T.V.!

Feb. 6th, 2010 11:42 pm
Sketch of Hermoine from Harry Potter with "Bookworms will rule the world (after we finish the background reading)" on it
So, my wee lappy top of awesome needs to go into the shop and be repaired. You know, the wee lappy top with all of my research on it.

It's backed up, so the world won't end, but I went to three different places with "You don't understand!!!! It has my thesis on it." And, strangely, this does not make it magically fixable. (It needs soldering, I think.)

Anyway, people asked, so here:

My thoughts on Babylon 5, up till Season 3 Episode 1 )

I was going to write about the Good Wife, which I'm really liking, but I'm tired, and it will have to wait. But I will give it props for not making me scream at the screen when they had a plaintiff using a wheelchair. I'll go into that more later.

How odd

Feb. 5th, 2010 07:04 pm
Media Conglomerate
I essentially got this [Jack Layton talks about being diagnosed with prostate Cancer] in my email today.

I keep staring at it because ... well, what?

Poll #2226 What?
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 25

When a sitting politician has a health problem, such as cancer, do you want to know about it?

View Answers

Yes
2 (8.0%)

No
5 (20.0%)

It depends
18 (72.0%)



I don't actually want to use this as a jumping off point to talk about the way we talk about Cancer, because it must be very upsetting and frightening to both Mr Layton and his family and friends. But I probably will end up talking about the "battling cancer" "beating cancer" metaphors in the future.

That said, props where it's due: This is the first time I can recall a transcript being available on the NDP website when they send me these little videos. I have no idea if this is because of my "every time you send me an email, I write back and ask for a transcript" campaign, or if this is a one-time-only thing, or if something finally got through Layton's big orange head. Either way, there is a transcript, and I am happy to see it.
"History Major: If you need me, come find me in the archives"
George and I, Richard, Frank and Louisa Russell, Sally Burogyne, and Francis Price went up to Mr Walkers to try a cause between Philip Keddy and the 4 mentioned lads. We got but little satisfaction, however to the best of my knowledge there was nothing proved against Goerge and I but Richard and Francis Russell were found guilty, Lousia and Sally gave a clear good evidence, but Francis Price stammered a good deal, it is not quite settled yet but It hink no one will be fined. When we left Mr walkers the snow snow had turned to rain and made the walking very bad It rained and blew very hard. When we got to Murphy's we went in to warm ourselves and had something to eat then we came home and had a drop to drink. Lousia staid here all night.


Initial thoughts: Wait, what? What cause? What? Why? The first mention of this is 4 days before, when "In the evening Goerge and I went up to Walker's to get 3 supeona's for Louisa Russell, Francis Price and Sarah Burgoyne in a cause to be tried between us and Philip Keddy."

I don't know! Why wouldn't you note this down? You can tell me your sister fainted and your mother had fits but you fail to mention why you're going to court? You fail, dead diary dude. FAIL.

Also, Louisa is back. *cough*
"Oh, gosh, tahnk you so much for Mansplanning this to us!"
Things that I thought about writing about today

1. Dude that decided to mansplain to me depression & mental health issues, even though I kept responding with "My research is on this topic." "My activism is about this topic." etc. I don't want to be as irritated with him as I am, but this is the same dude who wanted me to know that being a first year student is Just Like Being Disabled! So I'm not as thrilled.

2. Dude that said that women in the past (1700s) took only a bit of time to recover from childbirth before going back to work, while women today get a whole year off. Because apparently house-tending & raising children and dealing with an infant is only work in the 1700s, and not now. It was surreal to me. [Prof, who took paternal leave to care for one of his kids, called him out on that.]

3. Don had a really really high pain night last night.

4. We watched The Good Wife and I really really really want to write about another show that I think did a "good" job of having a morally ambiguous character with a disability. But I am tired, see point 3.

5. Tomorrow is Monroe Day, IOW: We get tomorrow off of school because someone gave the school money so we could. YAY!

What I will write about instead:

I AM FREE!!!! until, like, Monday! GUESS WHERE I AM? GUESS GUESS GUESS!?!?!???

I am in the archives! I am in the archives! I am in the archives!

*spills excitement all over your internets*
Sketch of Hermoine from Harry Potter with "Bookworms will rule the world (after we finish the background reading)" on it
Subject: Please provide your feedback on the Permanent Disability Verification form and the Permanent Disability Related Expenses form.

The Canada Student Loans Program (CSLP), in collaboration with NEADS, is requesting feedback on two new forms related to applications for the Repayment Assistance Plan for Borrowers with a Permanent Disability:

· The Verification of Permanent Disability form, and
· The Permanent Disability Related Expenses form

The purpose of this consultation is to ensure that the forms are using appropriate terms, are clear and user friendly and accessible for all.

If you are interested and would like to participate, please send an e-mail to <mailto:info@canlearn.ca>info@canlearn.ca. The CSLP will then provide you the forms and would ask that you return your comments within 1 week.

Thank you in advance for your participation. Questions or comments can be addressed to <mailto:info@canlearn.ca>info@canlearn.ca.

Message follows in French )
Susan from Narnia , with her bow -  "Gentle doesn't mean weak"
{I ran out of title-space}

Today:

I got on campus at 8:15, and noted that the only accessible-door in the Student Union Building was locked. I called University Security, and was informed that this was Someone Else's Problem.

At 8:30, I went back into SUB and advised them that the door was locked. They assured me they'd get that fixed Right Away.

At 9:50 I went back to SUB and found the door was still locked. They person at the Information Desk had difficulties contacting someone to unlock it.

While waiting, I spoke with another woman who works with blind students on campus. There are a series of posts in front of the building that are about waist high-ish. One of them is missing, but the hole - perfect for tripping in - is still there. They have been promised this will be fixed many times.

I had to go to class, so ended up calling the Student's Union to get the damned door unlocked. They told me to call Security. I told them I had called Security, so they agreed that someone would take care of it.

I went there again at 11:30 to find out that sometime in the previous hour and half, it had been unlocked. Note: I spoke to people four times.

I attended a meeting about sustainable transportation on campus. Despite the fact that their own study showed that multiple people had talked about accessibility issues on campus that prevented people with disabilities from using more sustainable transport including sidewalks on campus being inaccessible or poorly accessible, they did not discuss accessibility in terms of transport. When I brought this up, specifically focusing on my main concern - there are few wheelchair-specific accessible buses going to and from campus - they agreed to make a note of it. When I again brought up the fact that their own survey brought up accessibility issues, they admitted they had not considered it all, because "this was an oversight on our part".

I contacted Student Accessibility Services at the beginning of the month, and booked an appointment with them for late last week. It was cancelled on their part at the last minute due to an emergency of some sort. (I am very mindful of this.) However, when I stopped by the office (they were unable to contact me before), I was told "We're not quite sure what you need to talk to us about anyway." Because apparently no one goes to Student Accessibility Services to discuss how to make a campus-held event accessible for students with disabilities.

The President of Dalhousie University assured me himself, to my face, in front of witnesses, that they prioritized the concerns of students with disabilities, and then people got really tetchy with me when I brought this up as a continuing problem.

Obviously I am taking up too much of people's time.
You're a bit cold / Tea / Your boyfriend just left you? / Tea / Co-ordinated terrorist attack? / Tea, damn it!
It's the coldest day this winter in Halifax, and yet the only door to the Student Union Building that is locked is the only door to the Student Union Building that has the button to open it for folks who may have difficulties opening it on their own.

They did agree to unlock it "as soon as the guy with the key comes back", but no, no one can tell me why it wasn't unlocked in the first place, who unlocks the doors in the morning, or when that will actually happen, but gosh darn it: this school prioritises the needs of students with disabilities!
Text: You'd be more interesting dead
Sometimes I want to go back in time just so I can write things with titles like this:

A briefe treatise of diuerse plaine and sure wayes to finde out the truth in this doubtful and deangerous time of heresie

A True Reporte of the Late Discoveries, and Possession, Taken in the Right of the Crowne of Englande, of Newfound Landes: By That Valiaunt and Worthye Gentleman, Sir Humpfrey Gilbert Knight

Right now we're reviewing each other's thesis proposals (except mine, woe, for I am now part-time and my thesis proposal probably won't be ready for another month) and the biggest thing I'm getting out of this is WANT MORE BOOKS NOW PLEASE. I'm adding so many things to my "to read" list that I think I have to sequester myself someplace with coffee, sunshine, and a comfy place to read.

My life, so hard. *grin*

[Also jealous of the fact that some people will be doing research in the British National Archives, while I'm hoping to get a travel grant to go as far away as historic downtown Fredericton - the next province over from here. WOE.]
tiny empty square with "Ticky box?", flashing to a checkmark with "Tickybox!"
First, and foremost: I think it's bad form to invite someone to attend a meeting, and then forget to tell them both the time AND location of the meeting.

Second: My friend Mark is an uncle! YAY! :D

Third: SRS BSN POLL:

Poll #2188 It is Sunday, let us be serious
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 43

Which of the following do you have:

View Answers

Crayons!
29 (69.0%)

Markers!
34 (81.0%)

Pencil Crayons!
8 (19.0%)

Coloured Pencils! (Maybe they are different, I don't know)
29 (69.0%)

Paints!
23 (54.8%)

Other Coloury Things!
22 (52.4%)

Is it history to spend an hour and a half colouring in a map?

View Answers

TOTALLY!
23 (54.8%)

Not at all!
1 (2.4%)

I wish I were doing AWESOME map-colouring related history!
18 (42.9%)

If I texteded you at 10 p.m. to ask if you had pencil crayons, what would you say?

Obligatory Melle Question

View Answers

Always too hot
4 (9.8%)

Never too cold
6 (14.6%)

Taking a shot!
6 (14.6%)

Too hot to hold...
7 (17.1%)

Bunnies!
33 (80.5%)



[I promise to explain the map-colouring-in later.]

Oh dear

Jan. 31st, 2010 02:25 pm
"Oh, gosh, tahnk you so much for Mansplanning this to us!"
According to an opinion piece in today's Chronicle Herald, men should give women of all ages their seats on buses because of sex-selection abortions in China.

No, I am not kidding.

A touch of gallantry here and there need not be a throwback. Consider it back pay. Better yet, think of it as "paying it forward" with random acts of courtesy. Women have been under-appreciated for so long that a little belated over-appreciation seems overdue.

I am half-serious when I say this. But what I am about to say next, I say in all seriousness.

Women are so undervalued everywhere else on the planet that I think we should overcompensate here in the West.

We all know the women of Afghanistan are nothing but chattel and that in Saudi Arabia, they live in gilded cages.

No matter where you turn, from the Middle East to Africa, they are stifled, subjugated, persecuted and brutalized.

In India and China, the two most populous nations on Earth, millions of girls are even denied the right to be born because the cultural prejudice in favour of boys is so strong.


And yet, blogging is ruining newspapers today.

Read it all.
"History Major: If you need me, come find me in the archives"
So, back happy in the archives after a long long long day yesterday.

I love this diary that I'm reading, the Ross one. Most of the entries are things like "Went to church" or "spend day hauling in potatoes". And then there's this one:

"Was one of those Beautiful days that now and then make their appearance in the frosty dark month of November as if to cheer up man and remind him of the beauties of the summer that has just passed."

Awwwwww!

behind the cut - maps! getting lost over 3 km! 318 liters of rum! Christmas! )
Anyway, off now!

!!

Jan. 27th, 2010 04:52 pm
"History Major: If you need me, come find me in the archives"
I walked into the archives and they handed me a wooden box about a meter and a half long and made of awesome. Inside it are the original drawings for the plans for the Halifax Poor Asylum, on wooden frames.

*dies of happy*
Two women clutching each other from an old pulp novel.  "Rebel Woman"
Harpist playing Paparazzi behind the cut )

Harpist playing Bad Romance behind the cut )

Have I mentioned how much I love living in the future lately?
(Via [livejournal.com profile] dorian_is_i on tumblr.)

ETA: Should be fixed now!
Sketch of Hermoine from Harry Potter with "Bookworms will rule the world (after we finish the background reading)" on it
"Although I majored in English and minored in journalism in college, the more I learned about writing, the less confident I was that I had anything to say."

- Laurel Thatcher Ulrich.

Sounds about right to me!
"History Major: If you need me, come find me in the archives"
So, about the Dead People's Diaries:

From Interviews with Laura Thatcher Ulrich:

Q: Where did you begin?

A: I began by counting things. The very thing that had attracted me to the diary in the first place was also the thing that made it difficult to work with. I mean there's just so much. The diary is a long accumulation of workaday entries. And so I had to find some way to get control of the information so that I could find patterns in it. I hit upon the idea of making up a little form, kind of a data collection form. (And this was in the days before personal computers). And I would go day by day for every other year of the diary, and I would tick off what was in each entry: baking or brewing, spinning or washing, or trading, sewing, mending, deliveries, general medical accounts, going to church, visitors, people coming for meals, etc. Using these sheets, I was able to count the incidence of virtually every activity mentioned in the diary. To keep my sanity, I used those data sheets for the even numbered years, and took more traditional qualitative notes for those in between. I took down more information than I ever thought I needed. In graduate school, I was taught not to go on impressions, but to try to be systematic, and it really bore fruit.

With the data sheets, I could monitor Martha's days at home, her days away, and the days she went to church. And I would summarize the information at the end of each year. In 1792, for example, she was at home 192 days, but on ninety-two of those days she was at home, she had company. I never would have been able to figure that out without my data sheets. But by going back I could do that for ten or fifteen years, and then when there was a change, sometimes an abrupt change in her life, I began to look -- and try to understand why. So the counting was tedious and it was difficult. But it gave me patterns, it gave me the structure of her life and it gave me a framework for interpretation.


Q: Were there surprises?

A: Yes. When I began to tally up my check marks, it was soon obvious to me that some entries in the diary (like church-going, births, or records of visitors) were very systematic and that others were erratic, seemingly random. The entries for laundry were especially puzzling! Could it be true that the Ballards had clean clothes four times in June of 1796, but that they had clean clothes only once in the three months of April, May and June of 1792? I set the problem aside and began the laborious task of identifying the helpers in Martha Ballard's household between 1784 and 1800. Suddenly the pattern fell into place. It was clear that Martha mentioned laundry more when SHE had to do it! She was less likely to mention laundry when someone else was around to do it.

And Martha's seemingly trivial struggles with washday helped me to unlock an important theme in the history of the northern rural economy -- the waxing and waning of household labor. When Martha had teenage girls at home who could do the wash, milk the cow, and prepare the food for the men, she was able to develop her midwifery practice to its capacity. But when the last of her daughters married, her life -- and her diary -- changed.


[The website is an absolute mess. *sigh*]

I find this really interesting, and will likely be copying this format in many ways for my own work. After reading all the diaries I mentioned earlier, I settled on the Ross Farm Diary for my major research paper for class, and the Dixon Fonds for the academic paper I'm presenting at a conference in March. [The Ross Farm Diary is the farting/drinking of pints of brandy one, while the Dixon letters are the ones the wee Deaf boy sent home and are full of random murders.)

My focus on the Ross Farm Diaries is going to be on drinking and alcohol consumption. {Don't you wish you were an historian?} Like Ulirch, I'm going to start with the counting, but also record: where did the author drink? With whom? When in the day? And what? What did he drink, besides pints of brandy. Then I get to do something with it all - although what, I'm not exactly sure.

As for the Dixon stuff, I'm actually tracking where student at the school for the deaf got their news. Wee William Dixon talks about getting letters from home, reading the newspapers, having visitors, and going out in the town to learn things. I'm really interested in where and how deaf children in residential schools - especially one so far away from home that he never went back for holidays - learned the latest gossip. (I'm not explaining this well, I think.)

So, that is what I will be nattering about for the next several weeks.

My Evening

Jan. 24th, 2010 01:05 am
Sketch of Hermoine from Harry Potter with "Bookworms will rule the world (after we finish the background reading)" on it
I watched the latest episode of White Collar and now I hate everyone.
one sentence of spoilers )

Linkdrop

Jan. 23rd, 2010 10:20 pm
Sketch of Hermoine from Harry Potter with "Bookworms will rule the world (after we finish the background reading)" on it
The Dangerous Desire to Adopt Haitian Babies

Analogies simplify complex issues, sometimes in an accurate way, but this analogy is just smoke and mirrors. International adoptive parents are really fond of this starfish metaphor and this is not the first time I've seen it in play. It always boggles my mind. Why is adopting a third-world "orphan" like throwing a starfish back in the ocean? Maybe the poor starfishes needed to be on the beach as part of their mating cycle and the guy is messing with them because he's sadistic. Maybe he has a weird sexual fetish about echinoderm-hurling. Or maybe he's just a dumb-ass. The analogy effectively obscures the issue of motivation, as well as the implication of "saving".

Let me try another analogy. Let's say you live with your child in a house that burns down. You're dazed, confused, and burned. Your neighbor says, "I think I should take care of your child". You say, "Thanks for your offer. But my child really needs me now, and I think they wouldn't sleep well in a strange house. If you could just give us a tent and some food and some bandages so we can camp out while I get better and look into rebuilding, we'll be OK." Your neighbor says, "that's too logistically complicated and I'm concerned about the security situation. I just want your child." You say, "Thanks again for your concern and I'm grateful for any help you can give me. If you're so worried about my child, maybe you could let both of us stay in your guestroom for a while? That way my child could be safe and would sleep well too." Your neighbor says, "No, we have an interdiction-at-sea policy and visa restrictions will not be relaxed. Just give me your child. Actually, nevermind. I don't even need your permission anymore. I'll just take them."


read the whole thing
A fountain pen.  "Just write"
I went to the skills share workshop I mentioned a few weeks ago, about journalism and conducting an interview and stuff. You, too, can read my 28 page transcript!

My hands are tired.
Sketch of Hermoine from Harry Potter with "Bookworms will rule the world (after we finish the background reading)" on it
The revision I've done here is an example of the 'actor/action' style that Joseph M. Williams explains in Style: Toward Clarity and Grace. It's also discussed, though in a duller, more textbooky way, in The Craft of Research, which I believe is one of the HIST 5800 recommended readings. You can inoculate yourself against the influence of turgid sociological style by reading Williams often.


Gosh I love my thesis adviser.

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Sketch of Hermoine from Harry Potter with "Bookworms will rule the world (after we finish the background reading)" on it
Anna (troubleinchina)

February 2010

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