PTSD

Genealogy of a blog, part four

And here we go again. By now, you should be able to figure who's who without the full name. And we're announcing a contest: first person to email one of us with the correct name of one of our intrepid band of characters gets to either 1) suggest their own SuperName or 2) author a backstory on that person (real or invented). We reserve the right to refuse to publish things which are unnecessarily mean, badly written, or just not funny. This is, after all, why we have a blog and not a wiki.

Now back to our show...

P: am totally wasting time since liverpool are off having a half time break. and how do you find these things??? wish someone would pay me to travel to a 1000 bars in one year. though i find i am somehow "cool" since this welsh guy (who is also in my danish class) was amazed i had traveled in wales (his un-PC words being "but usually people go to Nepal, why would you go from Nepal to Wales?" ... maybe because nepal is not "exotic" to nepalis?) and wanted to know if i had gone to visit the ONE nepali family that he knows of in his town (Aberysthwyth) and whose daughters went to school with him. I pointed out that Nepal is a fairly big country and I didn't know those Nepalis.

E: I of course was talking about the legitimization of particular cooperations, although cooperation itself is really just a legitimized discourse. Wait, I've confused myself. Basically, when I'm talking about cooperation, I'm talking about the conversation that goes on regarding what actions are possible and which are not (often for "security" reasons). This is why I think we're okay on ontology, but using different methodologies--discourse analysis as opposed to interpretive modeling. We're still talking about how we talk about things (in my case, disease is the thing, although it too is founded in the way we talk about pathology and biology). This is making no sense--but you probably get the idea.

do the welsh visit nepal a lot?

P: perfect. think it makes sense to me but then it is really really late so who knows? yes, i reread it and it does make sense. love that line about conversations--we should put that in. think i pissed off StructureMan since i wrote to him saying i was going to ask WeberMan who i could put in my committee (oh, he wrote back, btw and suggested, among others RandomProf. not too sure if i want RandomProf or vice versa!)

anyway...liv are winning so maybe i should give up and go home. but then i have a superstitious dread of what may happen and i will not be able to check all day tomorrow.

Don’t know about welsh in nepal. never seen any actually but then i don't hang out with tourists :-))

but then this welsh guy has a really annoying upper class v twitty posh english accent. sounds like somebody caricatured (term?) in monty python (he could be a participant in the race of the upper class twits) so i am suspicious about his welsh (essentialist) identity

E: Ah, so he's not from the old farm down home, but only wishes that he was (perhaps like TheoryGuy and his working class roots)

Having no hockey, I am uninterested in the outcomes of sporting events...Europe has hockey, which is entirely unfair.

StructureMan doesn't really want to advise you, does he? I thought he had low opinions of discourse...

remind me to tell you the jus cogens sandwich spread thing when you get back--it just won't translate over email.

P: damn now i am curious about the sandwich spread...will remind you!
liverpool, as usual, are living dangerously. any other team and i could have gone home by now. but not them.

no, StructureMan thinks that discourses just conceal ideology(ies) and discourse analysis is to reveal ideology.

blah, say i.

E: exactly. although at least he doesn't want you to compare the discourse of WHO and TRIPS to the "real" interactions. arrgh.

how late is it there?

P: realised i was about to miss the last bus and ran (first time EVER in my life, probably!)

more later. am having wild (haha), alcohol fueled party at the uni office with the other phds. why don't we do this at The University which shall not be Named?

E: TUWSNBM is methodist campus, TF frowns upon loud drinking and most heathen philosophy.

P: turned out wild party led to a few of the others getting drunk and insulting each other. me, trying to play peacemaker (and failing miserably and then just sitting back and enjoying the fights). amazing what a little alcohol can do to people

E: yep. just keep drunks away from buses is my usual plan of action

P: had an email from WeberMan in which (i think) he nominated himself for my phd committee chair

E: he does that, I guess. beginning to wonder how many committees he wants to be on. but congrats--now we can commiserate about the perils of WeberManian committees. I've started talking to GenealogySpice about it, and I'll pass any useful tidbits along...

P: (and i didn't even have to ask/beg/etc though was ready to) and told me that my review of inayatullah and blaney's book was fairly okay. i think it needed to be seriously edited but i didn't have time.

anyway, am not entirely positive what i wrote back to him since all this was when i was trying to prevent cross-cultural interactions from turning violent (imagine me as a parachuted habermasian among squabbling europeans) so might have not really written what i should. can't check since hotmail doesn't save my sent messages. blast.

will email you the pics from the tip of denmark. was bloody amazing though at times i thought i would never get warm again and I think my snot was freezing! was good to get away from here

ps: i vote we have alcohol fueled party among ourselves while we write OUR paper (c'mon!) and whinge about WeberMan :-)

E: All for alcohol fueled (although I get very little done when drunk) and you know I love to whine...

don't worry about the camera--it really was cheap (as in shipping was about as much). Like I said, definitely pictures for email, not print.

why would StructureMan WANT to be your chair (no offense, but doesn't he think discourse analysis is fairly useless?) I don't remember him saying much about Foucault...

had long chat with SystemGuru about dissertation, etc. He has surprising understanding of WeberMan; I didn't ask him to be on my committee, but did ask if, once I was actually ready to put one together, and knew that I wanted to use system dynamics, he would be willing to sign on. Seemed better to put my current confusion on the table, rather than pretending to have more figured out than I do.

I'm off to copy files so that I don't have to take giant notebook of papers on the plane--bad enough that I have to take 30# System dynamics textbook in order to figure out what the hell RandomStudent is talking about...

P: plane…what plane? be careful on planes...are you off to hawaii then? did i know about this (and forgot?) should be good fun esp as it is hawaii.

E: nope, not Hawaii--going to Ada, Ohio to judge an Intl Law competition (Jessup regionals)

P: i will be freezing in denmark while yous wander around on beaches. take pictures!

yay again for camera. yayayayayay.

E: I will take pictures of very cold soybean fields. hip hip rah

P: as you may note, am bored and have not much to do. hence multiple emails in one day.

think BaldieG is perfect since i can now whinge about him. he really is annoying though -- he just told me to type less loudly (ha!) since he could not concentrate :-)

E: Is there any way you can type louder? Might send him right over the edge.

P: yes, i also heard from X that SystemGuru (notice use of first name--i am getting used to that here as i call the institute director, a guy in his 70s, steffan. of course i can't ever imagine calling the dean "louis" with a straight face) was a nice guy to talk to about south asia.

E: He's just finishing a project on Sri Lanka, but has other stuff--every time I talk to him he gives me something to read (like I need more reading on my to-do list, but still, every little bit helps). Latest is an out-of-print systems book that I cannot find anywhere.

P: but then he is a systems guy and i am not though can't hurt having a chat with the ONLY person doing stuff on south asia (not counting india and pakistan) at uni, i suppose.

E: nope. he's actually very entertaining

P: WeberMan suggested RandomProf (for her irish expertise, apparently) and not RandomProf or StructureMan

btw, (and this is making me feel so good), CofI says they just read stuff by their profs (and a few others like giddens) and i am suddenly considered really good because i know about witty, weber, wendt, etc etc AND i have also heard of giddens, etc. So, now, for the first time ever in my life, i am suddenly more knowledgeable than the others!!! hehehe.this feeling of superiority is rather unexpected.

E: you mean that stuff has actually been useful? whaddaya know. guess I should have read more of it.

P: CofI(she is nice) says that coming here was such a crushing blow to her ego because back home in england she was one of the best students and here there's people who seem to know all these other people she has never heard of. (well, i feel like that too but realise, esp due to WeberMan and StructureMan too, i must admit, we have read a lot of the people all these things talk about)

E: cool. so all I need to do to feel like I'm not at sea is go to England. Wonder if there're any system dynamics people over there?

P: turns out my rambling was long after all. isn't it always? enjoy the weekend and a big hi to Patient Husband!

i think yous should run away and leave work/uni behind and come visit me :-)

E: me too. unfortunately, there's this whole prospectus defense thing hanging over my head

posted by Elizabeth @ 9:55 PM