Cravats (and other things that happened today)

Cravats, eh? Not quite a topic that one usually writes about in the early 21st century. Well, here's how that came about: the majority of my work gear is from op shops--Goodwill, other thrift stores, second hand places in cities I go to, online thrifting, and so on. It's environmentally more sustainable and, more importantly, cheaper. 

The reason I bring this up is because today (Wednesday) is a day I don't teach. I usually end up doing some writing, contemplating cleaning my place (contemplation doesn't often turn into action), and doing chores. Today, I bagged up a bunch of clothes, shoes, etc and took them to the local Goodwill. 

While there, this happened: 

Me: Oh, I'm going to drop off a big bag of stuff and not actually browse.
Also me: There's a shirt that comes with its own cravat. For $1.90. Come home with me, my precious!

[I'm wearing it to class at the next cool (temperature-wise, not otherwise) day as it's a full-sleeved shirt.
I may be more excited about the opportunity to tie my own cravat than is seemly.
*filed under: academia has its issues but being able to wander into work in 19th century (earlier?) gear is definitely a plus]

It was also a day during which the NYT claims the President placed Chad on the travel ban list against the advice from the State Department and DoD; The president himself gave an unfathomable (Is that the accurate term here?) response when asked why Sudan was dropped from the list; aid remains slow to reach Puerto Rico; next year, the US will accept the lowest number of refugees in almost 30 years; som kind of law means we'll never find out what happened to the policeman who mistakenly arrested James Blake (and slammed him to the ground) and, for work, I came across this "Visualising violence" special issue of Global Discourse that I've bookmarked to read over the weekend.

National Security class tomorrow at 8am. The topic is non-violence so let's see how *that* goes. 

So it's been another year...

I seem to be doing this more and more often. Well, here we go again. It's been another year and I will try to be more frequent in my updates. Most of the things on here will be about what I notice in my wanderings in Southwest Virginia as I live/work here. There will be (some) rants about Things in the News, and about sports/sci fi (not both together. Though maybe both together?)

What happened in that one year, yous ask? Well, you don't but I'll tell you:

1. My dad had a sudden cardiac arrest (aka a massive heart attack) last September. The odd thing was that he'd had a full check up the week before and had been given the all clear. He is a hiker/walker and always active. Then, this happened. He was in hospital for 3 months. My parents had to put up their house for sale for medical expenses. He's all right now--walking 2 miles a day, watching cricket, discussing politics but, for months, we weren't sure what would happen. Would he be ok? What would "ok" entail? It's hard being thousands of miles away while things like this are happening.

I realized that, while academia is flexible (I'm on a 9 month contract and so I have "time off" in summer), it is not flexible always. I couldn't just quit teaching and go to my folks, for example. There were classes to be taught, student papers to be graded, etc. I couldn't take (unpaid) leave because it's not just me who depends on my salary.

But, hey, my dad's all right for now. I spent two months with him and my mum over summer. We (Dad and I--mum sensibly stayed home) forded flooded streets, got stuck when the roads were washed away, and generally had a grand time. I am deeply grateful to the powers that be for this time but I can't help thinking if I'd stuck with my job (pre-PhD), I'd have been on hand to help, no financial worries, and a place to stay in a country with good healthcare (Thailand). Ah well. Choices.

2. Right, while all this was going on in the other side of the world, I had to get my file together for my tenure application. This was around September/October too. Yeah, Fall 2017 was memorable. No one in my department had gone up for tenure and promotion since I started since 2011. It was stressful but not as much as people kept asking me about--I was more concerned about my dad, my mum who had to take care of everything (and who is a cancer survivor herself) and my head wasn't even in SW Virginia. In May 2017, I found out I was approved for tenure and promotion--so, yay!

3. I've got things I want to say about being with my folks in the summer and doing research but that might have to be another post. Future posts will be short(er) and (most likely) just snippets of life here. Like this:

Date: 24 September, 2017
Time: 10.51pm
Place: road leading to the park next to my house in the 'burg

Small mouselike creature =0.
Also small (mostly obnoxious) dog = 1.

First (hopefully last) dog-related MURDER! of the fall season...

[I usually don't let her eat the creatures since who knows what diseases they carry. She's also not too keen on them once they are dead (aka stop struggling, aka stop "playing"). This means I end up with a half/mostly-dead creature that I have to finish off. Today: shovel to the body--it was squishy as. Packed up in a bag and chucked in rubbish bin. Thankfully, no neighbors around to be horrified]

[The excitement never stops in this town]

And this is what living here has done to me: 

2011 me: 

2011 me: WTF. WTF. WTF. A half dead creature. (small scream) 

2017 me: Yeah, hit it with a shovel and killed it dead. Look what academia has turned me into.

On bites (and reactions to)

Warning: a fairly gruesome image follows...

Despite having lived here for five years now, I've been fairly lucky in the whole: get bit by terrifying things part of things. I haven't, despite spending a lot of time in the woods and outdoors. You would think that, after spending years in Far North Queensland (hello sandflies!), SW Virginia would be a paradise of non-insect life but that's not the case. I live in a house that's almost 100 years old and used to be an undergrad residence before I moved in. There are cracks from which insects emerge, probably various crevices that the spider-cricket hybrid that exists in this part of the world lives in, and I've seen different types of scurrying creatures in the basement as I go to do my laundry.

Every time I return from a few weeks away, the house is filled with dead earwigs. I have no idea where they come from but they are everywhere. This summer, I found some in between pages of my books on the bookshelves.

All this is to say that insects are not rare in this part of the world. I've never been fond of insects--of any kind (is anyone?)--but we've kept a wary distance during my existence here. We seem to know the other exists and give each other a wide berth--helped by the fact that Dog tends to eat anything that moves. That changed a few days ago when I found my arms and hands covered with bites. They were extremely itchy and, after a few days, the skin around them died (? -- became hard and crusty). Right now, I'm at the stage where it looks as though part of my hand is about to fall off.

I have no idea what did this or how it happened but people's reactions have ranged from: What happened there?! to telling me of the many (many!) terrible things this could be: flesh-eating bacteria, chicken pox, wasps, burns...a nice lady at the grocery shop held my hand as she told me a story of how, in her day, no one swam in the rivers as it was "well known there are insects there that, when they bite, you can't move and that is it, sweetie".

The practice of strangers talking to you--a common habit in SW Virginia life in my experience--means I've also been told of many ways in which I can deal with this. So far, I'm going with the: let's put iodine on it and hope it goes away soon approach.

I'll write a bit about classes next time. For now, here's how my hand looks (arms are worse)

Back in the 'burg (and posting regularly--I hope--this semester)

So, after summer spent with parents, one of whom has been spending a fair bit of time in hospital (getting better), I returned to the US of A a few weeks back. This is going to be a very busy semester--more so than usual for reasons that will become clear as we proceed--and I figure I'll write about some of the things I see/note around here, both at work and when I'm out and about in the area. For reference, I volunteer (sometimes) and am working on doing something in the so-called outdoors once every couple of weeks or so. I also pop into gas stations, visit fairs and yard sales, drive dogs about, and such. I'll try write about some of these experiences and encounters.

I'm teaching two classes in the Fall--a senior seminar on Diplomacy and Security that I'm running as one on terrorism and counterterrorism and a National Security class for upper-level undergrads. The senior seminar is my 15th? 16th? new prep since I started here. I know. I'm also doing an independent study -- on radicalization - with some graduate students. Add the usual committee assignments, panic/worry over not having done enough work over the summer and it's likely to be a fairly (quite) busy Fall.

I've taught the NatSec class before but this semester we have three different versions of it. We also have a new Security Studies Concepts class and so I ditched a lot of the theoretical classes as I reckon they'll be covered in the Security Studies class (on Securitization, feminist and postcolonial approaches). I also changed classes on police militarization (which, last semester, almost led to blows in class) and added sections on State Terrorism. Otherwise, it's a fairly straightforward class that examines some key concepts still and then moves towards "issues". So far, I've got a full class signed up. Let's see how many stick around after the semester starts next week.

For the Senior Seminar, I've got 11 students now. I think 8-10 is a good number but we'll see how it goes. I feel that since the class is only advertised as "Senior Seminar: Diplomacy and Security", students don't really know what they are getting or what will be the topic. I think quite a few faculty make posters and pin them around but I wasn't too organized for that.

Not much to add. I still need to put up readings online and am trying to finish writing a paper that has done the rounds of different journals and emerged differently each time. Those types of things are the hardest to place--by the time it's gone to Journal No. 3, I forget what the reason I wrote it for was. Ah well, as is the norm in academia, keep at it I guess. Sometimes, though, I miss the proper 7am-3pm, paid almost as much as I get paid now job I had in my early 20's...

This weekend, I'll be walking dogs, signing up to foster for a shelter in a nearby town, and checking out an Auto Fair and Swap Meet at a nearby town. The plan is to also send off this one article before the semester begins on Monday.

Days at home

I'm back in Nepal for the summer, trying to do some research but mainly helping out/hanging out with family. It's been raining a lot and most of my travel plans to villages and areas where I'd planned to do fieldwork have been on hold. I am now trying to follow up some leads for interviews and hopefully will have enough for the book manuscript by the end of my time here. Let's see.

One of the best bits of being back here is the shift between how I think of time when in the US of A and how it is here. Doing one thing here--calling a plumber to get the pump that pumps water to the underground tank fixed (we've not had running water for decades!)--takes a day. Going somewhere takes a day. This is how a day in Kathmandu looks like...

Wake up, drink tea*

Meander about and help Mum with breakfast for her, dad, uncle, etc (whoever's popped in)

Run errands: go to the shop, buy veggies, wash clothes and hang them, go in search of the 'net, etc

Lunchtime (rice, daal, veggies--always :-))

Try figure out one thing per day (e.g. how to clean out the study/how to pay for 6 months of Internet or if we still have a post box at the post office. Calling a plumber is something that takes all day)

Drink tea

Evening: check out the fruit trees around the house--mangoes, guava, persimmon, pomelo, pears or go for a (short) wander outside

Watch TV if lights are on

Dinner (usually roti and veggies or momo)

Hang out with the folks, sleep

* I never drink tea when I'm not here or with my other family back in the US. It's like "tea=family" and can't be had anywhere else...

Research snippet

a) I've mentioned this before but Papers Past is a brilliant brilliant thing and all my thanks to the people who made it happen (I did say this in person. But can't be said enough)

b) Reading about Maori soldiers (and how they were viewed locally in New Zealand) in WWI, I came across this gem. I think the best bit is where the guy reports some Swiss dude (ok, granted some Swiss dudes know how to climb mts) *taught* a Nepali lad the art of climbing. 

Because obviously what Nepalis who guide mountaineers don't know how to do is climb mountains smile emoticon 

c) distractions abound! You may note this has nothing to do with the actual subject I"m researching (a) but olden times newspapers are such a wonder!

Here's the link to the story about Zurbriggen's Axe

Can I trust what I see (on the internets)?

No.

So, I think this whole: Let's turn X landmark into colours of Y country that has had a terrorist attack is...well, thoughts beyond here especially as this is turning out to be a semester in which I feel overwhelmed and, often, under attack (and thus anxious). 

But, it is something that is done. And it is something that is done for *some* terrorist attacks and not others. And then we seek to see whether it was done for Z attack and are thankful/share that, oh yes, Paris was in solidarity with Lahore (based on the Eiffel Tower allegedly turning into Pakistan's flag. SPOILER ALERT: it didn't)

I guess the point is: a) we shouldn't ask for the Eiffel tower or whatever to change its lights whenever there is an attack 

b) but it seems fair to ask why does it change lights for *some* attacks and not others 

c) it also seems like we could ask what does this sharing of "oh Paris did this" say about us and what we seek (a recognition of common humanity? A sense that Pakistani kids/women matter too?). 

d) I dunno. I have lots of thoughts on this. But I admit I was surprised and then unsurprised that the Eiffel tower in green photo was of when South Africa won the rugby world cup (!) rather than anything to do with Lahore.*

* I'm basing this off Twitter and this source but I think the rest of my a) to d) stands even if it turns out the Eiffel Tower in Pakistani flag picture was accurate. 

The politics of visualization (and seeing) remains fascinating and, in this case, troubling about what it says about "us".