If women ruled the world

Excerpt of Why Women Should Rule the World by Dee Dee Myers on msn.com:
http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/23308727/?GT1=10856

I need another book to read like I need a whole in my head, but this is a tempting book. Anyone out there read it and willing to give a review?

From Amazon.com:
What would happen if women ruled the world?

Everything could change, according to former White House press secretary Dee Dee Myers. Politics would be more collegial. Businesses would be more productive. And communities would be healthier. Empowering women would make the world a better place—not because women are the same as men, but precisely because they are different.

Blending memoir, social history, and a call to action, Dee Dee Myers challenges us to imagine a not-too-distant future in which increasing numbers of women reach the top ranks of politics, business, science, and academia.

Reflecting on her own tenure in the Clinton administration and her work as a political analyst, media commentator, and former consultant to NBC's The West Wing, Myers assesses the crucial but long-ignored strengths that female leaders bring to the table. "Women tend to be better communicators, better listeners, better at forming consensus," Myers argues. In a highly competitive and increasingly fractious world, women possess the kind of critical problem-solving skills that are urgently needed to break down barriers, build understanding, and create the best conditions for peace.

Myers knows firsthand the responsibilities and rewards of taking on leadership roles traditionally occupied by men. At thirty-one, she was appointed White House press secretary to President Bill Clinton—the first woman ever to hold the job. In a candid look at her years in Washington's political spotlight, she recalls the day-to-day challenge of confronting a press corps obsessed with more than just the president's policies. "Virtually every story written about me included observations about my earrings, my makeup, my clothes, my shoes. And then there was my hair."

Recalling the pressures—both invited and imposed—of her West Wing years, Myers offers a hard-hitting look at the challenges women must overcome and the traps they must avoid as they travel the path toward success. From pioneering research in the laboratory, to innovations in business, entertainment, and media, to friendships that transcend partisanship in the U.S. Senate, she describes how female participation in public life has already transformed the world in which we live.

Is the side pony back?

Seriously? In my class today (of 30 students, mind you), 2 ladies were rockin' the side pony hairstyle. I have noticed that one of these two habitually rocks the side pony. It is deliberate and consistent. The other is more of an occasional offender and often looks like the accidental side pony (more low slung, looser bound, closer to the mid line of head (as in the actual pony).

What am I supposed to do with that. I want to tell them they look ridiculous, like a 1980's slumber party gone bad, but then I wonder, maybe I am uncool and don't know its back. Is it back?

Update: Accckkk! A third side pony, a sneaky one that I didn't see earlier. That means that exactly 10% of my class rocked a side pony today. Where do I teach, 1988 College?

Oh you set up your place in my thoughts, moved in and made my thinking crowded

For anyone who reads my blog, I have chosen to remain mostly anonymous. I have said I am somewhere in the northeast, at a primarily teaching school, located in a fairly remote area, untenured, but on the tenure track. I have even (for the time being) been relatively quiet on my discipline preferring to use pseudonyms and hypotheticals. I feel a bit that I have to protect myself and I don't think that I could be as honest about my life (or honest at all) if certain people knew about this blog. I couldn't blog about hating my job (which I do) or being on the job market (which I am--of course how that is going is a whole separate blog post) if my colleagues read this blog. I couldn't blog about my depression or extreme stress if my family or friends read this (I expect a few of them would be on a plane within 24 hours after reading some of these posts. I love that they want to save me, but I have to save myself--I can't rely on them to hold me up.)

In truth, I used to blog. I had a blog on blogger. I did all of about 6 posts in about 6 months. My family and friends knew of the blog and commented on my few posts. I felt very restricted. It seemed all I could talk about was small-talk minor issues (my dog, how unpacking is going (the blog went up soon after I took this job), getting used to weather changes...). The blog was boring and I myself would go periods of forgetting that I even had the blog. I thought that might happen again with this blog, but I am closing in on 100 posts fairly soon (a milestone I never expected to hit). There is something safe about anonymity. I feel like I can be myself. I guess I am a fairly private person especially when things are troubling me or stressing me out. I am selective about who I share information with for fear of getting burned.

So, if you come across this blog and think you know who I am, please don't ruin the one place I feel safe to share what is going on in my mind. If you do some sneaky computer hacking stalking and find out who I am, please let me keep this place my own. I am grateful for comments, advice, and thoughts of those who read and find something interesting to comment on here in my blog, but let me remain a mystery.

I should note, this blog post was titled "Introduction to Advanced Sub-Discipline class" and I got way off topic. I got off topic because I wanted to apologize for the obtuse nicknames I have given my classes (e.g., Introduction to Advanced Sub-Discipline class, Introduction to Basic Understanding), but the obtuse names come out of wanting to keep the details of me underwraps. One of the blogs I read has the cleverest code names for things (psycgirl, perhaps--she has clever code names for her research projects and colleagues). My names are equally anonymous, not so clever. I will work on cleverness.

So, I still owe myself (and the blogosphere) a blog about Introduction to Advanced Sub-Discipline class, but as this got very off topic I chose to make this blog about being able to mentally purge on this blog and so re-named it after one of my favorite indigo girls songs, Mystery.

For your enjoyment:
Indigo Girls, Mystery:
each time you'd pull down the driveway
i wasn't sure when i would see you again
yours was a twisted blind sided highway
no matter which road you took then
oh you set up your place in my thoughts
moved in and made my thinking crowded
now we're out in the back with the barking dogs
my heart the red sun
your heart the moon clouded
i could go crazy on a night like tonight
when summer's beginning to give up her fight
and every thought's a possibility
and the voices are heard but nothing is seen
why do you spend this time with me
maybe an equal mystery

so what is love then is it dictated or chosen
(handed down and made by hand)
does it sing like the hymns of 1000 years
or is it just pop emotion
(handed down and made by hand)
and if it ever was there and it left
does it mean it was never true
and to exist it must elude
is that why i think these things of you
i could go crazy on a night like tonight
when summer's beginning to give up her fight
and every thought's a possibility
and the voices are heard but nothing is seen
why do you spend this time with me
may be an equal mystery

but you like the taste of danger
it shines like sugar on your lips
and you like to stand in the line of fire
just to show you can shoot straight from you hip
there must be a 1000 things you would die for
i can hardly think of two
but not everything is better spoken aloud
not when i'm talking to you

oh the pirate gets the ship and the girl tonight
breaks a bottle to christen her
basking in the exploits of her thief
she's a very good listener
maybe that's all that we need
is to meet in the middle of impossibility
we're standing at opposite poles
equal partners in a mystery
(handed down and made by hand)

we're standing at opposite poles
equal partners in a mystery

Pissed and scooped! Part 2

So, recently I blogged about an upcoming conference and that fact that I had been scooped, even perhaps cheated out of a research idea. Since I posted the blog, I found the email that I had sent back and forth with another graduate student where he calls it 'my idea' and it was from 2003 and I found the thought paper I wrote where I originally proposed the idea (in Fall 2002). The idea was mine. But in fairness, I never did anything with that idea.

I decided not to talk to his adviser (who is my friend about it). It would put her in an awkward situation (and I don't want that).

So, at the conference he comes up to me and says that another graduate from our alma mater said he should come talk to me because I have thought about these issues before. So, he acknowledged that I had this idea and to his credit had a ingenious test of the idea. We see things a bit differently, but I think he has some good ideas there and the research is important. I left feeling a bit good and less cheated. I offered up the possibility of working on ideas later or collaborating on an idea that would bridge his ideas and mine down the road.

When you combine this experience with the fact that I recently reviewed an article that was very closely related to my dissertation. (A crappy version of my dissertation, that all reviewers and editors thought should be rejected) and you add that at this recent conference I presented some work from my dissertation and was mobbed (relatively) by people interested in the topic, I NEED TO GET TO THE WRITING. For serious. Thinking up great ideas will not get me tenure (or another job). Tomorrow is a writing day so I will see how much I can get done in my allotted research time tomorrow.

My sweetiebear

I don't really have a sweetiebear. Of course, an avid Buffy watcher will recognize sweetiebear from a spike quote in one of the last few episodes (Spike: "The pretty necklace your sweetie-bear gave you. The one with all the power. I believe it's mine now.").

So, I don't have a sweetiebear. I was supposed to post a match profile by middle of this month (but haven't yet). I have a friend that has had some luck meeting guys there. She is pretty serious with a guy that she met there. She thinks I should do it. I told her I would post a profile by next week. Yikes.

But, I have a sort-of sweetie bear. We met through grad school/colleague/professional/conference-y things a few years ago. I had a mad crush on him for awhile. He is probably one of my closest friends from my grad school days that I didn’t actually meet in grad school. He is adorable—freakn’ adorable. And smart. He reads a lot (not just related to our profession). He makes me laugh. And he calls me 'kitten' which might sound condescending or demeaning, the sort of 'pet name' that I would hate. But I know him, and it comes from this sweet place and I can hear him smile when he says it. I hear his voice in his emails (I mean that he writes like he talks) and it puts me at ease.

A bit ago we were at a conference together. We typically spend a lot of time together at the conference. We were in our hotel room for hours just talking one afternoon. It was really nice. It was probably one of the best conversations I have had in a long time. A sentiment I shared with him after he revealed that it was one of the best conversations he has had in a long time as well. So, until there is someone new--he can be my sweetie bear!

I have long argued that people intend judgment when they ask for your musical preferences..

See this
Here is some flava from the article (Esquire, Chuck Klosterman)(in case the link breaks):
But whenever I do find myself meeting a stranger for the first (or second or third) time, I'm struck by how often they ask me one specific question: "What kind of music do you like?" For many years, I did not know how to answer this. I experimented with a litany of abstract responses: "rock," "active rock," "hair metal," "disco metal," "girl metal," "everything," "nothing," or whatever I suspected the other person might not actively hate. But (I think) I've finally found a response that is both accurate and honest: Whenever someone asks me what kind of music I like, I say, "Music that sounds like the opening fourteen seconds of Humble Pie's 'I Don't Need No Doctor,' as performed live on their 1971 album Performance: Rockin' the Fillmore." Beyond being true, this reply also has the added bonus of significantly changing the conversation (or ending it entirely).

But I'm starting to suspect this seemingly innocuous inquiry (and my unnecessarily specific answer to this unspecific question) might be weirder and more complex than I originally assumed. When someone asks me what kind of music I like, he is (usually) attempting to use this information to deduce things about my personality; this is (usually) the same reason we casually ask people about what TV shows they watch or which NBA franchises they support or what political movements they align with. It's the normal way to understand who other people are. But here's the problem: This premise is founded on the belief that the person you're talking with consciously knows why he appreciates those specific things or harbors those specific feelings. It's also predicated on the principle that you know why you like certain sounds or certain images, because that self-awareness is how we establish the internal relationship between a) what someone loves and b) who someone is. But this process is complicated and (usually) unconsidered.... These explicit elements, it would seem, are (or must be) the sonic qualities that I most like about music. But why is that? (1) Is it because of something Peter Frampton has personally achieved? Is it because those chords are simply the clearest, most aggressive amalgamation of early-seventies boogie rock? Does my relationship to this piece of music have something to do with my own specific life experience? Is it because of the random anatomical construction of my inner ear? Even if I'm having a purely visceral reaction—in other words, if the only real reason I love those fourteen seconds is because "they rock" (or whatever)—there still must be something about the musical introduction to "I Don't Need No Doctor" that triggers the (normally dormant) part of my brain that longs to be rocked. It's sort of the ultimate question about being alive: What makes us love things? Is it possible to know?

The author goes on to list a series of songs (or more accurately snippets and parts of songs) that he likes including;

• The vocal sequence from Kelly Clarkson's "Since U Been Gone" where she sings and talks to herself at the same time, which starts at about 2 minutes and 30 seconds into the song.

• Pretty much all the bass playing on "Paperback Writer" and "The Ballad of John and Yoko."

• The closing 1:02 of AC/DC's "It's a Long Way to the Top (if You Want To Rock and Roll)," when Angus Young's playing devolves into an inverted riff-o-rama in response to the bagpipes.

• The way the vocals are mic'd on the Pet Shop Boys cover of "Always on My Mind," which sound as if they were recorded in an abandoned Vatican City cathedral.

• The combination (and separation) of all the instruments during the last 1:25 of R.E.M.'s "Nightswimming."

To end the article:
These songs' only unifying element is that I have written about them in this column; essentially, the sole unifying element is that I personally like them.

This is why I hate small talk.

When people at cocktail parties ask me what kind of music I like, I generally assume they don't care what my answer is. I assume we're both just killing time. But let's assume they do care: Even then, our conversation is doomed. I have been actively thinking about this question for nine consecutive days, and I've probably thought about it unconsciously for the last twenty years. I can isolate and answer this question more specifically than anyone I've ever met. Yet not only does my answer fail to reflect anything meaningful about my personality, it doesn't even reflect what I fundamentally like about music. Because I can't answer that question. Nobody can.

It has me wondering, what is on my list? What is on yours?

All that was left undone

So ongoing to-do list that won't die:

1. Find latest copy of Masters/Research draft--reread [pushed off until tomorrow--a more research/writing day]
2. Meet with GA--get GA working on lots of stuff I need done
3. 13 items left to be written for exam (write at least 7)[--If I can get all 13 done by tomrrow, I am going to treat myself to a visit to Arty KickAss Nearby City (AKNC) for sushi and anonmity]
4. Plan out timing for next few lectures of: Introduction to Basic Understanding class [Eh, I can wing it...I have taught this class more times than I can count. They have an exam next Thursday (a week from tomrrow) so I will worry about the timing of the lectures for next week. I am not too behind? I hope?
5. Work on exam for Introduction to Advanced Sub-Discipline class [Worked on it, still needs work. Must be done by Thurs at 3]
6. Blog about complex feelings about Introduction to Advanced Sub-Discipline class [This blog is coming, but not here yet]
7. Prepare survey for Introduction to Basic Understanding class

I kinda hate M/W days. I teach at least 5 hours each day (some days 7 based on a weird scheduling issue]. Today it's 7. Which means when you add in one hour of office hours, I have an 8 hour day of nothing but teaching. Of course, I should probably be trying to do some work, not blogging.

Okay, so in the hour before my next class, I am going to try to tackle:
Making a few items for #2.
Print materials for lecture.

Update: Woo-hoo, 4 more items done for exam I am writing (this is a paid assignment and really something that I need to get out for money reasons). Only 9 items left to be written. I am really going to try to write the rest today/tonight so that I am not working on this Thursday/Friday