One of the topics we've covered in Anthro 104 so far this semester has been concepts of self--in short, that there is no universal human notion of what constitutes the 'self' or personhood. One of the examples mentioned in the professor's lectures was that among the Navajo, young children are thought to be in a sort of transition state between the ( Read more... )

Not even going to link to it, but the most current media obsession seems to be the fact that Sarah Palin was given (gasp!) new clothes for the campaign trail. No way! What an outrage! How dare she add to her wardrobe now that she is an extremely public figure under constant scrutiny ( Read more... )

Ok, this is sheer whining, so you can stop reading now ( Read more... )

When checks clear and that nice big chunk of secret-tuition the University euphemistically calls 'fees' disappears from my bank account. . . And I don't get paid again til November 1. Alas. It's lentils, oatmeal, and pancakes from here on out ( Read more... )

So Warcraft had a big ol' patch today, and most of the servers are apparently still down for maintenance. I wanted to check Blizzard's realm status page to see whether my server was going to be back online soon. . . and the realm status page is down. I guess they just decided to break everything at once? (FAIL)

Apparently e-mail from the Teaching Assistants' Association brings up a link to "Unions: The 7 Great Lies - LRIonline.com/7_Lies - Do you know them? Don't let your employees vote before you see this." I'm too busy grading papers to follow up on the link, but I did want to note that my union is responsible for getting me pretty decent health/dental ( Read more... )

#4: Those noises I initially thought were perhaps animals fighting outside? Clearly my upstairs neighbors 'getting it on.' Waaay too much information.

"Kill him!" proposed one man in the audience.
( Read more... )

So I guess it's a good thing I have no retirement or other savings or investments--I don't have to worry about losing them in Econosplosion '08!

Although I'm kind of thinking about trying to convince UW to pay us all in euros instead of dollars.

I locked my bike up on a bike rack before going in to lecture this morning. When I came back about 2 hours later, the right handle and gear shift were scuffed, the seat was scuffed and half ripped off (one of the screw-holes attaching the seat to the frame is entirely broken, meaning I'll either need some hardcore duct tape to keep my seat from ( Read more... )