for-£3 gift tags! (Don’t get any ideas, Pops. The Treaty is still effective.) While trying to determine the estimated value of everything in the boxes I had for the nice lady helping me with the customs stickers, I didn’t have too much time to be upset with the situation, but honestly. Firstly, I was mislead by what most people consider to be a trusted source about the operational capacity of the establishment. Then I walked by it due to the lack of signage indicating where the office I needed actually was located, only to have to look uninformed to someone else and walk further than necessary! (Not that I mind the walk, really, it was 50 degrees today.) I’m not asking for a sign that says “THE POST OFFICE IS IN THE POUNDSAVERS” but at least something that doesn’t leave me feeling like I’m trying to get to the Isla de Muerta of post offices. Why can’t we make sure that things can be found by people who don’t already know where they are here? Get it together, Google! Also you, Poundsavers! (Can I stop writing Poundsavers? It’s a weird word.) Sigh.

recommendation A non-Bourdieusian recommendation for you this time, though for those of you outside of Scotland it may be tough to come by. Edinburgh Gin makes a raspberry liqueur, which is their gin mixed with pressed raspberries and conveniently called Edinburgh Gin’s Raspberry Liqueur. It’s no Daffy’s but I’d give it four stars. Also, I saw Scottish Ballet’s Hansel & Gretel last week and it was gorgeously done, and a nice break from Nutcracker season. Did I come home with the official #SBhanselgretel teddy bear and also a Scottish Ballet water bottle? Maybe? (But speaking of The Nutcracker, did you know there’s a movie based on it? This is something I learned not too long ago and let me tell ya, having just watched it, it is 75 minutes of something, that’s for sure.)

#Things I have thoughts about #grocery shopping

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theletterkite-blog · 8 years

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Stumbled upon this tiny house in the lobby at #sbhanselgretel and obviously had to take a look inside... 🍭🔦🍬🐻 Thank you, @scottishballet for a wonderful performance! (at Festival Theatre)

#sbhanselgretel

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theletterkite-blog · 8 years

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(I’m working with a third of what our Congress has promised)

I’m not sure whether you’ve ever spent two days stress-cooking lentils barefoot at 10pm (my money’s on probably not) but it really puts you in your place. You keep shaking garam masala into the pan because they aren’t tasting hot enough, even though the curry sauce you chose had three pepper images next to the word “hot” but it just doesn’t get any better. It’s a nice metaphor, really. Just keep shaking in spices with the hope that sooner or later it will taste the way you want it to and it never really does.

It’s the first of two revision weeks here, and for those of you who haven’t heard of this, I will rephrase: it’s exams right now. Blessedly we have only one true exam (#OTE?) for the entire course and we took it back in November. (Is it worth pointing out that I passed it with distinction? No, but I’m pretentious, so I will.) However, over today and tomorrow we have a total of three assessments due in, one of which was due today at 4:00 and two more due tomorrow with one crossover piece between the three. Might I add the one today was a group project we’ve been working on all semester. (And for all of you in the LRC this afternoon just before 4pm, I’m not sure what you thought you saw, but I take a weekly sprint up the length of the library, to the school office and back carrying a sheaf of papers. It happens every Thursday. Obviously.) The point here is everyone is stressed. You can tell Starbucks in the atrium is about to run out of espresso soon. The LRC staff just looks at people blankly these days, probably because they're getting asked the same inane questions over and over again recently. Tensions are high.

In some ways it feels like people are trying to compete in the Stress Olympics. Who can seem more stressed out. Who can seem more overworked. Who can dress more like they haven’t slept in days. Who can make it sound or look like they are more stressed out externally when they’re actually equally as stressed out as everyone else. Who can remark on how they don’t want to do their work more when they signed up to do the work in the first place. There’s no medalling (no, not meddling, you meddling kids, I can spell) in discomfort. Why are we trying to best each other? Does anyone want to win Most Overwhelmed? What does that get you?

And I can’t say I haven’t been caught up in it as well. I had a dream the other day (yes, it was the day after I was in the library for 12 straight hours which probably had something to do with it) that I got into a fistfight with a kid who told me he didn’t think I should be wearing leggings in the library and should put on more clothes. I remember getting in his face and coming up with some very quippy remarks before I woke up and didn’t get the chance to dream-punch him in the face. I stared down a girl sitting across from me for taking a phone call on Tuesday. Last night I took a video of the twelve girls who loudly rocked up to the LCR turnstile in their animal onesies because I wanted to document how obnoxious they were being in a working environment. (Though honestly, a dozen ladies in onesies strolling loudly into the library isn’t what I would call typical.) I am just as guilty as the rest of us of putting on my Overworked Face so that people shut up and leave me alone while I try to write a critical strategic analysis, and this became very clear to me as I saw face after face turn and stare while I made my Thursday Library Sprint this afternoon.

Today we also had our initial informational meeting about our final projects (read: dissertation.) David dug out his Inspirational Voice from induction and reminded us that one of the many things people like about the UK master’s system is that you can do a master’s in a year. It’s heavily compressed and they can only make this possible by removing all the holiday periods. He also reminded us that we’ll be spending 600 hours of our lives on our dissertation alone this year, so we might as well pick a topic we’re interested in. It brought me back to the idea that it’s really a privilege to be here and doing the work that we’re doing. In today’s society, the pursuit of a master’s isn’t feasible for everyone. The fact that those of us who are here and being asked to do the work are here by our own choosing: why complain mightily about being asked to do the work if you took the opportunity to select to do so? This is not to say that the environment we’re in isn’t intensely pressurized and you’re not allowed to feel how you feel about your own workload in combination with your personal life. But amidst everyone gunning for gold in a stress test here, I think it’s important to keep in mind what Josh Pauly said to us a long time ago in band: you have to choose to care. And moreso than that, you have to show up. And by that I mean both to class and mentally. Show up for the investment, or what was the point of investing? I’ll be the first to say (and thus the first to get called pretentious and egotistical for it too) that I’m stressed because I care entirely too much. It’s a trait I’ve been crowned with my whole life: oversensitivity and caring too much. But if we’re just going through the motions, going through the assessments because we don’t care, then what’s the point of doing this all?

And if that means I’m taking home the bronze in the end that’s fine with me. I ran a good race today.

I know I normally only save this for my ‘things I have thoughts about’ posts, but I do want to include a recommendation here too. No one should be surprised that it’s The Hamilton Mixtape. Even if you don’t like the musical (1 - how?, 2- HOW?) you’ll like the mixtape. I promise. Do you like Ashanti and Ja Rule? Yeah? Then just listen. (Also I’ll take this moment to again remind everyone that all these post titles are lines from Hamilton, in another attempt to mitigate any confusion.)

And for everyone I know that can only think of this right now, here it is:

#revision week #gradschooldayz

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theletterkite-blog · 8 years

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(Raise a glass to the four of us: tomorrow there’ll be more of us)

While this has been perhaps The Worst Year on Record for many people of my generation*, insofar as the U.S. being a literal dumpster fire of political and ideological rhetoric, no one paying attention to how this was the most disastrous year for the polar ice caps, and this being the first Thanksgiving Day of my life that I won’t be with my family, I think what I’m thinking about most today is how I will be missing watching the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade for the first time in 24 years**.

Now, this sounds completely insensitive (Hi, Mom. I see you. Hear me out.) and of course I appreciate any and all opportunities to see my family, particularly when they are opportunities for my dad and I to get to run the kitchen and throw spices and whisks and pots and vegetables around. But regardless of what the weather is (last year it was absurdly warm, some years there’s a foot of snow) or who’s joining us, or what tablecloth we pull out (Mom? Hi again. Sorry, did you get a new one?) the one thing that has always, always, always been constant for me at Thanksgiving is getting up each morning and watching the parade on NBC.

During the years that I was at university, to come home from DC and be able to get up the next morning, have it be brisk and chilly and sit next to the woodstove with my hot apple cider and apple cider donuts felt like the greatest blessing in the world. To have three straight hours virtually bonding with Al Roker as he walked up and down the streets of Manhattan, shout-talking with celebrities and parade-goers, punctuated with Broadway performances, at which I would scream up the stairs “MOM, IT’S BACK!” was sort of this weird, centering time for me. Waiting for the Rockettes. Waiting for the next float with some temporally-relevant pop star or just-out-of-date rock icon performing on it, during which I would wait to see at what point my dad would point out that they were lip-syncing to pre-recorded music and the video was behind the audio in the broadcast. Waiting for the Arthur balloon. Watching for the Domino Sugar float. Looking to see which Midwestern or Floridian marching bands got chosen and trying to recognize their marches. (Subsequently listening to bad Sousa-influenced arrangements of Bruno Mars songs that were entirely inappropriate for the moment...) Waiting to see how cringe-worthy that one group of Dance Across America kids’ “choreography” would be. Waiting for Tom Turkey and the old, original-style walking balloons (”MOM, IT’S BACK!”) Trying to keep a mug of cider warm on top of the woodstove and then timing the run upstairs to the microwave during the commercials when the residual heat had failed to make it scaldingly hot like I wanted. Falling asleep between 10:30 and 11:30 and effectively missing the majority of what happens in the second hour. Listening to see what new police/fire/medical/legal drama in New York/Chicago/LA/Miami is airing on one of the Big Three this winter that I’ve never heard of and have no intention or way of watching (Mom: “Well THAT one doesn’t sound very good.”) Finally seeing the Rockettes (”MOM, IT’S THEM!” “Who?” “THE ROCKETTES!” “Oh, I’ve seen them!”) Finally seeing Santa and watching the credits roll as he places his finger aside his nose six times too many to be cute and trying to do the math of how many years until a milestone Parade year...

And here we are this year at 90: a nice, round, milestone-variety number. And it’s the year I’m in Scotland, five hours ahead. This year, instead of casually eating a three-hour snack breakfast in front of a fire and watching commercialized revelry (if you want to get cynical about it) before trying to help make a colossal amount of food for eight people I’ll be sitting in the LRC going over a work breakdown structure and line network diagram for a project that will never come to fruition but will assess my knowledge of the tools used in project management. I will walk amongst people who are only looking forward to the benefits of Black Friday shopping that have somehow reached across the ocean and I will undoubtedly wish I was home being nostalgic for simpler times involving preservative-free doughnuts and drinking afternoon coffee with two adorable old women with predilections for baked goods.

But honestly, I’m not feeling particularly patriotic right now. As much as I do want to partake in the traditions my family has established as part of this holiday we’ve come to recognize, I can’t help but wonder if being asked to skip something simple that I love (a good parade) focus on work (Critical Path Method diagrams) instead on a day like today is a larger metaphor in response what the hell has happened to the US this month. As if perhaps instead of just sharing your feelings about the state of the world, you do something about it. You sacrifice what’s simple and comfortable to work towards something better and larger. And I know this is a presumptuous extended metaphor to talk about my degree with, but there’s a little truth to it here. I can give up one day of merriment to put it towards higher education. There was a great Sage Stossel cartoon in The Atlantic recently about Thanksgiving about how “this has always, to some degree, been a holiday about managed discomfort,” and I think that’s correct, particularly considering its true origins. They’re not great. And the future doesn’t feel bright. But we’re moving towards having to make the choice between what is right and what is easy (Hey, Dumbledore) and I think that’s important to recognize.

Which leads me to my last thought for today: my dear, dear Wednesday Addams. It is impossible for me to consider Thanksgiving without my favourite Halloween-Thanksgiving combination movie, Addams Family Values. So while President Obama (Dude, you know I love you, I swear, but seriously?) is off pardoning a turkey instead of stopping a pipeline from being built...I leave you with her wisdom that she, cast as Pocahontas speaks to the Pilgrims in Camp Chipewa’s play, because it speaks (darkly) louder than ever this year:

“You have taken the land which is rightfully ours. Years from now my people will be forced to live in mobile homes on reservations. Your people will wear cardigans, and drink highballs. We will sell our bracelets by the roadsides, you will play golf, and enjoy hot hors d'oeuvres. My people will have pain and degradation. Your people will have stick shifts. The gods of my tribe have spoken. They have said, ‘Do not trust the Pilgrims: especially...Sarah Miller.’

And for all these reasons I have decided to scalp you and burn your village to the ground.”

What a lady.

For those of you missing me and my world-famous apple pie today, know that I am also missing you and some musquée de provence bisque and that I always am.

Let’s have a parade!!

(”MOM, IT’S STARTING!”)

*Anyone looking to tell me we don’t have it bad because we didn’t live through a WWII or Vietnam or something: please recall that anyone born in 1990 and onward did not live through any World Wars or conflicts in Vietnam or Korea, but since that time, the US has been engaged in warlike conflicts (because only Congress has the power to declare war and there have only been five Congressionally-declared wars in United States history [ask me about them] so no, the “Vietnam War” was not actually a war, the military classifies it as a conflict, the populous just uses colloquialism as a descriptor.) For quite nearly the entire time I have been alive the United States has been fighting some kind of conflict as opposed to a small, yet period of your younger lives where there was all-out, legitimate war going on. It doesn’t make you better than me because you lived through that instead this. It means our lived experiences are different.

**Does this entire blog just smack of privilege? Yes it does. Believe me, I am aware.

#macy's thanksgiving day parade

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theletterkite-blog · 8 years

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official ranking of every turtle emoji on emojipedia

a beautiful friend. a wonderful smile. i will protect this perfect tortoise with my life. thank you.

just a cool and good turtle, going about its business. keep doing you, turtle.

simple, minimalistic, well executed. a solid turt.

a unique perspective on the humble turtle. it takes guts to break the mould like this. bravest turtle on the list.

a cool stylistic approach, but kinda lacking in personality.

the shading is really badly done, but the fundamentals are quite solid. an adequate turtle.

this is just the twitter one but less friend looking.

“turtles… they’re sort of weird and blobby, right?” - apple emoji designer, 2016

the style is very good. extremely well rendered. but unfortunately, this turt’s fuck ugly. look at its face. this turt is no friend of mine.

fisher price.

utterly disgusting.

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theletterkite-blog · 8 years

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(Now what I’m ‘bout to say may sound indelicate)

This edition of the widely-popular listicle series here may seem quite similar to the LRC edition. It kind of is. But this one includes coffee and a serious attempt not to get existential in light of the recent election. More formalized thoughts and critical writing to come.

THINGS I HAVE THOUGHTS ABOUT: COFFEE AND CUSTOM EDITION

please nail down the floor As a dancer, I am no stranger to a floating or sprung floor. (One that it not secured to the ground or a foundation in its entirety, for those of you who are unfamiliar.) But not all floors should float. The floor in the library and perhaps even the majority of the main academic building’s non-academic bits are composed of what looks like glossy-finished Maso squares. And while they’re all connected to each other, some of them are popping up in corners and some have come loose from the ground altogether, which make the squares nearby come loose. Therefore when you walk on this flooring, any section near a section which is not completely adhered to the ground will wind up getting caught in the vacuum and flap around as you walk over it and it is the NOISIEST THING ever. This always seems to occur at well-travelled locations, like right next to the bins or the entryway of the library. And while we are already aware that the library is not the World’s Quietest Space, if you set foot through the turnstile and hit this one 2′x 3′ spot just right (SPOILER ALERT: THERE IS NO WAY TO AVOID THIS SPOT) it makes this loud BANG as your foot comes down and no matter what it happening, everyone turns and looks at you like you’ve disrupted their train of thought so completely you might as well turn around and walk out. I understand that taking up the carpet in order to correct this issue (which, frankly, needs doing anyway because that spot in particular sees a lot of wear in all kinds of weather) would be a large, invasive task at this point in the year. I get that. But PLEASE, someone give me a toolbox and I will fix myself the seven other places I have to gingerly step over on a daily basis and secure what I think are coffin locks back together and caulk the pieces to the ground if I have to. Why it’s so hard for us to secure the floor to the floor, I don’t know. I won’t say I miss the days of a 500-foot polished cement floor that destroys your shoes, but I will say that what we’ve got going is giving me a lot of anxiety.

please move out of the way David has answered my question about pedestrian traffic flow here. Apart from the signs in Waverly which say “Keep left,” there isn’t a codified system for pedestrian traffic on sidewalks or in hallways. Literally, everyone just walks where they please (while 90% of the time adhering to socialized, normative behaviour.) The only place that there is this kind of system is in London, apparently. (Which could have fooled me, since I’ve been asking this question since I lived there.) However, this explains why the people at this school choose to walk STRAIGHT AT YOU with every expectation that you will evaporate or move when they are two inches from smacking you straight in the face. This explains why people walk up sets of stairs that are wide enough across for two “average”-size human beings and do not fall into single file as they do so, effectively pushing any oncoming persons out of the way. This explains why people seem to think it is acceptable to have a conversation DIRECTLY IN FRONT OF THE LRC TURNSTILE AND NOT MAKE THE SLIGHTEST MOVEMENT when you come through and have to slide sideways past the gate and shimmy around them to get into the place. I will ALWAYS fall into a single file line if I can clearly see there is no room on the sidewalk for someone approaching to get by. I will always find a small empty space and not stop in the middle of the street if I have to pause in walking. But what I will NOT DO, is get out of the way when there is VERY CLEARLY OPEN SPACE OUTDOORS and you are approaching me on path where you can either fall into single file or (GOD FORBID) step of the pavement and onto the grass (!) if you can’t stand not to be shoulder-to-shoulder with your mate. I should not be the only one responsible for moving just because you do not have the courtesy to get out of my way the way I do to get out of yours. I will not step into moving traffic simply to let four of you pass unfettered. How did I wind up in a place where there is no mutual respect for others’ spatial intent? Something tells me I’m going to have a lot of face-first collisions this year before this gets better.

coffee No need for it to be espresso! No need to douse it in steamed milk! Just sell it to me! Not a day goes by that I do not throw up some praise for my £4-French press from IKEA. When you ask for coffee here, the response is always “What kind would you like?” A question to which I am accustomed, in most instances, to replying “Decaf.” But THEN you’re hit with “Decaf Americano?” NO. NO. HAVE I SAID AMERICANO? I HAVE NOT. I do not want a shot of espresso with milk or whatever the hell it’s supposed to be. I am interested in purchasing normal, everyday, run-of-the-mill decaffeinated coffee that has been filtered through a drip dispenser or some such device. But here, that’s looked upon as some sort of peasant’s drink: what you’re served at a conference when they’re trying to caffeinate a few hundred people at once. “Oh yes, we’ll just give them all a nice little cup of filter coffee because that’ll do fine and fit right into the budget! Better yet: tea! Think of the gross profit margin on that!” Right. Well. I’m a tiny human who is basically thrown into space by the effects of a full-on regular latte and really should only be allowed one cup of regular filter coffee per day, if that. But I can’t readily purchase that here, so I drink their espresso and listen to their machines grind and whir and remind me that somewhere else in this life, someone is out there harvesting all these beans and hopefully being paid fairly and treated decently to do so. Environmentally and economically, my French press situation is better, too, I suppose. My keepcup and the hot bean water (be real, that’s basically what it is) I brew every morning are reasonably sustainable. But man, what I wouldn’t give for a bag of coarsely-ground Let’s Dance! from No. 6 Depot today. (Julian, if you’re reading this, can you please bring this to me?)

today’s recommendation Daffy’s gin. Made in Edinburgh, smartly-bottled, and an appropriate nightcap to readings about Foucault, research methodology mind-mapping, and finance exams.

#Things I have thoughts about #gin #LRC

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theletterkite-blog · 8 years

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(History has its eyes on you)

Just when you thought I was either

dead

abandoning this, or

about to go on another existential rant about the complexities of my academic experience, underpinned by discourse theory

I decided to surprise you by writing about the U.S. election: everyone’s favourite topic for the past year. Punctuate this return to the craft of writing with a flair for the dramatic, and I am not throwing away my shot.

[Before we begin, I’d also like the record to reflect that I quote Hamilton so often now that I received a copy of The Federalist Papers for my birthday, so there’s that. Very clever, Emily. Very, very clever. 100 points to Ravenclaw.]

I’ve been reading about strategic management analysis for about an hour now, dissecting the influences of cultural policy (something we don’t have in the States) and economic factors on nonprofit arts organizations and ultimately have lost my focus. Pair this with another five hours earlier today annotating articles about discursive analysis and you can see where psychosis might start to build. Election anxiety keeps creeping in.

Far be it from me to make an allusion to politics from a rather nuanced piece of fiction about the struggles of coming to terms with your own mortality, but you know that part in The Fault in Our Stars where Hazel refers to something called the Last Good Day? Where she talks about never being able to predict the Last Good Day, but in hindsight always being able to pinpoint it? The day where everything feels relatively normal before the rest of the numbered days you have are all consumed with Having Your Disease? A variation on that theme has been tumbling around in my head all day. Today, friends, is the last day of normalcy. The relative steadiness (to use the term in comparison to the complete and total uncertainty we’re facing) we’ve had the last eight years is going to shift tomorrow no matter the outcome. We could be looking at four years of raging imbecile and his administration of cronies driving a nation (and in some capacity, the world) into ruin. We could be looking at nefarious ties with Russia and the collapse of the American economy. We could be looking a historic victory for women in politics with a highly cynical bent that will keep the Federal government questioning her every move for the next four years because that’s what the patriarchal societal norms reinforced in the United States will do. Skepticism of her will compound. People with endless money and power will rise to the surface to attempt to bring her down before she’s even sworn in.

There’s a lot to be concerned about with the assurance of a Trump presidency. There is also a considerable amount to be concerned with in the lame-duck interim with the assurance of a Clinton presidency. The governmental actions taken between November 9 and January 20 are as important as voting. Any way you look at it: I’m concerned.

A number of Scots on my course have come up to me in the last week and asked “You don’t really think he’ll be president, do you?” And every time I’ve had to sigh and admit that I really, really don’t know. Polls and statistics and projections are all well and good, but if The West Wing teaches us anything (other than what makes great television,) it’s that those are the responses of inclined voters. Disinclined voters can make or break this election. And to be completely candid: I do not trust the scores of apathetic American millennials who only like to support causes by tweeting hashtags to physically take the time out of their days to vote tomorrow. I also do not trust people who are on the fence about whether or not to let Mr. Trump be in charge of anything (including his obviously poor dermatological choices) to make a choice that will not immediately adversely affect the entire American population. I do not trust electoral votes to be cast as a reflection on the population they represent. I do not trust the ability of the rational actors in this situation to act rationally. This campaign season has been a circus act starring the pitfalls of democracy played out on a world stage, and having the chance to watch it from the other side of the world has been more terrifying than watching it from home.

To be clear, I’m not sitting here on this small island fretting that the system is rigged. I lived in Washington for nearly five years. I studied American political science. I have a pretty tight understanding of exactly what’s going on. I’m just horrified to think that a group of people who are not representative of the nation as a whole might have the power to heavily influence a choice that is reflective of the nation as a whole; and that in doing so, we might create a lasting negative impact on the rest of the world. (Let me tell you, having visited a fair amount of it outside of North America, I quite like the rest of the world I’ve seen the way it is.) I’m disappointed in the U.S. for becoming potential harbingers of doom. I’m disappointed in the allowance of a swath of humanity to publicly let their inherent nature to Other run away with them. And I’m afraid of how that will affect us and how that will affect so many others.

There are personal reasons behind this fear, too: don’t think me selfless enough to only be concerned for the greater good of the planet, its resources and the American image. Because if things go poorly tomorrow, it could legitimately affect my ability to return to the United States. (Less so than for others, but the potential exists.) If things go poorly tomorrow, I might see federal arts funding cut within the next four years and have to work doubly as hard to make sure dance is being brought to audiences and audiences are being brought to dance. If things go poorly tomorrow, friends of mine could legitimately face deportation, despite their legal presence in the U.S. It’s hard to sit an ocean away with crossed fingers and a prayer that Royal Mail is as efficient with my ballot as they are with my postcards.

I want to believe that the United States is capable of making an intelligent (or even ‘lesser-of-two-evils,’ if you’re still in that camp...) decision. I want to believe that we won’t elect such a disaster of a human being who is facing FEDERAL CHARGES into the highest office we keep. I want to believe that Vladimir Putin won’t lock a nuclear missile on target to Washington and sit in the Kremlin with his thumb on ‘GO,’ waiting to depress the launch button until the moment he learns a woman has been chosen to lead the United Sates into the next decade. But the anxiety of the uncertainty of the situation makes all that very hard.

Late tomorrow night (GMT, that is) I’ll be sitting and watching the results start to come in, likely with other Americans and a smattering of Scots. I will stay awake as long as possible, but will have to wake up on the 9th of November and learn what’s going to happen to my country. And given the prospects of what could happen, that just seems impossibly hard. All today has been is a study of what Harry meant when he said there was just one last day of peace to enjoy with Ron and Hermione*. It’s moments like these I wish I hadn’t left. Moments like this I want to be with my fellow Americans. And I don’t say that very often. Josh Lyman, everyone’s favourite Deputy Chief of Staff always maintained “I want to be a comfort to my friends in tragedy and I want to be able to celebrate with them in triumph. And for all the times in between, I just want to be able to look them in the eye.”

Me too, Josh. Me too.

*For those of you who are not John Green-inclined, this is a Harry Potter reference. If you don’t recognize either, come on, these are cultural phenomenons!

#US election

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theletterkite-blog · 8 years

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