Comments | ageofscience: I live for instability.

ageofscience

I live for instability.

Jul 27, 2006 21:30

I kind of can't believe that in a month this won't be my home any more. In a month, I will have a new home, and it will be in a new city, and I will be a graduate student. Those are all really weird things to think about. Time is so weird, you guys ( Read more... )

Comments 28

shmeen July 28 2006, 02:36:45 UTC

hey! that's cool you're coming to york! you're gonna be a 3903 member and i'm the chief steward for unit 3's (if you are doing a GA). people tell me that shannon bell teaches women how to acheive the female ejaculation.

ageofscience July 28 2006, 03:29:16 UTC

I don't anticipate that'll be part of the course curriculum (heh) but yeah, she does, at Come As You Are.There was also that infamous live on CBC radio incident!

I'm doing an RA rather than a GA. Admittedly I don't actually know what the difference between the two is, but I'm assuming I'll still be unionized, though? Maybe?

shmeen July 28 2006, 03:49:04 UTC

funny enough we are doing a union drive for RA's and hoping to get them to sign union cards. Right now, though, RA's aren't part of the union, which is really shitty, but hopefully that will change this year. The reason RA's aren't is because the work they are doing is seen as completely linked to their education. Our argument is that being a GA is also linked to our education and it doesn't mean that RA's can be exploited or without the same benefits. I just wanted to let you know that deciding to be an RA vs GA is a verbal decision and that the dept can't pressure you. You can still do the same work as a GA, but you are in the union so you have more benefits and protection. The pay remains the same, but you aren't applicable for the union benefits and other money. so yeah, you could ask them to put you down as a GA and the pay is the same and the amount of hours is the same.

you can check out the union website for more info: cupe3903.tao.ca

ageofscience July 28 2006, 04:29:47 UTC

Not unionized? Seriously? That's kind of absurd, and totally not what I would expect from a university. Particularly one so noted for being on the left?! I'm becoming increasingly attuned to the grim reality that the York of my mind has almost nothing to do with York as it actually is, that the political science department is not representative of the entirety of the school, etc.

I will certianly look into this GA/RA stuff. The more I look into it the more it sounds like I'm getting paid to do independent research, rather than being paid to help a prof with their research, which was my impression? I just remember certain profs o' mine from undergrad smiling back on their old RA days at York when they had to do menial office tasks (stapling 200 syllabi together, that kind of deal) for the profs they were RAin for. If that's the case, I don't see how anyone could argue that there's no possibility for exploitation?

discop July 28 2006, 03:33:38 UTC

i will try that meal, it looks delish.

i want to be on the road, new city every night. pure instability!

ageofscience July 28 2006, 03:46:02 UTC

Dear little Daniel got me so hooked on fresh basil with fresh tomato last summer and it's now probably my favourite food combination. Or with balsamic vinegar and olive oil instead of hummus. Or garlic and nutritional yeast. Or marinated tofu. So yummy!

Every night! That's a lot of instability! But what is youth for, if not instability, am I right?

discop July 28 2006, 04:00:51 UTC

all good ideas that make me excited to eat!

when are you not right pam!

dannnielle July 28 2006, 03:43:17 UTC

I have to confess I'm jealous.

I'm looking forward to school but the research interests floating around my department are borrrrring. I may or may not live vicariously through you and your program - which, by the way, looks amazing.

ageofscience July 28 2006, 03:53:53 UTC

But you know, faculty with dull research interests is a cruel necessity of academic life pretty much everywhere. Even when I was researching Berkeley political science for PhD whatnot (and it's BERKELEY!), everyone who wasn't Wendy Brown indeed sounded borrrring. I got really, really lucky at York! Three faculty members who work on my own piddly area of interest! I must have done something right to deserve that!

dannnielle July 28 2006, 04:01:40 UTC

It's all true.

I fear, at the moment, I'm just discouraged because the courses offered by Queen's aren't nearly as thrilling as what you've described.

This is clearly a 'grass is greener' induced post. Oh figuring yourself out mid-post - you never get old.

What exactly are you planning on studying?

I applied hoping to delve into social attitudes towards the queer community as a result of religiously rooted moral belief systems. Recently though, I've started to question if maybe I want to focus more on environmental apathy from a sociological and technological perspective..

(aaah!)

ageofscience July 28 2006, 04:23:14 UTC

Well, I do really love my intended schedule! But I am also sad that I don't have enough room to take some other of the amazing things I have to pass up. Like a film theory course that counts as political science! I've heard about some very amazing course offerings at Queens, but admittedly they were all undergrad.

My area of interest in general is embodiment. I'm not sure how it's going to play out research-wise just yet. In the past year I mostly looked at the construction of "real" embodiment and how discourses of embodiment use the language of nature and culture. At the moment I'm fascinated by existential perspectives on corporeality, but I don't know that that will actually take me anywhere beyond being fascinated.

I wouldn't worry too much about narrowing down your plan of study exactly. You've got time to wait it out and just learn and be fascinated by the world for a while. If school does it's job, it changes your mind. No doubt your plan will surely keep evolving as you do! And that's a good thing!

Thread 5

redstar5 July 28 2006, 12:21:20 UTC

this post makes me want to go back and finish my Masters program.
*sigh*

brokensound01 July 28 2006, 12:46:02 UTC

ahhh i like reading about other people's classes, i'm such a nerd.

that politics of identity course looks good enough (i've read some Alfred and Virilio and they're both great) so i bet post-identity is going to be pretty awesome.

ageofscience July 28 2006, 15:56:30 UTC

I also love hearing about other people's classes! I especially love hearing about classes that are either things I have no exposure to and wish I did, or are similar thematically to things I've taken, but take a totally different approach in the readings and structure. Nerdy indeed!

I've read neither Alfred nor Virilio, but I keep coming across their names of late. I know there's going to be some Virilio on the technopolitics syllabus so I'm actually really excited about having an excuse to get familiar with his work! Is he reasonably accessible, or should I think about briefing myself on his work beforehand, do you think?

brokensound01 July 28 2006, 16:03:42 UTC

I used two of his books for my thesis (Lost Dimension, and Information Bomb) and admittedly it took me a while to get through some of the material. He uses dense language (well I was reading the translations, he writes in French) but what I read was fairly understanable. Some complex arguments, but you should be fine.