Maybe I can do this...Part 2

Last Thursday was a fairly spectacular day for me. Let me count the ways:

1. Purdue FINALLY got around to posting their finals schedule and it turns out that both my finals (neither of which are actually finals; one I'm administering and one is a "recap and celebration") are on the first day of finals week, which means I can get out of here earlier than anticipated. YES.

2. I got an analysis back from my 600 class and I got a 47/50, which was the highest grade in the class (by 4 points). Now, for those of you who ask why it wasn't a 50/50 (and I know you're out there), this professor does not give perfect scores, and in fact getting a score that high is something of a miracle.

3. I was giving a presentation in my International Relations class that day. Quick pause to explain about this class- it is terrifying. It's a seminar on International Relations, so we all do copious amounts of reading and then come to class and discuss it. The professor hardly participates and most often just awkwardly stares at anybody foolish enough to venture a timid remark. Let me tell you, there have been a lot of very long pauses in that class while everybody nervously avoided making eye contact with each other.

Anyway, we had to sign up to present the topic on a given day and I (somewhat foolishly) signed up for an early slot, figuring I would just get it over with. We hadn't been given a whole lot of instruction on what to do with the presentation, so I planned what I wanted to say and then went to talk to my professor about it Thursday morning. She told me I was on the right track and told me that I should be sure to emphasize some of the points in my outline because she thought they were very interesting (hallelujah!). My visit with her was great because not only did it mean that I had the right idea for my presentation and paper, but it showed me that my professor was not a terrifying monster out to eat poor young students alive. It's hard to say which one relieved me more.

3. I gave my presentation and it went very well. Not perfectly of course, but, drum roll please...my professor actually nodded and smiled several times during my presentation. Let me repeat that: MY PROFESSOR NODDED AND SMILED. It was a minor miracle.

Maybe I can do this. I wish I wanted to.

Some might think it's ridiculous to be five weeks into my PhD and still be unsure what it is I am going to study. On the other hand, some might think it ridiculous that they expect me to know what I'm going to study only five weeks into my program. It's like they think I should have made that decision by the time I got to this level.

More fool them.

I bring this up because a couple of weeks ago I went to a lecture by Nicholas Kristof (I went with the stake president's wife, because apparently that's the kind of exalted company I roll with now). For those of you not slavishly reading the New York Times, Nicholas Kristof is an Op-Ed columnist who writes on women in the developing world. His lecture reminded me of why I wanted to go into development work in the first place, which was good, but it also made me question what I'm doing here. I can steer all of my research towards development and all that, but I want to be a practitioner not a researcher. On Saturday somebody asked me how I was liking my program and I told them that I could take it or leave it. And that's the truth. I've been in class for five weeks and it still feels like not a thing has happened that would make me at all sad to get up and walk away from this, and in fact, that's still my preference. Don't get me wrong, I'm not miserable all of the time and for the most part I am succeeding (more about that in the next post), but I just don't care about any of it, and shouldn't I care about what I'm committing my life to for the next five years? The circumstances of my getting here are sufficiently miraculous that I'm not questioning that I needed to come here, but I wish I knew why. Or liked it better. Or cared more.

I would take any of those.

As my dad says, I would complain if I was hung with a new rope. :)

Surprising Things You Can Live Without

I am a poor graduate student. This does not of course mean that I am entirely without funds, but it does mean that some caution is required before spending money. I of course had to spend a large chunk of money moving out here and then moving into my apartment, so basically if it wasn't purchased in the first two weeks I was here when it still felt like I had money, I haven't purchased it. The following is a list of things that seem fairly needed but aren't strictly necessary:

Knives- my ending up without knives was an accident. I thought they were in the kitchen box I had packed at the beginning of the summer and I got here and it turns out they were nowhere to be found. I have wanted knives a couple of times, but I've never not eaten because of a lack of knives. Potatoes are a pain, but if you bake them first you can get away with using a butter knife. Chicken can be cut with the handy pair of kitchen scissors I have that currently constitute the sharpest thing I have in the kitchen. Most vegetables can be torn (lettuce) or come pre-cut (baby carrots) and fruit can always be eaten whole.

A Microwave- Ok, I confess to missing this one more than the knives and it is on my list of things to purchase once I get a whole paycheck, but an oven and stove, though not the most convenient, do work. You just have to remember not to purchase things (like individual mac and cheese) at the store that can only be cooked in the microwave.

Bookshelves- Also on my to purchase list, but for now I am not too good to just stack my books on any available horizontal surface. My bed, my dresser, the kitchen counter, three-quarters of the couch. You know, whatever's available.

Comfort to my soul

I don't intend this blog to be anything much but a journal and a way to keep people up to date with my happenings, but I had a meal yesterday that is one of my favorites and so I am going to post the very precise recipe. This was originally made for me by my sister-in-law who is a wonderful cook. It has stood me in good stead for many years.

Are you ready? This is comfort food to me and it's very difficult to make:

Black Beans and Ham over Rice

If you happen to have garlic or an onion cook those in a little bit of olive oil. If not, hey, that's what they invented garlic and onion powder for.

Open a can of black beans, dump them in a large frying pan

Add some cubed ham

Now this is the most important part, this is the ingredient that makes the dish:

Add some Italian seasoning. Add it until when you stir it in you can still smell it (that's right, I measure by smell. As my sister-in-law says, my sense of smell is freakish. I also make meatloaf by smell, but that's another recipe for another time)

Simmer for...as long as you want. I just simmer it until the rice is done

Oh yeah, cook some rice. This is the one recipe where I am always ok with using brown rice. Cause I'm healthy like that.

Pour the black beans and ham over the rice.

Enjoy and feel the inexpressible comfort of a lovely, fast meal that will satisfy every time.

Aaaaaaahhhhhh. Life is good.

Maybe I can do this...but don't quote me on that

After a weekend spent worrying that I was going to fail and should maybe just reject Purdue before they reject me (weekends are not my best time), I had two rather awesome affirmations that I was doing ok today. Now, I will be the first to admit that both of these might come from a perception of me rather than the actual me, but I will take them anyway:

1. I went to see a professor to discuss several things and after talking over some issues and questions she told me that it was clear that I knew what I was doing. Uh…ok, I’m glad it’s “clear” to someone (I did not of course say that, though my look of blank astonishment might have given me away).

2. In class another professor was discussing some sociological experiment and turns to me and says, “Well of course you’ve heard of it, Marin.” Now, as I see it you have several options at this point:

a. Lie and pretend that of course you’ve heard of it because that’s what he expects

b. Tell him no, you have no earthly idea what he’s talking about and he could possibly be smoking something

c. Flee in panic

I’ll tell you what I did. The experiment sounded vaguely familiar to me so I might have fibbed a tiny bit by nodding more knowingly than was warranted given my actual knowledge of what he was talking about. But the real point is, why would I “of course” have heard about it? I think I hide confusion (and ignorance) well and so it often appears that I know more than I do. Or maybe he was just referring to my obvious intelligence (heh). Or maybe I should stop parsing it and take it for the compliment I think it was meant to be.

Lest you be overly impressed by his good opinion of me, earlier in the class he called me Meredith. That wasn’t the best moment of the day.

Still, you take what you can get.

Speaking of Inferiority Complexes...

So a few months before I left I went with a friend to a University of Utah gymnastics meet. It was really interesting and those ladies are incredibly talented. However, there was so much ballyhoo about how great the University of Utah was that I began to think to myself, "hmmmm, I think someone is protesting their greatness a little too much and maybe if they have to reassure themselves of their awesomeness so much, it might be because they don't in fact think they're all that."

This is not a post about the University of Utah.

This is a post about similar goings on at Purdue University. You see, on campus and even around town, every other person you see has some form of Purdue paraphernalia on their person. I'm not exaggerating, I've been watching this phenomenon for a month now, and after careful (and scientific!) counting and measuring I have determined that it is indeed every other person. My question is, why? Are you all in danger of forgetting where you go to school? Do you think the university itself will fade away and die without your t-shirt? Or worse yet, was there some sale on Purdue paraphernalia to which I was not invited?

Purdue, why are you protesting so much?

Mini Rant Re: Political Science

I'm supposed to be writing an analysis for one of my classes, so I think it's clear why I am instead writing a blog post. However, in deference to what I am supposed to be doing, I will write this post on the subject of my analysis, namely the field and discipline of political science.

You see, what I have discovered is that political scientists have a secret inferiority complex (secret in that it's not like they are printing t-shirts advertising this little gem. "I'm a political scientist, ask me why I don't think I'm as good as a biologist!") about being "scientists." It's a really big deal to them (I don't have to call myself one of them until I have an actual degree in the field) that they be seen as "scientists" who use the scientific method to figure out stuff. Scientifically. And yet, according to the book I just finished, "Discipline and History: Political Science in the United States", (page turner!) it is this very emphasis that makes political science a nearly useless field. To wit, I found the following quote in my reading:

"By hitching their star to disciplinary growth and specialization, to sophisticated methods and technologies to study political life, and by succeeding in their efforts to expand the new discipline into new graduate curricula...it could be said that their audience has been reduced to other colleagues and students."

The book goes on to say that every time political scientists have tried to impose more science on their discipline they have moved further away from being of any noticeable use to anyone (I'm paraphrasing naturally).

My point? Get it together poli sci people! Nobody listens to you because you insist on couching your findings in impossibly technical language and then wonder why your grand theories aren't being heard. One hates to say this to such educated people, but duh!

I'm just sayin.

Complaints

I have studied and worked on school for about 10 hours today. My brain is exhausted and so am I. It's been blazing hot and I only have an air conditioner in my bedroom, which means I've had to do all of my studying on my bed because it's the only comfortable place in the room to sit. So now my back hurts. My goal was to get all of my reading for my International Relations class next week finished by the end of today, but at this point that means 160 more pages of reading and it's already 9:00 so I guess that's not happening.

Truly, no one has ever been more picked on than me. :-)

Title change

Some people have complained that the title of the blog is a little too generic, so I have changed it from "Insert Title Here" (I bet you didn't realized that wasn't a default title) to "Insert Clever Title Here". There now, doesn't that sound more like me?