rivervision

today is my mother’s 67th birthday. the cats sent her birthday greetings:

Maxie dressed in Ethiopian to celebrate your birthday. (I told him you’d appreciate it).

Ava would have dressed up too, but she’s been really ticked off these days about Obama’s peace plan for Palestine these days and just can’t get over it. She apologizes for her attitude but she wants you to know she did put on her smiley face collar to celebrate. :)

and I added:
Yes, please excuse Ms.Ava. She supports a one state solution and Mr. Obama- who was once a hero- is really letting her down. She’s a sensitive little bugger and is taking this a bit too hard IMHO. ;)

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today is the first day of classes here at USU. i’m signed up for 3. i’ll probably drop all 3. but i want to see what the work load is. up first is arabic! it’s a freshman level class. even if i drop it, i’ve got the textbooks that i can begin to work through. 2nd up is a cool doctoral class. 3rd is multivariate stats (that’s tomorrow). i have an intense interest in all 3 classes, but i am doing my dissertation and beginning a job search + dealing with all sorts of stormy weather around me. so, we’ll see. today i’m just happy that i’m going to go to day 1 of arabic. it’s a start, right?

i’m still waiting for the jubilee tomatoes to ripen so i can eat them. i gave the first eggplant of the season to someone who is going above and beyond for me these days – i thought i’d picked it too soon, but they said it was a beautiful eggplant. i hope it was as yummy on the inside as it looked on the outside. there are a couple of cherry tomatoes growing and a couple of gypsy bells. i look forward to picking them and eating them. today i picked a purple bell too early and ate it. i say too early because it was a tad bitter. i’ll let the other one grow more. i have become skeptical of the cukes. all bitter. huge bummer. today i pondered ripping the cuke plants out of the garden all together because they are only producing bitter cukes and taking up a whole lot of freakin’ space in a small garden spot. i couldn’t do it, yet. we’ll see how this next cuke that’s soon to be ready to eat turns out.

i have done some work. i’m checking out what denzin and linc0ln have to say about inter-rater reliability when using a non-positivist epistemology. they say you don’t do it. i hope i can get to writing soon and when i do that i can make a good argument to convince a hard core positivist that inter-rater reliability shouldn’t be used in this particular case.

as the commercial that’s on tv just said “it’s late at night.” yes, it is. i should ponder sleep.

i went to fill out a promissory note for student loans for this upcoming year. they wanted parents and grandparents. okay. i can list a mother, but father, dead. and grandparents? dead. so i called to ask what i do about it. they said just put not applicable. i’m not sure which is worse – my father & grandparents being dead, or not applicable. honestly? not applicable feels like non-existent, never-existed. i’m sure that’s not what the nice man on the other end of the phone meant to mean, but that’s the existential meaning i carry with N/A. being the freakishly honest person that i am i think i’ll put dead for father and grandparents, rather than N/A. i think i may even put the date, 4/24/10 for dad, 2/22/03 for his ma, 1/06/00 for his papa, 12/01/00 for my mothers ma, and 1/13/10 for my mothers papa. they can’t be n/a, even on something as unimportant as a promissory note for student loans, they simply can’t be.

or at least trying to be motivated to slog through qualitative data. *sigh* and then write. maybe it’s typical of a phd student to drink coffee in the morning and have a little (yes, little, a glass of juice with a shot of coconut rum that doesn’t always get fully drunk, drunk over the evening) drink at night when writing? *sigh* but at least my garden is still growing and the heat is finally here. right now it’s a nice cool 72 after hitting 94 today. i keep myself procrastinating all cooped up in my apartment with 2 fans and a swamp cooler going to stay cool.

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here’s a little blogging:
i discovered this blog in the days after the haiti earthquake: the livesay [haiti] weblog. these people are christian missionaries who had built a life for themselves and their kids in haiti and are currently misplaced in texas, missing their haiti home. now, i get it – i’m this really really liberal christian and why do i read the weblog of christian missionaries? because i’m inspired by their dedication to and love for the people of haiti, and how human they are. and.. well, i just can’t seem to put to words why i read this site every day, but i like it and i like how they express their selfless faith in their love for the haitian people.

and this game: safe passage – it’s a flash game about what it’s like to be a gazan trying to get passage to the west bank. it centers around 3 real life stories: a gazan student who got accepted to beir zeit university (in the west bank) and her difficulties in actually getting to the west bank to study there; a family that got separated because the father couldn’t change the address on his id card from an address in gaza to an address in the west bank; and a merchant living in gaza who was unable to sell his goods in the west bank. right now the site is down, but the palestine monitor has a great article on it..

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okay, that’s it. i should go back to procrastinating.

i’ve been knee deep in the subjectivity of qualitative data for the past few days and my brain is mushier than it usually is.

the 24th. 2 months.
the 25th. 9 weeks, but i had to count to remember the number of weeks. i guess enough time has passed that i’m now counting in months.

what am i now counting in months? the time since my father died. maybe sometime soon i’ll start telling stories about him again, like i was right after he died, rather than talking about his death.

i hate transcribing interviews. i really do.  really and truly. blech.

and no more camping out in the student center. this place is starting to annoy me. i’m getting some work done, but for the most part this place is horribly annoying. at least it is now. at the beginning of the week i was enjoying getting work done so i was able to overlook the annoyances, but now.. screw this.

oh and screw the rain too. enough. it’s 52 and raining out. it’s going to be that way for the next couple of days too.

i made it back from the BIG conference. i heard different numbers – 12,000 – 18,000 educational researchers descended upon downtown Denver for a few days. crazy. i didn’t get accomplished what i wanted to get accomplished.. like i didn’t see 2 of my educational research heroes speak.. and i didn’t get to all the sessions on the framework i’m studying. nor did i wow anyone with anything that i said.

i did, however:

really understand that i need to publish. so many of my ideas and my research is aligned and compliments the work that is going on. in order to enter the conversation – i need to publish. i need to sit down and write up this rubric and i need to put out my ideas, because apparently they are good. and i enjoy chewing on the conversation, and in order to enter it with people who are thinking as much as, or more than, me, i need to write and publish.

found out that there may be a conflict of interest with someone on a project i’m working on. i emailed the lead prof on the project and he was so conscientious that he called me to let me know that it was good that we know. it’s not a big deal but i’m glad i found out so that it can be addressed.

got to see that while i feel like a freak in my department thinking about things like oppression, privilege and inequality and talking about them as much as i do, apparently i am the norm in the educational community. 12,000 educators and the things that capture my soul were all over their conference. it seems like that for once i am the norm.

see that i can take care of myself okay. LESS than a week after my father died i was in a car driving to denver to go to this huge conference. yes, i got overwhelmed, yes i skipped a lot of sessions, and missed networking opportunities, but i still went and talked to some people and put on the poster. of course, i needed the help of my friend s, but we all need help..

and because i needed my friend s i think our friendship has been strengthened. i’m glad this professor has become a friend, one that i can be real with.

and i met a faculty member up in teaching and learning who i wish i could work with.. not because he’s the famous him (he is) but because he has such a dear heart. out of everyone i met at this conference he probably had the biggest impact on me because of his heart. luckily through friend s i got to pass on a message “i don’t care that you are famous and know bill ayers and could introduce me or that you are very pro-israel and seemingly pro-occupation, you have a good heart and that’s what really matters.” s let me know that this famous faculty member appreciated what i said and i’m glad i got to make him smile. really, its all about the quality of people..

am comforted to see that i can still make my way around a big ol’ city like denver on my own and not be frightened. i walked a lot around the conference – around it and to and from my hostel. the exercise was good, the exercise at that elevation was good? or was it really any different than here?  considering logan sits at 4500 feet (and the university is higher). either way, it was good to walk.

on a different note, thank you all for your kind words as i walk through this time. it really means a lot. i’ve been lucky to be surrounded by lots of kind words.  on the trip out the little stuff of him not being here anymore started kicking in.. re: whenever i’d make a long (or short) car trip, up until this one, i’d always call him and text him. he wanted to know when i got home. i wanted to talk to him. that didn’t make me cry, no, but it was one of those moments. my stepmother obviously has those moments more than any of us, and, only in that respect, am i glad i’m not her, because i couldn’t bear it.

shock is also starting to wear off. the pain of this loss is starting to kick in. i’ve been on auto pilot since he died because of the conference, and now i’m coming off that. the pain sucks. it really is a hole in my heart like i’ve never experienced before. i think that at some point that hole will get smaller, will heal some, but i suspect it will always be there. yes, yes, that’s very cliche, but that’s what i feel and that’s the image in my mind of my emotional heart. he took a piece with him that can’t ever be replaced.. of course, of course, cliche again, but these cliches are true.

on that note, it’s bedtime. i have a lot of work to do (see the first paragraph after “however”).

yeah, life is a whole lot of heck right now. joys. friend m put it succinctly.. its like walking through mud all the time. i’d add the word mud and muck. big gross mud and muck.

end of next week though i’ll be at AERA.. the biggest convention of educational researchers probably in the world. i actually like educational research. it should be fun, esp. considering that friend s is gonna let me hang with him and all the cool kids from teacher ed. apparently they crash parties at this big ol’ convention and meet famous people. hmm. there are a few i’d like to meet (though NOT with a glass of wine in my system). yes, i plan to actually attend some instructional tech presentations.. but there’s a whole GLBTA theme in the conference. and peace education and social justice and education. gotta love that stuff.

but really, i don’t know how i’ll pull this off.. this muck walking in denver.. higher altitude than logan, less oxygen. hmm. at least i’m already somewhat used to the lower oxygen at this altitude. really, i don’t know how anyone does this, this horrible thing called loosing someone like this. i have a whole new level of admiration for those who have gone before me in loosing someone so dear. i just don’t know how y’all have done it with such grace. i hope i can learn.

just got an email from the last prof to sign off on my proposal. i am now a phd candidate. should i introduce myself that way when i present this afternoon? hmm.. we’ll see. “i’m brooke me. a phd candidate at usu.”

really – i have no confidence in myself.. even when professors are telling me i should. that i’m actually pretty good.. so, i drank a few sips of wine and wrote a cover letter. then emailed folks about letters of recommendation and adding them to my list of references. i have 5 profs that i emailed about it – 2 weren’t on my committee. if they all say yes that’s 6 profs i can put on my list of references. and then are 2 more that i considered, but one i want to work with more before i ask her and the other is a committee member that i don’t closely work with except for being on my committee. 2 of the profs aren’t even in my department. this probably isn’t out of the ordinary – being able to approach all these folks, but it felt good to think that there are all these people that i can list.