on family and vampires

A well-known story in the FA household is of FA's dad being terrified out of his young mind (not literally, thankfully) after reading Dracula as an impressionable young 'un. Indeed, he was so well scared that he refused to trek the long way to the boys' loo and ended up using the teachers' loo. As is the norm in FA's household, things did not go according to plan as he was caught by a rather unsympathetic teacher and then given a solid few on the arse for having the temerity to encroach into the powers-that-be's toilet.*

Today, I'm at university trying to catch up on my grading. During my one break, on my way to macca's (which I persist in liking more than Subway. I have no explanation why), I ran into some students, one of whom was wearing this:

.


Oh, vampires! What has happened to you?

* FA's father, just like pretty much everyone else of FA's family, went to a Jesuit school. Unlike FA's generation, he was a boarder and started boarding school at around 6 years of age. The Dracula experience was probably around when he was 11 or so. Corporal punishment remained alive and kicking in his day.

More Friday faffing about: Kids singing

Flipping through the TV channels just now, I realised that I'd never heard of this real live kids' version of Glee, complete with their (far better!) version of Mr. Shue. They were at the National Christmas Tree lighting yesterday (today?).

Anyone who can make Coldplay palatable deserves massive hurrahs:



While my favourite remains this version, the kids' is a close second:



and then there's the song almost any kids/young people's band has to sing:

I'll miss the eyebrows

I'll probably write a longish (if I get around to it) review of the final few episodes of Dollhouse at some point in the future. Short version: the series would have been better without Eliza Dushku because pretty much everyone else is spot on. Well, maybe not Helo (whose name in this series I can't recall) but he's just there to take his kit off I think so that's fine. Today, we got two episodes in a row and the plot advanced rapidly.

Yous will probably also hear of my continued pissed off-ness towards France (did you see the Group they ended up in? The Irish were robbed of place in the quarters, I reckon) but today, I'm swamped with work (and replete with pirate alcohol) to bother with actual analysis of anything.

Instead, I give you this: 30 seconds long and it leaves me with a silly grin on my face. I'll be playing it as I slog away at reformatting my dissertation over the weekend.*



* Yes, I'll be braving the upcoming snow and will be at uni all weekend.

Video via io9.

for want of a signature...

The story begins three weeks ago when I find out I need some extra paperwork done to complete the administrative stuff for my graduation.

- one form needs to be signed by my entire committee.
- one member of said committee is overseas.
- we send a Fed Ex-d form, along with a return envelop.
- two weeks pass...I get increasingly worried.
- emails are sent; no envelop.
- each day, I take to going to the department's front desk and asking about this blasted envelop. Nothing.
- this morning, the form is there.
- it now needs to be signed by my Dean.
- who is travelling till tomorrow afternoon.
- so, he can't sign it till he returns.
- but, if it's not signed and deposited by tomorrow at 5pm (well, today at 5pm now that it's long past midnight ) I won't graduate this semester.
- that would suck.
- also, after the dean signs, the registrar's office needs to sign it.
- they shut exactly at 5pm and the person I need to see there "may or may not be around".

All this = I'm not looking forward to Friday. If this were a romantic comedy, I'd madly dash around uni, tresses flying and randomly bumping into fanciable young men who would then offer to do all my work for me (while plying me with alcohol).

As this is real life, I envisage disaster. I'll let yous know how it goes.

The final stretch

I had my last class for two of my courses today. In my second class--Civilizations of Asia with a mixture of first years to seniors as students, we had a rousing discussion about whether there will be a "clash" of civilizations or a "fusion/hybridity" of civilizations in the 21st century. We then talked about whether it even makes sense to talk about "Asian civilizations" (or "the West" or "The Muslim World") and what do such concepts DO? It was a surprisingly good discussion and, after the end of the class, quite a few students told me they'd love it if I were to teach a 20th Century Asia/20th Century Southeast Asia course.

This, as a lecturer, is probably one of the best moments: when students come up to you and tell you that they would love to see you in another class. It doesn't happen often (well, not to me anyway) so pretty much every time it does, it warms the cockles of my cold, cynical heart.

Of course, it should not surprise yous to hear that we then proceeded to end the class (and the semester) by talking about pirates, people marrying video game characters and Amadeus Cho (whose superpower is that he's really smart). Last words? The Asian superhero has an "Asian stereotype" (being "smart") as his superpower. He also rides a Vespa. 'nuff said.

13 hour days and not much to talk about

In today's International Relations research class we talked about Switzerland's minaret ban. Of course, what we *really* ended up talking about is the gatecrashing of the State dinner by a couple of reality TV-wannabes. Two points related to that:

1. These people have gotten more attention in the past weekend than today's main theme--World AIDS Day--gets during the course of an entire year. What does that say about how we prioritise events and issues? And, as a follow up, if AIDS (or even simply waterborne diseases or loss of biodiversity or...there's a whole range of issues) received as much attention daily as the gatecrashers did over the weekend, would that have led to its eradication by now? As an IR scholar, can we say definitively yes or no?

2. Think about construction of danger here: the gatecrashers are being represented as stupid, idiotic, "famewhores". The responsibility has been placed on them but they are not depicted as possible dangers and/or threats to the state. Instead, they are party crashers (funny and silly, just like the Wedding Crashers ). Another, equally possible framing, would have been of this incident as a massive failure of security. After all, who knows what these people could have done? How did they get in? Or, rather, how did they not only get in but get to take pictures with the Vice President and Mr. Emanuel when the rest of us have to have background checks if we even want to visit the Naval Observatory (as an example)? It's interesting that this is not depicted as a large-scale failure of homeland security/secret service but, instead, as an individual responsibility of the gatecrashers. Outcomes differ depending on where/whom one places responsibility on. Responsibility, just like anything else, is socially-constructed.

Yes, I'm aware this is a bit rambling/could do with editing. I've been at university since 8am (it's now almost 10pm) and I am not looking forward to the long walk home. )