Participation in social justice
Mood:
Proud
Yesterday I engaged in my second public protest against a heartless organization. About 30-40 graduate students protested outside the main administration building to protest low wages and pitiful health care that Temple offers us professional students in return for our labor. Temple pays its graduate assistants $1,040/month, a $300/semester book stipend and health care that covers teeth cleanings and some catastrophic injury coverage. Despite performing professional, white collar duties, we don't get any retirement, no sick days, and no contract that guarantees work. The grad students have formed a union and now we are taking action.
It was awkward at first, walking in big circle carrying a sign, but then I got into performance mode and it felt great. What is the ultimate impact of the protest? Tough to say, but we made our voices heard.
I read the first chapter of Michel Foucault’s "Madness and Civilization" this evening. I was afraid I was going to hate it since so much post-existential French thought is such bullshit, but Foucault’s examination of the history of madness and how the deranged have been portrayed in art since the Middle Ages was a real page-turner. Foucault is supposed to be a very difficult read, but I'm enjoying discussion of madness. This is the sort of philosophy that I hope will inform my own writing since so much of what I am trying to do involves pain and madness.
(More Godkomplex on spinner.com!!!)
On the bad side, I still haven't gotten very far into the new Analog, FSF or On-Spec. Too much other stuff to do right now. One reason I can't wait to graduate is so that I can start reading for pleasure again without trying to conceptualize a term paper on what I'm reading.
I interviewed to be an adjunct professor in Temple University's Intellectual Heritage department. The interview went smoothly. The head of the department was impressed with my wide range of skills and interests (not to mention my silky soft hands) and he wants to hire me for Fall 2002. The problem is that he won't have a budget until the summer so I have to hang in limbo until then. Imagine me as a teacher of undergraduates...
WHAT DO AN ELEPHANT AND WRITING DESK HAVE IN COMMON?
It was awkward at first, walking in big circle carrying a sign, but then I got into performance mode and it felt great. What is the ultimate impact of the protest? Tough to say, but we made our voices heard.
I read the first chapter of Michel Foucault’s "Madness and Civilization" this evening. I was afraid I was going to hate it since so much post-existential French thought is such bullshit, but Foucault’s examination of the history of madness and how the deranged have been portrayed in art since the Middle Ages was a real page-turner. Foucault is supposed to be a very difficult read, but I'm enjoying discussion of madness. This is the sort of philosophy that I hope will inform my own writing since so much of what I am trying to do involves pain and madness.
(More Godkomplex on spinner.com!!!)
On the bad side, I still haven't gotten very far into the new Analog, FSF or On-Spec. Too much other stuff to do right now. One reason I can't wait to graduate is so that I can start reading for pleasure again without trying to conceptualize a term paper on what I'm reading.
I interviewed to be an adjunct professor in Temple University's Intellectual Heritage department. The interview went smoothly. The head of the department was impressed with my wide range of skills and interests (not to mention my silky soft hands) and he wants to hire me for Fall 2002. The problem is that he won't have a budget until the summer so I have to hang in limbo until then. Imagine me as a teacher of undergraduates...
WHAT DO AN ELEPHANT AND WRITING DESK HAVE IN COMMON?
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