Busy Busy

I don't like that during the summer I try to get back on this blogging thing and try to get into the habit of doing it regularly I manage to fail at it. I'm not sure exactly why I'm finding the time hard to get, but there you have it. In positive news, though, I have a reason for the past few days. I've been frantically working on finishing my story for submission to Coming Together: Arm in Arm in Arm, an anthology of tentacle erotica with proceeds going to ocean conservation. I initially took to the task of writing my entry for the challenge: I've never written anything remotely like what the call for submissions requests but I figured it would be worth a try. I don't quite know how I'll feel if my story winds up published. It's a bit weird. I'll try to get back to this more often.

Feminist Frequency: a Kickstarter Project I can get behind

Anita Sarkeesian has a Kickstarter Project going to raise money to fund the production of a large video series on sexism in video games. This is a discussion that needs to happen. Part of my reason for backing this project relates to a torrent of hate so large that it makes Noah's flood look like a leaky faucet. For daring to turn a critical eye toward their hobby, the community of gamers has cried foul in their foulest words. This response is all the proof the world needs that Anita is doing the right thing. The casual racism, homophobia, and sexism pervading the comments as well as the higher level harassment she has received all serve to demonstrate that the gaming community does have some very deeply rooted problems with those who are not straight white males. Anyone who is Other is an invader, an unwelcome presence, who must be shamed for daring to enter the hobby. This response demonstrates that the issues Anita will discuss in her Tropes vs. Women in Video Games and those she has discussed in her other videos do make a difference. These issues help perpetuate a system in which women, gays, and minorities are put down and denigrated merely for existing. I don't really know right now how to put into words everything I feel about this. I can hardly fathom how anybody would find it acceptable to do what has been done to Anita here. I can't understand the people who make excuses for the people doing this. Anita has far surpassed her funding goal. She had far surpassed it by the time I found out about the project. That should not matter. Pledging should be a matter of principle at this point. So if you read this, please consider making a pledge to show your support of Anita's efforts to engage gamers in a rational and level-headed manner about a very important subject. The project concludes on Saturday Jun 16, 3:09 A.M. EDT.

And I slip on the posting

Looks like I have slipped my schedule a bit. I have a good reason, though, I swear. I've finally settled in from spending much of the past month working on moving out of my place in my college town. We are now living with my fiancee's uncle until we can move down to my shiny new university. I don't have very much to report about this time. Other than moving, I've been working and doing my part in planning the wedding. We've got much of the planning set, which is good. Not so good is the having money part of things. Still need to work on that part. I've acquired a number of new coins which are making me very happy. I've also been mulling over thoughts about aspects of Dune, Foundation, and Don Quixote that mesh well together and might make for an interesting paper. I will leave you for now and return soon with something of actual substance.

Studiesology

In the wake of the Naomi Riley fiasco (original post, college misery with more on the issue), I've noticed the occasional blog commenter on other blogs saying something that I have seen before but never paid much time to. Indeed, it seems to me that I am seeing it more often, though that could just be confirmation bias. What I'm seeing are comments like this:

I have always thought that any discipline requiring "Studies" in its name isn't a discipline.

I find that an odd position. Logically, it falls apart when confronted with some basic facts, like the meaning of -(o)logy. Biology, Immunology, Virology, Archaeology, Zoology, Sociology, Psychology, Anthropology, Geology, Toxicology, Theology, etc. All of those have -(o)logy in them and are serious disciplines. Okay, maybe not theology (I kid), but having -(o)logy in a discipline's name certainly doesn't lessen the discipline. -(o)logy means science or study of. Perhaps it's the Greek origins of the word. If only African-American Studies, Cultural Studies, Women's Studies, etc. were properly made into word chimeras. Then we could have Negrology, Cultrology, and Gynology. Except those don't sound so nice. Perhaps gussying things up in Greek or Latin dress doesn't result in an inherently superior name. The issue with Naomi Riley and those who see "Studies" as an indicator of a weak discipline does not lie in the view of "Studies" disciplines. The issue lies in their intellectual rigor. Those who deride "Studies" as above tend not to actually examine the scholarship. It is far more efficient to deride them for being Humanities rather than STEM or as focusing on what are seen trivialities. Naomi Riley shows similar skill in critical thinking in her post. Rather than attempt to engage with the dissertations on a meaningful level, Riley shows that all one needs to do to understand a discipline (and how silly it is) is to read silly dissertation titles. If the title sounds silly or contrary to privileged orthodoxy, then clearly the whole discipline is worthless. Let's have some biology dissertations and run them through what someone who knows nothing of biology might say in reaction to them: "Systematics and ecology of benthic salt marsh algae at Ipswich, Massachusetts" -- Algae? What do we need to study that for?" "Explorations in Protein Expression and Attempted Purification of the CBI Cannabinoid Receptor" -- Sounds like pro-pot nonsense. "Do Human Sex Pheromones Exist?" -- What's a pheromone? And why are you talking about sex, you depraved ivory tower intellectual? "The Importance of Dynein in the Fashioning of Left-Right Asymmetry in the African Clawed frog, Xenopus laevis" -- Clawed frog? Are frogs where the X-Men are going to come from? What do you know? It's very possible to take a serious discipline's work and make it sound silly if you don't actually take the time to engage with it. Titles are enough. Riley's approach of mockery without information betrays her. She is either incapable of deep rational thought or she finds shallow "analysis" to be a more worthwhile pursuit. She is either blind to privilege as she dismisses the scholarship that oftentimes confronts it head on, or she aims to hold onto her privilege at the expense of the disadvantaged, hoping that attacking the scholarship will mask her prejudice. No matter what it turns out she was thinking as she wrote her piece, it does not reflect well upon her. However, commenters like the one quoted above may find themselves comforted by shallow and small-minded attacks on the Humanities and on cultural studies in particular. I only hope the numbers of such people are small.

A week later -- Graduation, Poetry, and Coin Pictures

This is going to be a bit longer of a post, with many pictures. In part this is to make up for disappearing for a week. I'm still no good at this blogging thing. It's also because I got some pictures of my UK proof sets done and I'd like to share them. I also bring news of graduation and what the hell I've been doing for the past week anyway.

 I'll save the coins for last, since they'll be the longest section.

 On graduation: I graduate again this Friday with my third BA (Spanish). I won't get to walk again because I already did last semester, so I just have to content myself with the fact that I managed to do three BA degrees in five years. With graduation comes summer, which this year means moving.

 Last time I posted I had just returned from a visit to my graduate school and signed a lease for the fall. My fiancee was happy and my mother and I relieved, so everything was good. I will have the 11th through 20th of May off from work this month to do some major work on the moving front. We have a lot of packing, moving of stuff down to the farm, moving of large items to the trailer for transport this July, and other things to do. I also have to help my brother move into his new place, and you can bet I'll extract my pound of flesh from him for that.

 On Poetry: I basically spent the last week working on my final project for my Contemporary Spanish Literature class. I wrote two poems, modelling surrealism under the Franco regime and surrealism in the new millennium, then wrote a short analysis of how my poems draw their essence from those specific movements. Let me tell you that, because I have previous experience in this matter, writing poetry in a non-native language is really hard. But when you figure it out, it becomes amazing. And now that I've made the attempt at writing surrealist poetry in Spanish, I have a new appreciation for the style. I also have a new way of thinking about surrealism, and that is that the surreal is "metaphor made not only real but literal." Groundbreaking, I know. But I now have a way of thinking about surreal literature that makes sense to me.

Finally, coins. I got loads of pictures of my UK proof sets. Next post I'll share a couple of my individual coins including the 1900 silver sixpence that will be residing in my bride's shoe at the wedding.

The 1970 proof set was actually put together and struck after Decimal Day and the official change to decimal currency in the UK. It contains the last examples of the classic £sd currency.

The obverse side of the last predecimal coins.

The reverse side of the last predecimal coins.

February 15, 1971 marked Decimal Day, the switch to decimal currency for the UK. Rather than have the old 1 pound = 20 shillings = 240 pence (and the various other oddities, such as the crown being five shillings, a guinea twenty-one shillings, etc.), Britain embraced common sense and defined the pound in terms of 100 new pence.

The obverse side of the new decimal currency. The five and ten pence coins were identical in size and composition to the one and two shilling coins, respectively, and carried the same value during the transition.

The reverse of the new decimal coins. The "New" on the reverse remained on every coin until 1981. 1982 saw the creation of the 20 pence coin and the replacement of "New" with the denomination.

The 1973 set includes text commemorating the formation (and British membership) in the European Economic Community, the precursor to the European Union. The 50p coin has a special reverse for the occasion.

The obverse side of the set. Note the coloration of the 2p coin.

The reverse side of the set. I like the reverse on the 50p coin.

A close up shot of the 2p coin. This sort of toning happens to brass coins sometimes if exposed to water damage. The set probably got some water spilled on it in the past and over the years the coin has discolored. I kind of like it, since it looks like a bimetallic coin.

The 1977 set commemorates the Silver Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II. The Royal Mint reintroduced a commemorative One Crown coin (25p) for the occasion. Due to the coin's excessive size for its face value, Crown coins after 1990 have a valuation of £5 rather than 25p.

The obverse of the set. The Crown has a special obverse of the Queen on horseback in honor of her Silver Jubilee.

The reverse of the 1977 set.

This is the 1988 set case. It's the first UK proof set I purchased.

I love the frosty look of the portrait side in this set. The quality of the strikes is really there.

The reverse of the 1988 set doesn't dissappoint either.

A place to call Home

This has been a very eventful, very stressful weekend. I was nearly unable to register for classes because of a miscommunication between my department and the registrar, my mother fell in a sinkhole, most of the property management companies here are not open on weekends, and everything seemed to just fall apart. My mother, an army wife with nearly twenty moves under her belt, said that this was the most difficult time she's ever had trying to find a place to live. We did find a place, however. By the time this is posted it will be Monday, so yesterday afternoon we were driving around on the west end of town. About a mile and a half from my building we discovered an apartment complex and chanced a call. The landlady was shopping and was able to get a call in to a PhD student in Spanish who lives in the complex to see if he'd be okay with a very quick showing. Within an hour we were touring the complex and checking out the room. Thirty minutes later we were filling out a lease agreement and learning that come August we will be living directly across from the PhD student who showed us his apartment. The complex does not allow undergraduate residents, will allow us to have our cat, and gives my partner an extremely good feeling. We have a place. This trip just became so worth it.

Time to live in

I'll be in PhD University Town to find a place to live for the fall this weekend. My mother flew up to help us and so it'll be her and the fiancee's first time visiting where I'll be studying for the PhD.

Here's hoping the weekend goes well.

I promise to get those coin pictures up soon, along with the coins that should be arriving by mail to me this weekend.