Chester

I have named my thesis Chester. I don't particularly like that name. But it is easy to say with loathing and despair, so "Chester" it is.

Reading all the articles for Chester makes me wish I were back in Bangkok.

Onwards!

Passed the prospectus part of my thesis, FINALLY. Now I can start angsting about the actual project. Man, I am just so relieved. I know it's not a perfect project and I basically writhed with loathing when I was rereading my prospectus yesterday before I defended, but at least I can start doing some new things.

Then today I got my first ticket. I thought my car's registration expired at the end of June when my inspection does, but apparently, it expired at the end of May. Oops. Rather expensive mistake... However, it is a good thing I found this out today because I promised I'd be my brother's over-26-year-old-PA-driver-with-car for his driving test tomorrow. Showing up to the DMV with an expired registration could have been supremely awkward.

Also awkward: letting my brother drive my car. He is an excellent driver, though. Little bugger's all grown up now. Awwww.

Disgruntled

I'm bored. I figured this out last night when I was trying to trace my discontent and general lack of enthusiasm about everything in my whole entire life. I mean, aside from the sadness of this era of my life ending, and the stress of my thesisy related things, I'm just plain bored. I'm bored of working on my thesis. I'm bored of looking for and applying for jobs. I've been watching TV for the first time in my life, which has been kind of interesting, actually. Watching Vampire Diaries and Battlestar Galactica has resulted in some very odd dreams involving blood-sucking cylons.

I think another aspect of my current doldrums is remembering that this time last year, I was preparing to go home to Thailand. That's not an option now. I'd like to go somewhere on a plane.

I'm ready for a new normal. And a paycheck.

Making up words. Incoherently

I've decided that this prospects is like one of those giant puzzles with thousands of pieces, only I don't have a box with a guiding picture and I'm probably missing some key pieces.

Like that Greek dude

Sisyphus, maybe? The one who was condemned by the gods to push a stone up a hill for eternity. That is what I feel like right now.

In other news, this guy pisses me off so much I can't even tell you. When I first started following this story, I was appalled to think that it was a hoax, but I definitely was not expecting the perpetrator to be an American man in Edinburgh. How dare you, Tom Macmaster? How dare you appropriate the voice and experiences and sufferings of others without any response except, "I didn't mean to hurt anyone"? Well, gee, that's great. What were you trying to do then? Unfortunately, instead of this debacle meaning he will be unemployable in the international sector he will probably get a book deal. (And what does his wife feel about him carrying on a relationship with the woman in Canada via email?)

Stories like this make me afraid to deal with cross-cultural issues in my work, because I in no way want to be so arrogant as to think that my choices do not have an impact on others, or that my interests are neutral or objective.

Even this is problematic. Sure, the commercial pokes fun at tourist's expectations. But the underlying issues of WHY Jamaica is a tourist destination and WHY tourists expect what they expect and all the other factors of economic imperialism are not addressed. I know that a beer commercial is probably not the best place to expect insightful critique of anything, but these types of commercials reinforce conceptions and structures that perpetuate global inequalities.

Sometimes ranting just makes me feel better about everything.

ETA: This article takes the Macmaster hoax and puts it into the context of the West's history of Orientialism and also highlights the issues inherent in depending on blogs for news coverage. (I feel that this is very important because I am fascinated by blogs.)

Trials and tribulations

So another another another draft. I felt sad yesterday because I looked over the paper I wrote for Cultural Studies and I remembered how much I enjoyed that project. (I am quite aware that I probably did not like it at the time, but that was mostly because of the computer issues I had that required a complete rewrite and reresearch a week before the paper was due.) I mostly just hate this thesis project right now. I've been told this is normal.

Also discouraging: finding out today that some of the sources I wanted to use have disappeared from the internets. Excuse me while I go scream.

However, I also feel a bit optimistic, so basically I'm a conundrum all around. Hopefully this is normal in some schema.

Lost

Sometimes getting lost is the best thing that can happen to me. Last night, after throwing an internal temper tantrum and calling my mom for reassurance that I can, in fact, write this thesis, (she just wrote a thesis of her own so she understands these things), my friend K and I decided to go to Walmart. Now, despite the fact that I have lived out here on the Mainline for almost a year, I still do not know how to get to Walmart. This is partly out of stubbornness because I don't want to feel like I'm staying out in this area. (City city city city!) And also partly because I just have no money to spend so I avoid shopping.

K had her GPS so we figured it would be fine. GPS was rather confused and sent us hurtling off towards a Walmart that was almost 20 miles away. So we turned around to go to the one I knew about near the King of Prussia mall. The GPS was not very clear and neglected to specific I needed to go straight at an intersection. Then it tried to send us down a road that was closed for construction. When we finally got headed in the right direction, I accidentally turned left instead of right and confused the poor GPS even more. (I have trouble following instructions.)

This experience was a good reminder that I always get where I need to go in the end. I usually just take some interesting (and/or frustrating) detours. Right now I am feeling on multiple levels that my personal identity markers have shifted, but that doesn't mean I am lost. I just need to figure out a new direction. Or maybe just keep going and the road will sort itself out.

writer's block

I think I may be paralyzing myself by trying to think of everything I have to do and think about all at the same time. This sucks.

All things new and what came before

As I drove to Lititz on Friday to meet my parents and brother, I kept thinking about the last time I went to meet them, three years ago. Before I moved to Philly, before grad school. I was so desperate to see them. I had not seen my youngest siblings for almost two years. It was a shock to be with them, to notice my features and mannerisms on other people.

Families are such complex entities. They shape us and we shape them.

Last week, Baby Sister laughed when she saw where I parked. “I always park there!” she told me. “My car is getting work done. Why did you park there?”

“It seemed like a good spot,” I said. We decided we both gravitated towards that particular spot since it was shady and our father always parks in the shade.

My mother told me, “I didn’t realize how exhausting it would be, packing up a whole life.”

“This just feels so weird,” my father and brother kept repeating.

The cat made her feelings clear by wailing for the better part of the afternoon. She has never left Thailand before. This basement is like nothing she’s ever seen, and her claws keep getting caught in the carpets.

My mother had to correct herself when she told the landlady they would only be staying a year, because this time they plan to stay in the States for good.

This is just so weird. So final. But I am so, so glad to see them.

Changes

"You are such an academic," someone told me today after I explained I kept checking to make sure my paper REALLY was accepted to NCA. (I just had to make sure!) Needless to say, I took that comment as a compliment.

Right now my parents and brother are suspended somewhere between Seoul and New York City. On their Seoul layover they got online and it was fun to chat with my mother via Facebook. (I do not understand why internet access is not standard for international airports.) She said that the cat was behaving well; quiet out of terror. Poor cat. It will be a new era for the family tomorrow: we will all be in the same time zone for the foreseeable future.

I took a book back to the store today. I bought it with birthday money, but I do not wish to own a book wherein the (male) narrator waxes eloquent about the love interest's beauty and how the "world's promises were on her lips" at seventeen or some nonsense and ten chapters later she is pregnant and marries him. Leaves the university.

Women in that book existed to be daughters and sisters out of action, seen and/or lusted over. And impregnated. Sometimes killed. Also there was incest. It was kind of nauseating, really. Besides, the TRUE LOVE AT SEVENTEEN trope gets old too. The book started with such promise: the characters visited a secret Cemetery of Books. I wanted to visit too.

NCA!!!!

My paper got accepted!!! New Orleans here i come!! (I've got time before November to work out how to pay for it!)

Man, this is great. I needed some good news today. I mean, just in general. I like good news!

This paper submission was important to me for a couple of reasons. (I mean, papers are always important, yes?) I wrote it as an independent study. I was also not writing about Thailand, and I really wondered if I could write successfully about anything else. Hurray!

I'll look at the feedback when I need a sobering experience. Right now, for today, I just want to feel happy and go write my prospectus.