Cartoon Thursday

Sunshine

Finally, today's weather was a hint that warmer days are near. That I should fold the sweaters and bring out the flip flops. I hope badly that spring will come with the promise of new and exciting things, because I am ready for them. Yes, I have no reason to complain, but I could use some good luck. And some sunshine. In two more months, our garden will have violets again.

I worked at Saint's coffee shop today, and it was nice and relaxing. I actually got work done. Speaking of which, I need to return to democracy, development, regimes, and other crazyness. Grrr!

On Shuffle

Put your iTunes/Winamp/WMP on shuffle. Say the following questions aloud, and press play. Use the song title as the answer to the question. NO CHEATING.

1. How does the world see me?
Clear Spot – Pernice Brothers
Hmm, yeah, interesting beginning.

2. Will I have a happy life?
You Don’t Know Me – Ray Charles
I guess it remains to be seen.

3. What do my friends think of me?
La Pared - Shakira
Translation: The Wall. The first two lines of the lyrics: "You're like a good weather forecast. You're like a shotstraight to the vein." Yes, yes, I am :)

4. Do people secretly lust after me?
Welcome to Paradise – Green Day
Vague.

5. How can I make myself happy?
Con Ella – Christian Castro
Well, apparently with her. I wish I knew who she is.

6. What should I do with my life?
On My Love – John Lennon
Right. Love is all we need anyway.

7. Will I ever have children?
Losing My Religion – R.E.M.
This is somewhat promising.

8. What is some good advice for me?
Fair – Remy Zeno
Fair enough. Maybe it's a hint that my grading system needs a touch.

9. How will I be remembered?
Ledena Kralica (Ice Queen) – Desi Slava & Azis
Ha. Ha. Ha.

10. What's my signature dancing song?
It’s Raining Men – Gery Halliwell
Why do I even have this song on my iPod. This is embarrassing.

11. What's my current theme song?
Survivor – Destiny’s Child
How appropriate. Finally, one thing that makes sense.

12. What do others think is my current theme song?
American Idiot – Green Day
Oh my! Really?

13. What shall they play at my funeral?
My Guitar Lies Bleeding in my Arms – Bon Jovi
This is fantastic. Never though of that. It would be more appropriate if I even owned a guitar, but metaphorically speaking - great :).

14. What type of men do I like?
Twisted Logic - Coldplay
B-I-N-G-O.

15. How's my love life?
One of These Things First – Nick Drake
Yeah, there always seems to be something that needs to be taken care of first.

Night

Awwwww.That's all I can say.

The Good Fight

This is a great way to raise some money for your charity or school of choice. And if it's not there yet, you could submit it. FYI, my $0.02 cents go to the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation.

Sad, but true

You know you're EASTERN EUROPEAN when..... (I have only kept the ones that actually are true for me)
1. Your neighbour comes over every day uninvited, for coffee.
4. You arrive one or two hours late to a party - and think its normal.
5. All your siblings have nick names, which sound nowhere close to their real names.
6. You know someone with 20 kids
7. You talk for an hour at the front door when leaving someone's house.
14. Your house is full of medicine from your old country and it’s probably all illegal here.
19. Your dad ever butchered a pig or lamb.
21. You're in your twenties and your parents are trying to send you back to your country to get you married cause your old.
24. You don't use measuring cups when cooking.
27. Your parents don't realize phone connections to foreign countries have improved in the last two decades, and still scream at the top of their lungs when making foreign calls.
33. You own a leather jacket.
40. If you are a girl and not married by the age of 20 you are an old maid
44. Your friends' parents talk to you like they're YOUR PARENTS too.
50. You’re a proud Eastern European and pass this on to your European friends..
54. You have 17 consonants and 2 vowels in your last name.
57. You take your shoes off when you enter the house, and everyfamily member has his/her own slippers (plus some extra for the guests).
61. Your mother threatens you with "Oh, just wait till your father gets home."

At least I am on the right track ...

You Should Get a PhD in Liberal Arts (like political science, literature, or philosophy)

You're a great thinker and a true philosopher. You'd make a talented professor or writer.

What Advanced DegreeShould You Get?< /a>

Isolated

Last night, my undivided attention at the gym was not dedicated to the hot guy who works the evening shift, but to the new show premiere on Fox, Unan1mous. With the exception of carpentry shows on TLC, which got me and Anita through long nights of calculus homework in college, I am not a reality TV fan. Especially when in comes to BigBrother-esque drama - 9 people, cameras, etc. Of course, Drawn Together is a different story; it's so brutally sarcastic that I do enjoy it I catch it on TV.

But since this was a premiere, and of all the other five TVs featured "sports" ("football", golf, or pool), I did watch the whole show. Even read the closed captioning without falling off the treadmill; the latter has really happened before, people, when I stared at a cute puppy outside and forgot that I was running on a moving belt. Anyways, the show is extremely stupid:

Upon entering their isolated living quarters, the nine contestants are cut
off from the outside world, locked away, and presented the opportunity
to win $1.5 million. The only thing standing between them and the money
is a simple vote. If they are able to come to a unanimous decision about
who should win the money, the game is over. If the outcome of the vote
is not unanimous, the money clock is activated and the cash prize begins
its countdown with potentially thousands of dollars lost every hour until
the next voting period. [Souce: the site's website]

One contestant said (free-style paraphrasing here): "It's so creepy. We have no natural light, no fresh air or air-conditining, no clocks, no connection to the real world. We are in an underground bunker and we don't know anything about the real world." Dude, welcome to N58, the infamous grad office where I spent a year of my life. N58! It was the grad office in our program before we moved. It was worse than the bunker; oh, I can't even begin to describe N58. Which got me thinking, someone should make a grad school reality TV show. Maybe the guy from phdcomics.com. Something like:

Upon entering their isolated graduate office, the forty contestants are
cut off from the outside world, locked away, and presented the opportunity
to win two publications, one in APSR and one in AJPS. The only thing
standing between them and the citations is a simple vote. If they are able
to come to a unanimous decision about who should win the articles, the game
is over. If the outcome of the vote is not unanimous, the funding clock
is activated and the guaranteed funding for everyone begins its countdown
with potentially thousands of dollars lost every hour until the next voting
period. [Source: my deluded imagination]

Hmmm... I would watch it. That would actually be reality TV that reflects a closer approximation of my current reality than, say, Beauty and the Geek. Although I am both a beauty and a geek. Okaaaaay, I am off to the gym now, let's hope the TVs won't be on for a change.

Why?

The magistrates never engage the people in unnecessary labor, since the chief end of the constitution is to regulate labor by the necessities of the public, and to allow all the people as much time as is necessary for the improvement of their minds, in which they think the happiness of life consists.


-Thomas Moore. Utopia. 1901.

Sometimes, it really takes only one image (Photo: Courtesy of www.un.org) to remind me of why I am doing all this grad school thing. I am an idealist and can't lose my utopian dream that somehow, through the little things I accomplish, the world might just become a better place for its most vulnerable citizens. Through the prism of this image, all the long and dry papers on the politics of development that I read tonight all of a sudden serve some purpose. I am sure that all of you who read my blog can find a visualization for your sources of professional motivation. Please, show me when you have a minute.

Insomnia

"Political science never sleeps"

Ivory Tower of Social Science

Right now, I exist within the isolated ivory tower of academic social science. Literally, actually, since the sociology department here is housed in a massive 9-floor cream-colored tower. Stuck in the third floor lab, I am estimating growth curves that describe the change in individual attitudes toward the police as students age between grades 7 and 11. What is more disturbing, I find this level of abstraction fascinating. In fact, this is perhaps the best way to master the particular tool I am studying at the moment, because it allows me to separate theory from mathematical statistics. I don't care if attitudes change as students grow, I care to study the mechanics of seetung up growth curve models.

But the underlying issue here is really important. Can we study social science using abstract statistical methods? Obviously, I believe so. But I am a huge proponent of theory and reality driving our fancy software estimations, not the reverse. All of the excellent methodologists that I know share the same belief. Now is the time to make a plug for this book that I hope more people in the social sciences will read. Kyle recommended it to me about a year ago and I enjoyed it thoroughly; if you have time and care for the philosophy of quantifiable social science, by all means check it out.

For now, I need to finish the growth curves, the deviance tests (what a name!) and explain the variance components. Later tonight, I will contemplate the applicability of all these to questions that I actually care for. Oh, the ivory tower of academe ...

Nemo

Check out my friend's band [BG only]. You can download my favorite song of theirs, "I Don't Know Why". Alek's voice is amazing, smooth and just-the-right-amount melancholic. I really like their stuff. I am convinced that we'll hear a lot from/about them soon. Keep up the good job, Alek!

Spring is in the air

My allergies are back, worse than ever. It's not even spring yet. I want to scratch the insides of my head. Spare me, please.

On a brighter note, let's hope this is a sign that soon our front yard will be pretty again. And I know that nothing about the photo is right: the light, the angles, the composition. But the tulips are fabulous.

P.S. Check this out. Snow and high pollen, yay.

Sloth

I have accomplished nothing all day. Expect for sleeping, I am good at that. I love it too.
My excuse is that my seasonal allergies started already, giving me congestion and a headache and itchy ears. And I don't have my allergy medication because I was too lazy to refill it when I ran out about 2 weeks back.
But I did clean the house today, including the bathroom and the shower and the sink! That's quite an accomplishment.
Off to the gym now, we'll see how well I run with a congested head.

City

I am a city girl. Always have been, always will be. Never mind my college days in rural New York or my current centrally isolated location. There is something about the city's buzz that energizes me and makes me feel alive. The anonymous sea of faces, the traffic and the smell of city fog.

Last week, I spent some nice quality time in a city. It was fantastic. Long and lazy coffee afternoons, great stores, exotic cuisine. Oh yeah, and reconnecting with #1. Now that I am back, I can only hope that soon enough I will satisfy my city fever again.

Belated

Three weekends ago, I was supposed to read some of these and spend my time stuck here, reading and writing. I did for 3 hours, but then I spent the rest of it with two fine male specimens – one human (#1) and one canine (#2). Here you see some of #1’s fingers and foot (size 12.5, FYI, dear Jiso). Nice sneakers too. The rest was/is/will always be for my eyes only, to protect the innocent.

And here is #2, in all his glory. And more #2.

Note my tan, collected not in California, but on our own snowy slopes. Also note the sheer unspoken happiness on my face and the unmistakable signs of utter completion, satisfaction, and joy. The smeared mascara is totally irrelevant.

#1, thank you for always, always, always knowing when I need you most. Perfect timing, no doubt about this.

Temporary

Hi all,
Welcome to my new temporary home, while the nice folks hosting my beloved elena.dnes.org resolve their technical difficulties. I finally succumbed to peer pressure, a.k.a. Petya , and relocated for now.

A lot has happened in the past 2 weeks. I will have to tell you about it tomorrow.