you caught me lingering

So, after deciding not to do Honours because I didn't really feel comfortable for various reasons, I've just finished my application for the Master of Arts (Professional and Applied Ethics) at ANU. I spoke to the Course Convenor yesterday who said that despite the website saying that I need Hons or a Grad Dip to qualify for entry, I should be fine to get in, given my undergraduate major and the fact that I can argue a case relating work to the degree. Given she's the one who decides who gets into the program, I'm feeling vaguely confident. Now I just have to hope that same argument works as far as the company is concerned and I manage to convince them to sponsor my study, otherwise budgets will be tight for a while.

Still - hi academy, I'm back. It's actually quite exciting, and I really like the sound of the program. I'll be going in part time, which is about four years, coursework, plus a sub-thesis. The conversation I had with the Convenor yesterday was pretty cool, actually, in terms of tying work-stuff into my studies and intersections between bioethics/public health/business ethics that work stuff kinda bleeds around.

In other news, I'll be in Brisbane from this time next week, until about the 6th of January. If you want to catch up, let me know. Don't wait for me to call you, because it's highly likely I don't have your number. Also, what are Brisbane people doing for NYE?

I didn't fail anything!

HHB219  IRANIAN SOCIETY       5       72%
HHB233  SEX, GENDER AND SOCIETY     7      89%
HHB265  THE JUST SOCIETY      7      91%
HHB267  FEMINISM AND ETHICS      7      91%

Which means my final GPA is 6.5

Not bad for a stress-tastic semester. Hurrah!

Since The Courier Mail is weird about comments, my response to this article from Prof. Stuart Cunningham:


"Professor Cunningham seems to like claiming that Creative Industries has some kind of ownership of the 'applied humanities'. He fails to mention that this bastion of the 'applied humanities' doesn't include applied ethics, which is part of the School of Humanities and Human Services. Though the recent issues that Drs. Hookham and MacLennan brought into the public eye suggest that perhaps Creative Industries needs a more solid injection of applied ethics, since they seem to be rather lacking.

Of course, the prime fallacy of Prof. Cunningham's article is that the humanities, which are a, and perhaps even the, foundation of what a university is, need to be 'marketable'. Prof. Cunningham's argument only has the possibility of being valid if we accept that assumption, and he presents no useful reasons as to why we should accept such an assumption. Anyone with the critical thinking skills taught in the humanities - pure or, presumably, otherwise - should understand the need for strong reasons to accept an assumption of such proportions."

AMS TEH DONE.

Final Exam Done.

Provided I haven't failed anything (which even I will admit is unlikely at this point, because I seem to have to try really hard to fail), my BA is completed.

Now, to bum around for a while and find some nice university to do Honours Year at, since my university hates me.

Still. Done. YAY!

Also, stephendann was awesome and booked Tori Amos ticket for me. 31UU, which is row 19 in the front floor section, according to the seating map of the Convention Centre. Yaaaay.

And ebe was awesome and shouted me to celebratory ams teh done dinner. Yay.

*dances with teh f-list*

Tomorrow is Pride, Drinks (and, um, Karaoke) with Uni folk, and Missy&Melanie Housewarming.

TEH FINAL ESSAY is finished, just have to go hand it in.

One exam to go (for a subject I've already got enough marks to pass)!

OMG. On Friday I will be DONE.

Dear David Gardiner,

I don't believe for a second that you care that I am sad about your cynicism towards education and the value of my degree.

I don't believe for a second that you actually listened to a word that was said, regardless of how many times you said "I'm listening" or "I'm here to listen".

I don't believe for a second that you were up to anything that even resembles 'consultation', and for all your jibe about my understanding of consultation, I'm not sure you understand what it means.

Don't think I didn't notice that you avoided my jibe at your inability to answer my questions without insulting me.

Don't think I didn't notice that you were laughing quietly at students' concerns.

Don't think I didn't notice you insult every single person who spoke up in that meeting.

Don't think that proclaiming that you have integrity makes it true.

Part of me feels ashamed that I let you get in deep enough to make me cry, but I'm not the only one, and for all your lauding of 'rationality', it doesn't make me weak.

You are a noxious, patronising, aggressive little man. I don't know if you sleep at night. Part of me hopes you don't. My cynical side suspects that you, and people like you, somehow manage it. And that frightens me.

But I can still pull 31/35 on an essay*, even with all this shit going on. So don't think for a moment that you can beat me down.

no love,
me.

*I got my Feminism & Ethics essay back after the meeting, and the mark was the high point of my day. In other good news, I got an extension on the essay that was supposed to be due tonight, and aforementioned good mark has lifted my spirits and confidence regarding the papers I still have to write.

So, in case people hadn't noticed, I've been rather MIA over the last little while. I wanted to write up the protest last week, where I got roped into speaking at the last minute, but I just don't have the time. Links Round-ups are non-existent, again, because I just don't have the time. I'm not posting at Shrub, and I feel bad about that, too.

I'm mostly reading and commenting, though even that's rather minimal, at present.

I've got two papers due this week, two papers that I'm still mostly pretending are due next week, despite just discovering there's a whole week in there I totally forgot about. Plus I'm doing all this organising stuff about the discontinuation of the Arts and Social Science degrees at QUT and the related closure of the School/Faculty. And whilst doing all of that involves a whole lot of shoving down the depression so I can Get Stuff Done(tm), what time I do have in between is being spent either being depressed, reading, or doing stuff that attemps to make me feel better, like shiny television.

( whining )

Finding out that I have that extra week means I'm not feeling quite so guilty about going to P!nk on Friday night, but I must admit I'm feeling a bit like I've forgotten how to be sociable at all, so um, apologies in advance to the folks I'll be going with.

So, I still really need respondents for the study for my Iranian Society assignment, and my due date is fast approaching.

Some of you on the friendslist have received (or will shortly) an e-mail from me inviting you to participate. I'd really appreciate it if you could.

Respondent details beyond what's asked in the survey aren't recorded, so I won't actually know how specific people responded, if that's worrying people.

More details on the original post here. I'm extending the deadline, obviously, so there's no real need to worry about that at this point.

I've screened comments here and on the original post, so if you have further questions, and/or don't really feel like starting up your e-mail client and would like to volunteer, please feel free to leave a comment on either post.

ETA: Just to reiterate, my target population is still feminist bloggers. If you're unsure as to whether you fit with that population but would like to participate, please comment. I'm not being overly picky at the moment, to be honest, except in obvious cases.

Thankyou to those who have already participated.

Today's protest against the Arts/Social Science degree closure went well. Despite news this morning that apparently the police had been 'put on alert', and the sight of very stern looking security (though to be fair, the CA Security Super was there, and he's actually awesome, and wasn't being very stern) and facilities management staff manning the entrance to U Block, it was loud yet peaceful, which is really the best outcome.

All the speakers were good, though I unfortunately missed a chunk of the talks since I had to scurry offside to do a radio interview for 4ZZZ (which I believe will be aired on Tuesday sometime between 12noon and 1pm, if anyone in Brisbane feels like listening - actually, I'm in a class then, so if someone is able to record it so I have proof of how in/coherent I was, it would be appreciated). I believe Channel 7 and Ten news were also there with cameras (I saw the latter but not the former, though other apparently saw 7), so there may be news segments this evening. We also marched through campus, much to the bemusement of GP staff and students. Someone apparently saw Deputy Vice Chancellor David Gardiner (who's 'facilitating the change management process') peer out his window briefly, which is interesting.

Next step is Wednesday, in line with the University Academic Board Meeting. Which, incidentally, was supposed to be today, whilst the VC is overseas, but once he realised the issue had been placed on the agenda, he rescheduled to Wednesday afternoon so he could chair the meeting, and then rescheduled to 9:30am at Kelvin Grove campus, for unknown (to me) reasons, so we can speculate amongst ourselves.

Incidentally, I'm still not entirely sure how I ended up being landed with the 4ZZZ interview. Someone else organised it, and in my caffeine-less haze this morning I recall folks saying I should do it, staring at them for a bit, and agreeing (actually, it was originally going to be a call for background noise of the rally, then a follow-up interview on Monday, which somehow changed once the woman from 4ZZZ actually called). What's interesting from a self-development perspective is that it's just not something I would've done, to the point of actively avoiding it, even a year ago. Passion and Anger apparently overrides my "oh crap, speaking to public" reflex. I *think* the interview went well. I was generally able to talk about the issue without much uhm-ing and ah-ing or long pauses, which part of me would expect given I've barely thought about much else for the last three weeks, but it's nice that my brain and mouth managed to come to the party.

I'm feeling somewhat more positive today, and my brain's actually managed to throw me some scraps of ideas I can work with the the essay that's (including the extension I got) due on Tuesday. So I may actually get the damned thing written (at least partially) this weekend.

So, I'm taking a class on Iranian Society this semester, and our major assessment item is a small selected-sample study on outsider (ie, people not in Iran) perceptions of Iranian society. Given my postgraduate study plans (whilst being somewhat uncertain at the moment given the state of my university department) involve exploring feminist blogging and community, I thought I'd take the opportunity to actually explore that area to some extent.

To that end, I'd be most appreciative if the feminist bloggers among you would help me out by completing a short survey. The questionnaire has been provided by my lecturers, but if you have any concerns that come up in completing the survey, I'll be happy to hear about them.

Whilst I don't really want to get into credential-checking, I've agreed with my lecturer that asking those who wish to participate to include a link to their blog is, though imperfect, a good screening mechanism. I know that cuts out regular commenters, but for the sake of simplicity, I want to stick with those who have their own blogs or participate in groupblogs which have a significant focus on feminist issues.

Of course, all identifying information, including links to blogs, will be kept confidential, and whilst the research is for assessment purposes only, I'd be happy to e-mail the final assessment to those participants who are interested, once it's been submitted.

If you are interested in participating, please e-mail me with the subject "Iran Study", including a link to your blog, and I'll forward a link to the questionnaire. I'm running on a bit of a timeline, so I'll need responses by May 14th.

PS. Anyone who feels like passing this along to others who might be interested in participating, I'd be most appreciative.

cross-posted to Shrub.com Blog.

I'm just swinging between utterly despondent and filled with rage, at the moment. The only real change from that general feel of the week has been the two assessment items I got back on Tuesday, one of which where I was told I'm a strong and coherent writer, academically speaking, and the other a comment from my philosophy professor on my midterm Feminism & Ethics exam wherein she praised my 'model paper' and calibre of philosophical talent. Which, honestly, were two things I think I really needed to hear at a time when the message coming from higher up in the chain is that I'm just not valuable. But aside from that, I'm still feeling really awful. Most of the rage is actually gone, and I'm starting to sink rather deeply into the quagmire of despair and helplessness. My motivation to even look at my assessment is minimal to nonexistent at the moment, and whilst I know I need to sort of drag myself out of that, I'm just not getting there right now.

I was talking to some of the academics who've been encouraging me towards Honours and postgraduate study about, really, what my options are, and I've got some difficult decisions to think about and make over the next few months that will have a really big impact on my future, and that's really scary, which is probably contributing to my feelings. I have gotten some really good advice and encouragement about my abilities, which is something, it's just then got to do with what happens over the next few months with regard to how I think about that advice and what I should do.

But it really is a lot to do with this thing of being told in really no uncertain terms that the Vice-Chancellor at least is saying that I'm not valuable, and what I'm doing isn't valuable, and I can only imagine what that's doing to the staff who are going to be facing redundancy and suchlike. I've been feeling sick to my stomach the last day or so, and there's just this churning that won't go away, and I'm not sure whether I want to cry or throw up. Or both.

And, I mean, most of this is just the selfish sort of reaction to what's going on. There's a whole host of wider issues that make this whole situation really troubling and dangerous and just horrible. And part of me feels bad for not concentrating on those issues and dealing with the emo later, but I just don't think I'm capable of that sort of compartmentalising right now. Which is not to say that I don't think the broader issues aren't important, because they are important, and I think they're more important from the perspective of wider implications and suchlike. I just feel like I've had something really important just kicked out of me. And I really don't know what to do about that. I've spent so much time over the last few years sort of unlearning this unhealthy compartmentalising, and learning how to let myself feel things and react to things, and those things are really being put to the test at the moment, because not only dealing with those feelings, but the guilt associated with them, is really fucking hard, at the moment.

I was going to make a post earlier in the week about whether people wanted to do something this weekend because my birthday is Sunday, but I'm just not even sure that's a good idea because I'm highly doubtful that I'll be anything other than really not fun to hang out with, because birthday or not, I just don't feeling like celebrating anything at all.

So, VC Coaldrake's banging on about how high attrition (dropout) rates are for the Arts degree. I shouldn't be surprised, but attrition rates include students who transfer to other degrees in the university. Which is fairly common for an Arts degree, since it's often used as an entry vector for those with lower entrance scores. Hell, I was originally going to be one of those, until I decided Arts was much more fun than Creative Industries. It's pretty much standard practice for other high-entrance-level-degrees like Law to advise prospective students with lower entrance scores to apply for entrance to the BA and transfer after a year (provided their GPA is acceptable). If you take out those students, the attrition rate for Arts sits pretty much on par with the University average.

WTF, Coaldrake.

Yes, I'm going to be talking about this QUT thing for a bit. If you have a problem with me caring about my future, feel free to let me know so I can tell you to shove it stop reading.

So, all of that right-wing bleating about how Humanities students are all crazyradical pomo socialists who do nothing but have protest and kick puppies all day always boggled me because the bulk of the student protest-type activity goes on at the campus that's largely the realm of Creative Industries/Education/Health.

So, what's that got to do with amusing me? Well, I've spent most of my day with other humanities students organising a protest/rally/meeting thing about this whole dissolving my department crap.

There's something that strangely amuses me about that.

Mark at Larvatus Prodeo (who was actually a tutor of mine wayback in first year) has a much more coherent post about QUT closing down its Humanities school and degrees (Arts and Social Sciences, basically) than I can manage at this point. He covers well how this whole affair really contradicts the right-wing culture-warriors claim that humanities and universities are overrun with "brainwashing po-mo socialists".

Incidentally, I wasn't previously aware of UQ's vice-chancellor labelling those who want philosophy and classics to maintain their vibrancy as "sentimentalists". I mean, sure, I was never going to touch UQ with a ten foot pole, but when Griffith is your last bastion of humanities*, I really do start feeling like I'll need to move back to Sydney, or to Melbourne or Canberra, to actually get the education I want, and the kind of academic work I want. And aside from Canberra being an attractive option whilst $tephen is there, I don't want to leave Brisbane. I moved here for a reason, and I don't want to have to choose between my career and a city I love. Not to mention the sick feeling in my stomach that this shit's going to spread to the rest of the country, and what that will mean.

And honestly, I'm feeling really bad, at the moment. When there were just rumours of them selling Carseldine campus, and shifting everything to Kelvin Grove? Yeah, I was cranky, because I'm rather fond of my nice small campus where I know everyone even if the food is kinda shitty. But when they're shutting down the entire fucking school, and rendering my degree non-existent, it's like, this is the place in which I learned how I'm actually rather competent, and not stupid. And now the institution that gave me a place in which to learn and be encouraged to think and be challenged in ways I never had is basically saying "We don't want you, because you won't make lots of money when you graduate and make us look good, because we don't actually care what YOU want."** And maybe it's irrational for me to look at it like that, but that's honestly how it feels. I've spent the last four years having various academic staff hover around me and ask me about postgraduate study and want to know what I'd like to do and make me think about academia and make me realise that hey, I think I could love doing this. Whilst I know it's not the fault of those staff members, because I hardly think they're behind a plan that renders them jobless, I honestly feel rather betrayed more generally. It's like I've had this thing waved under my nose for four years until I really really want it, and it's been yanked out from under me when I'm just so fucking close. I mean, seriously, my last undergraduate class is in like 6 weeks, for fuck's sake.

I also feel bad for the students who have much longer to go than me, because I don't doubt a whole bunch of the teaching staff will start securing work elsewhere, which will likely result in the learning opportunities for those students diminishing considerably.

Incidentally, a bunch of us were sitting around campus being generally angry and sad and so on about the whole affair, and at one point those of us considering postgrad were talking about where we might go, and someone asked if I might consider going to Bond if I got a scholarship. And the thought hadn't actually occurred to me, but when I thought about it, I realised that I really don't think I could. Bond U is one of the few private universities in Australia (I think we've got two?), and whilst I've heard some good things about it, I just believe too much in public higher education for a scholarship to convince me that Bond U is a good idea. Honestly, as I said to the person who asked, I think I'd just feel kinda dirty.

I'm angry about the fact that it took The Courier Mail running articles about it for people to decide that letting students know directly might be a good idea. At four in the afternoon. It's telling that Coaldrake's happy to shoot his mouth off to The Courier Mail without considering that they might publish his comments before someone told the fucking students what was going on. And really, the staff don't know a whole lot either, given they're going on what happened at a meeting that occurred on Friday, which, from what I've heard today from folks who were there, wasn't particularly enlightening. But mostly I'm just feeling really sad and awful and betrayed.


Oh, in other news, I do have a linkspost coming. I was going to get it done tonight, but I just needed to get a lot of this off my chest. There'll probably be some more about this during the week as I get the chance to talk to some more of the academics and other students, but I promise a linkspost is coming.

*Because honestly, I know ACU has a Brisbane Campus that's Northside to boot, but I suspect that my interest in feminist, queer and critical race theory is hardly going to be nurtured as research output at Australian Catholic University. Maybe that's a little harsh, even aside from that, I'm far too lapsed a Catholic to feel comfortable there.
**This is actually one of the things that bugs me about this 'poor graduate outcomes' bollocks. I'm working on gut intuitions here, so anyone who has data is welcome to challenge this, but aside from the fact that humanities by nature is much less vocational-outcome-driven than other degrees it's being compared to, it seems plausible to me that there are more students in Humanities degrees that just aren't seeking the kinds of outcomes those in other degrees want.

This is the stench of an enraged soul.

The next person who tries to tell me Australian Universities are overrun by socialists gets a fucking cluebat to the skull.

More later when I'm less rage-y and more rant-y. This is gonna be a long-un.

In the meantime, anyone got suggestions for where I might want to do Honours in '08 (Zero points for anyone who suggests UQ)?

Please count this as a request for shiny distractions.

For the moment, I will go watch Alias.

Tonight's presentation went well. I had a slight panic because the bulk of my notes were in the Notes section of the Powerpoint file, which, as I'd somehow managed to forget, isn't visible when you're running the slideshow. Still, I managed to wing it quite successfully, and both my tutor and the lecturer (who was sitting in) had very good things to say after class. So I'm feeling pretty confident and pleased with myself.

I talked to my folks tonight, and they've for some reason decided they want to take holidays in the second half of this year (Dad's taking his Long Service Leave), and are wanting to take me with them. Dad wants to go to Scotland, Mum wants to go to China, and Dad was suggesting a China & Scotland trip. Honestly, I hadn't really thought about going overseas this year. I mean, Scotland would be particularly cool, since I haven't been there yet, but I must admit the prospect of not one but two 20+ hour flights with my folks doesn't really appeal. I mean, really, I have enough trouble coping with a few hours with them in a situation where I can leave; being trapped in the air for considerably longer seems almost unthinkable. I don't think they'll be devastated if I don't go, but there's this part of me going "Um, when are they going to offer to pay for you to go overseas again?" I dunno. We'll see how I feel in a few months, I guess.

Not life news, but this is just too odd: A US Court has decided that contraception and pregnancy are not related. I'm sorry, what? *boggle*

Note: This is a rather milder version of what will go on the filter once I set it up. Some of the filtered stuff may well be used in longer and more focussed posts, either here or at Shrub (or both) later down the track, though the stuff relating to assessment items will have to wait until after semester.

It took ten minutes into the first Sex & Gender tutorial for someone to pull out the "feminists hate men" shite. Of course, this wasn't helped by the fact that the lecturer is characterising radical feminism as "aiming to control and constrain male sexuality". I mean, shit. There's problems I have with radical feminism, but that's just... To be fair, the first time I read MacKinnon I wanted to poke my eye out with a stick, but when you really read it, she's got a point in some respects.

( Wherein I babble about MacKinnon and female sexuality )

It's highly likely that Tuesday afternoons will be periodically spammy around here. I've got a 10am-1pm class, followed by a 6pm-9pm class. Yeah, that's 5 hours on campus. The theory is that I'll use that time to do reading and stuff, but Tuesday is also Feminism Day*, so it's likely some rambling and occasional rantiness may ensue**.

So consider yourselves warned.

In other news, I'm a peer academic adviser again this semester, which means my Mondays are now being spent on campus (because someone else got the Tuesday afternoon shift), doing some metaphorical hand-holding of (mostly) first-years. *shrug* It's not bad work, plus it's extra money, and looks good on the CV wrt my ability to deal with students.

*10am is Sex, Gender & Society, 6pm is Feminism & Ethics. Thus, Feminism Day was born. Or something.

**I have a "has been stewing in my head for a while" rant about the complete lack of attention paid to race/sex intersection and the like across the gender studies subjects around here, and the minimal attention paid to race issues in general outside global/international studies and indigenous studies, and the former only occasionally deals with race issues within Western societies. Of course, the fact that I can count the gender studies subjects on one hand doesn't help matters either. I have a distinct feeling I'll be doing my PhD elsewhere, when I get to that point. (Yeah, I said when. shutup.)

Uni results are up!

HHB112 AUSTRALIAN POLITICS 6 (Distinction) 76%
HHB122 COL & INDEP IN ASIA-PACIFIC 7(High Distinction) 96%
HHB271 ETHICAL THEORY 7(High Distinction) 89%
HHB328 RESEARCHING APPLIED ETHICS 7(High Distinction) 92%

And, my GPA is back up to 6.5 after that nasty incident with the Credit last year. This pleases me. That said, the 6 for Aust Politics was just barely scraped (2% less and I'd be cursing another Credit), but still. From everything I've heard about the lecturer, he's a hard marker, and knew I was third year and was likely expecting more despite it being a first year subject. And hey, a low-end Distinction is still a Distinction as far as my transcript is concerned. So w00!

All in all, a successful semester. And a sign that take-a-semester-off plan earlier in the year was a good one.

Note for international readers: Our grading scale goes from 1-7, a perfect GPA is 7.0, and I need above 5.0 to qualify for Honours. 6.5 means I'm doing well.

Exams are over.

And seriously? Damn I wish I had more exams that consist of sitting in a room with my lecturer and having a conversation about feminist theory and marginalised voices for half an hour. Best. Exam. Ever.

And now, summer vacation! Hurrah!