At least Barbie has a job...

Before Christmas, my mother and I were in Target in the toy section. Being the wonderfully kind person that she is, my mother was looking for a present for a six year-old girl who visits her office for allergy shots. The little girl wanted a Bratz doll.

First, I was overwhelmed by the shear amount of pink in the aisle, but then, I noticed the dolls themselves. They look like 40 year-old women with an addiction to plastic surgery. They have huge faces, complete with huge eyes and lips, skimpy hair, and porn names like "Yasmin." Crazy. You can buy them dressed up like rockstars or punk girls--somewhere Kathleen Hanna is crying on the inside--or you can buy the male version of Bratz, appropriately named "Boyz Are Cool." But, the most distrubing Bratz item I saw was Chole and her mom. Geez Louise! It's basically the doll version of the Real Housewives of Orange County and their children. The mom looks about 20, as old as the daughter looks under all that make up, and both are decked out in short outfits that have matching cell phones. So, not only do little girls feel bad about themselves for not being able to look like these dolls, but moms can too! Guilt and Envy for the whole family!

I just kept repeating to my mother, "Chole and her mom!?" My mother argeed it was ridiculous, and added that she thought the Bratz dolls were ugly; nonetheless, she purchased the Bratz doll the six year-old requested. As we were leaving the ailse, I said, "At least Barbie has a job."

Preacher Livingston has the floor...

(one of the images I used for my lecture on gender--see 5)


So, here's what's been happening since I last blogged:

1. I turned 22.
2. I am going to see Colbert on March 3rd! This will be my first time in NYC and on an airplane. Yes, I have ZERO life experience.
3. It's EXTREMELY cold here. This morning we had snow flurries!
4. The kids I teach like me! One girl gave me a bag of candy because her sorority was giving them to faculty members with excellent leadership skills. That same day, another one asked my for a recommendation. They especially all like it when I draw on the board, because I cannot draw.
5. I have become a preacher... I lectured on gender yesterday with my friend and fellow TA Amelia. I spoke about how gender was performed using Judith Butler and children's commercials, the control of women's sexuality, and the origins of patriarchy. Towards the end of my part, when I was speaking about the control of women's sexuality, especially it's manifestations in the US in the forms of rape, the fear of rape, domestic violence, and eating disorders, I got a little preachy. Here's some things I said,"How are these controlling women's bodies? Well, I will actually take control of your body and sexuality and show you who is in charge, I will make you scared to go outside and walk without a man, that you will worry about where you go, what you wear, and about the wrong people who will be more likely statistically to rape you--as 80% of rapes are acquaintance rapes--beat you into submission and make you scared to go outside, and force you to conform to unrealistic ideals of beauty making you believe that you are so ugly that no one will ever want you...

Obviously, I got on a soapbox. In my head, I am going Taylor, calm down, stop, no one will listen to you if you preach. I eventually did calm down and present the patriarchy information somewhat calmly. But, I think I scared them. They never ask me questions when I lecture, but they do ask the other TAs, and I doubt that they don't ask questions because they understand and agree with everything I say. So, I need to work on sounding less preachy and more approachable...

A girl did come up after the lecture (not one the students whose grades I am responsible for, so I think it is a safe assumption she was telling the truth)and said she really enjoyed it, and that she was really interested in our material, so I urged her to take a Women's Studies course. She said that she definitely was going to. The professor for the class liked it too. He said we did a good job, and he was proud of us.

Are you ready for some football?

Yesterday morning I received a text message from my friend Amelia about the state of things in downtown Chapel Hill. Apparently, there were waves of people in various stages of dressiness in blue and white. She is from Maine, so she was alarmed. I reassured here that this was just football in the South, and concluded my text with, "Welcome to the South!" Later, when I ventured outside, I was struck by the shear number of people here, not so much by their dress. But, I did take notice of what she was telling me about 45 year-old mothers of college girls in their baby blue and white best, heels, and pearls to watch football and their husbands in khakis and baby blue polos or searsucker(it's a little late in the year for that isn't it?. It's weird, but it is something I am accustomed too. What I am not accustomed to is people tailgating in parking garages here. What is that?! As I walk to the library, I am struck by the number of people in the bottom of parking garages eating Bojangles chicken from their trunks and tailgates and by the people on the top of the parking garage GRILLING OUT with their tents set up. Very strange. There is amble green space here, so I don't know why they choose to tailgate there, but now I have an idea. Taking the bus back from downtown, I noticed all those well-dressed college parents in green spaces and parking LOTS. You have to be a member of Carolina Livery (whatever that is), a fraternity/sorority, or pay for a special event parking pass to park in these traditional tailgating spaces. Incidentally, they also have McCain/Palin stickers of the back of their car...and there are a lot of them, so I am guessing they don't live in Orange County, which votes and pulls for baby blue. Those in the parking garage are not as well dressed. They just have on school t-shirts and jeans. Apparently, where you get to tailgate depends on your socioeconomic status...

I actually hate football days here. I do not care about ACC football (the district UNC plays in). I am an SEC fan (hard football and Southern football). So, this may be influenced by that, but I get really pissed off about football game days. They always happen on Saturday, so if I have any errands to run, I better do it on Sunday or Friday because I will not be able to unload my items from my car by parking in the parking garage near my house, because it is reserved for "event pass football fans only," and if you park there, your car will be towed. AND I cannot leave my parking garage to go somewhere in my car because I will not have a space to park when I get back because MY parking garage where I pay $350 to park allows those "event parking pass" people to park there and if the garage is full,tough cookies, even though you pay to park there. So, then you have to drive around and fight masses of people crossing intersections, cops telling you which way to go, and road closures to find another space to park where you will not be towed. I did this last Saturday. Something just doesn't seem right about that to me. So, they next day, when you finally get to run your errands, you car will have beer cans and trash around it from those "event parking pass" people. Oh, I love them.


While continuing my anger-spree against rich white people, let me know address hipsters. Today, while coming back from the library, I saw this group of about 10 teenage hipsters. They were being their normal hipster selves--being "weird" and "ironic." I noticed their aesthetic: torn jeans, black hair with patches of blond, girl jeans, converse tennis shoes, hoodies, the usual. I just laughed. These kids think they are so cool. I just wanted to tell them the subculture they were modeling themselves on was commodified 30 years ago. If you bought that outfit at H&M or Hot Topic in the mall, you ain't hard.

Politics

Since my last post was so long, I decided to just post videos and images I thought were funny with just a few words for context. Enjoy!


Sarah Palin's Facebook Profile. You can click on it to make it bigger.

A photo of McCain by Jill Greenberg. This is an extra from her photshoot of him for the cover of Atlantic Monthly. She photoshoped in the text and lipstick. This is one of a few she did and some are MUCH worse. She posted them on her website (now taken down) and received death threats because of them AND was not paid for the photoshoot.



I heart Tina Fey




In case you missed it and need 90 minutes shaved down to 10. My friends made a drinking game out of every time she said "maverick." They probably would have consumed more alcohol had they included everytime she winked at the camera and didn't actually answer the question or just got information wrong. My Grandad said the media was calling her "Hurricane Sarah category 6" (Bless his heart, he watches FOX News). He asked if I like her (I think that answer is clear from this post), I said I didn't because I don't vote for people who want to oppress me and make rape victims pay for their rape kits and have their rapists' babies.

Intro and Grad School: By the Numbers

Intro to this blog thing:

I moved to Chapel Hill from Charleston, SC about one month ago. I planned on starting this blog then, but grad school keeps you busy. Anyway, I started this blog as a way to keep in touch with people (because I hate Facebook--it's scary) and let everyone in SC and whoever else cares enough to spend their time reading my blog know what's going on in my life...so here goes

Grad School By the Numbers:
Here's a recap in numbers and a few letters of what I have experienced in the last month:

• 2.6 billion: the endowment of UNC Chapel Hill (does CofC even have an endowment? I think not)
• 28,136: total number of students at UNC Chapel Hill
• 8,177: number of those students who are graduate or professional students
• 1,000: the approximate number of pages I read per week (in addition to the 25 books above, I also have numerous articles to read)
• 839.38: dollar amount of "student fees" at UNC; what's that include? football tickets and basketball tickets, which I will never use
• 816: the amount of money I get paid every two weeks for being a TA and for thinking (it's nice)
• 729: acres of campus at UNC compared with 4 at the College of Charleston
• 169: students in my TA lecture class
• 91.5: radio number of NPR in Chapel Hill; I heart NPR and I especially enjoy "This American Life," "A Prairie Home Companion," and "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me" (apparently grad school has turned me into a old lady)
• 80: the temperature of my apartment usually--no central heat and air; I made a promise to myself that I will never live without the best invention ever--air conditioning--again
• 71: the age of my anthro theory and ethnography teacher, who I love. This man knows EVERYONE in anthropology! He knew Clifford Geertz, was lost in the mountains of NC with Margaret Mead, met Malinowski, and Cora DuBois was his graduate school professor. He was present of the AAA (American Anthropology Assocaition), and was awarded the Boas Award in 2002 by them. I want to be taken under his wing.
• 60: students in my recitation classes (I lead discussion, which has only been clarifying material and actually teaching them...)
• 37: the age of the oldest member of my cohort
• 30: minutes it takes me to walk to class; most of which is uphill
• 21: my age, which makes me feel inadequate considering the average age of my cohort is 28
• 14: the size of my cohort, which is very big
• 12- number of times I thought I would breakdown (I haven't yet)
• 10: the number of orientations I have attended in the past month...I still don't know what the hell is going on
  
• 9: people with Master's Degree in my cohort
• 6: people married/with significant others in mycohort
• 5: total number of people in my TA office, which is actually 5 desks in a room decorated with LOL cat print outs with anthropological sayings. The one above my desk says, "We is alienated from our labor" and has a picture of a cat attacking a CPU with a screwdriver. I also have been bequeathed a Che poster by the previous desk owner, so my area is very Marxist, and students who come to my office hours I am sure suspect I may be a Communist
  
• 3: recitation classes I have; all on Monday; the number of classes I have; the number of hours one class lasts; the steps away I am from "Papa Boas": me:Peacock: DuBois: Boas
  
• 2: the number of times the "patriarchy got me" according to my 71 year-old theory teacher because I have a first name that is a last name. He actually called me by my last name when asking me to read a question aloud, startled because I realized after 10 seconds he was talking to me, I said, "Wow, it's been a long time since I was called by my last name." He thought my last name was my first and told me I could Psychoanalyze him during the break (we were covering Freud) for using my last name. I said it was no big deal, since I did have two last names, one for a first name and one for a last name. He said, "yeah, the patriarchy got you twice" (he knows of my feminist identity)
• 1: year I have to wait to move into an apartment with Bravo (seriously, are there no gay men or women on this campus?! 4 ESPNs and NO Bravo?Also, the time I have to wait until the reading load lightens and "operation bootcamp"- pushing you to the brinks to discover if grad school is for you; what I have affectionately named year 1 in grad school, some call it CORE year because we have two CORE classes (Theory and Ecology and Evolution)
  
• 0: extracurricular activities. This is the first time since 6th grade where I am not involved in something outside school. If feels weird, but I have NO t free time.
  
• P+: the grade on my first ever grad school paper for the 71 year-old theory teacher. the grading scale is H (high pass), P (pass-what usually everyone gets), L (low pass, 3 of these and you are OUT), F (fail--as in you fail at life and grad school) We had to meet with him individually to discuss our papers. I ALMOST cried. But, that's a good grade, you are thinking. I almost cried (we are talking voice cracking, squeezing tear ducts here) because he validated me. The rockstar said I did a very good job and I was above where I needed to be, and aboved some of my cohorts. I said, while holding back tears, "Thank you, that means a lot especially since I am the youngest." "You are?," he said. "Yes, I just graduated in May." He told me how he was the youngest in his cohort too and how he never spoke in class (I speak in class, though feel like an idiot afterwards), so I was doing better than he did. And, I am sure a tiny bit of the almost crying came from the fact that I wanted that H (which no one got one, only H-) because I am a perfectionist, but I am working on it.

So, in these few weeks of grad school, a lot has happened. I have read an obscene amount of material, made four friends, am coping with the fact that I actually do belong here, even though I have questioned it often, and I am learning that it is OK to be a P+ student or even a P student, but I still shoot for the Hs.