Unraveling

The American Sociological Association Annual Election

2010-05-18T13:16:00.000-07:00

I just spent close to an hour voting in the annual ASA election. I take all voting seriously as a general rule, so I never just choose people that I know and like, unless I can't make a distinction between candidates using another criteria.

For the national-level elections, my reasoning goes a little like this:

My first criterion (and I will not budge on this): I do not vote for people who do not take the time to write a personal statement. I don't care how well I know you, how much I admire your body of scholarship, teaching, or service record, or whether you're kind of cute in your picture. I figure that if you don't have the time to sit down and tell the electorate why you think you would make a good candidate (in several sentences - I'm not looking for a speech), then I should give my vote to somebody who does take the time to do so.
This does not mean that I vote for everybody who writes a personal statement. The statement earns you my attention, but then I actually take the time to read what you wrote. If you write something vague (e.g., "I want to increase diversity within the ASA.") I'm less likely to take you seriously than if you write something with more substance (e.g., "I am concerned that the leadership in ASA has represented 4-yr., doctoral granting institutions, and that the voices of ASA members at liberal arts, community colleges, and non-academic institutions are getting lost. I hope to use my position to increase institutional diversity within the ASA.").

My reasoning differs for the section-level elections. For the section-level elections, only institutional affiliation, educational credentials, publications, and service are included - that means there's no personal statement (or picture). I find this much trickier. Here's a snapshot of this process, but this is less a "first/second" list than a "conglomeration of things I look at" list:

Fortunately, I am more likely to be familiar with the scholarly work cited by the section candidates than national candidates, so sometimes I'm able to discern between people based on first-hand experience with their work.
Educational credentials by themselves don't tend to impress me, but I am impressed when somebody has won teaching or research awards, especially for certain positions.
As a last resort, when I know absolutely nothing about the candidates in question, I resort to looking at research and professional accomplishments and choosing the candidate who I think is doing interesting work. This is not my preferred method, but it's the best one I have in extreme situations.

In the end, a lot of this process ends up being subjective. The ASA is a large organization, and it's impossible to have first-hand knowledge of all nominees. How do you choose your ASA representatives?

Why I'm No Longer a Fundamentalist Christian - Part III

2010-04-18T13:07:00.000-07:00

Reason #2 - The Music

This post is not intended to bash Christian music - Christian music, like all musical genres, is filled with the talented and the not-so-talented. There was a time when I exclusively listened to Christian music, and I will always have a soft spot in my heart for Jars of Clay, Amy Grant, and Michael W. Smith. Like it or not, music heard during certain time periods has a visceral way of connecting us to memories, as I was strongly reminded of this last weekend when I ran across this song by Audio Adrenaline while searching around the radio dial. If you're not familiar with this song, be careful before you look it up on YouTube - it's quite catchy.

Song Lyrics

What this post is about is cultural control, and the possibility that before condemning culture, perhaps we should know more about it. In eighth grade, my teachers at the Christian school began a program to control the popular culture that we students consumed. The following anecdote describes this program well.

One day, we were "treated" to a movie, a movie that described a lot of the popular music at the time as "satanic." The movie went through bands systematically, starting (as I remember) with heavy metal (Guns N' Roses, Alice in Chains (my husband disputes whether Alice in Chains is heavy metal, with good reason), Metallica, etc.), and ending with The Beatles' infamous satanic message in Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds that can only be heard if you play the song backwards! With each band, much was made of the symbolism they chose to use (skeletons and fire were the worst offenders), and sometimes the lyrics they sang were also targeted. The movie itself was problematic, but it's not the crux of this story.

The day after watching this movie, we had our usual prayer time at the beginning of Bible class. Before praying, it was customary for students to share if they had a "praise" or a "concern" that they wished somebody else in the class to pray about on their behalf. I remember quite clearly when one of the most popular students in class stated a "praise" that he had. The day before, he had gone home after school and thrown away all of his Metallica cds. At this news, many of my classmates made noises of assent. In that environment, such behavior was clearly praise-worthy.

Fast forward ten years to the beginning of graduate school (almost 10 years ago now)...now, no longer a Christian, I had just met the man that I eventually married, whose favorite band of all-time happened to be Metallica. GASP! My gut reaction upon learning this was a mixture of awe, horror, and incredulity. The man that I liked so much could not possibly like such an awful musical group, could he?

Well, it turns out that some of Metallica's lyrics are actually quite socially conscious, as can be seen in the lyrics below:

Song Lyrics

My mind was blown. I had shaken off the ideology of Christianity, but it shocked me to find I still had such a strong emotional reaction to non-Christian cultural products. To be fair, I don't find heavy metal music particularly pleasing to listen to (and still don't choose to listen to it to relax), but I was concerned that I equated Metallica with evil on an emotional level, rather than forming my own opinion of their lyrics separate from their sound. What a lasting impression a movie I had watched in 8th grade, and the actions of a fellow student, had years later. The implications of this for fundamentalist Christians trying to communicate with "others" seem stark. If I, as a "reformed" fundamentalist Christian, was still so emotionally invested in the cultural message, it seems hard to believe that somebody still steeped in the emotional appeal would be able to get beyond the emotion to have rational discussion. But this is something to think about another day.

In retrospect, I think that the movie we watched in 8th grade used words like "satanic" and "evil" to get us to blindly buy into the notion that certain cultural content was simply unacceptable. I wonder, though, whether the creators of the film were really concerned with music like Metallica's being satanic, or whether they were more concerned with getting us to avoid lyrics like the following:

Song Lyrics

Cher - The Perfect End to the Week

2009-11-13T13:57:00.001-08:00

"If I Could Turn Back Time" is playing on my earbuds and I'm packing up to go home for the weekend. The energy of the song fits my ebullience at leaving the office, although I'm really ready to go forward right now, not back. Hello weekend!

Cherish

2009-10-13T06:14:00.000-07:00

From the ages of 5-18, I was a devoted pianist. Although I primarily played classical music, I also was interested in popular music, and would often ask my piano teacher to find sheet music for particular songs. This sometimes resulted in misunderstandings, as in the following account.

One day I asked my teacher to find me the music for the song Cherish. I did not specify the artist, but I was thinking of this.*

Not this.

I remember being very disappointed at receiving The Association's version, but we got it worked out eventually.

*In retrospect, this video of Madonna's seems quite sweet and innocent, especially in contrast to other videos** released during that time period. Also, I love how the person who posted this video comments that it's from the 1989 "Like a Player" album. Nice!

**We didn't have MTV until I was 16, so I had to catch glimpses of videos at my neighbor's house. Since I blushed just listening to the lyrics of Simon and Garfunkel's Cecilia, it shouldn't surprise anyone that these videos made me decidedly uncomfortable.

Breathe, Practicing Idealist, Breathe

2009-10-07T13:42:00.000-07:00

On Friday (after my students' exam had begun) -
Student: "Dear professor - I am home sick. Can I take the exam on Monday?"
Me: "Yes. Let me know when you would like to take it. You can take it any time between 11 and 4."

On Saturday - NOTHING

On Sunday - NOTHING

On Monday during class -
Student: "Can I take the exam at 4:00?"
Me: "Yes."

On Monday at 4:30 -
Me: "Dear Student, you are now past the time you said you would be here to take the exam. You MUST make it up on Wednesday between 11 and 4, or I will not allow you to make it up."

On Tuesday - NOTHING

Today, after failing to show up for class -
Student: "I'm sorry I wasn't in class. Can I take the test at 4?"
Me: "Yes, but I'm leaving at 5:00."

Today at 4:30 -
Student: "I'm here to take the test. I'll take it until you have to leave at 5:00."

Me: "No, I'll give you full time to take the exam, but we need to talk when you're finished."

Grrr....

All the good boys, baby they're in grad school...

2009-09-28T08:44:00.000-07:00

My husband and I recently purchased the latest Vienna Teng album, Inland Territory.* We listened to the entire album on our way to go apple picking this past weekend, and one song in particular caught our attention.

Grandmother Song relates a message from grandmother to granddaughter about love, life, and generally making use of the advantages females have now that they did not have in the past. Two lines were particularly amusing to us:

All the good boys, baby they're in grad school

Followed several stanzas later by:

How you gonna raise a family when you're on the road
With some tattooed boy with a guitar

When we figured out what she was saying, we erupted in laughter. The song hits very close to my early experiences in graduate school, tempted by the "boy with a guitar," but knowing deep down that the good boy (the best boy) was right next to me in graduate school. I'm so glad I figured that one out.

*Teng is amazing pianist, in addition to being an excellent vocalist.

A Typical Stats Situation for Me

2009-09-17T13:16:00.001-07:00

"Ignoring the more technical definition, Rubin (1996) states the following main

conditions. The multiple imputations are said to be proper if:

1. MI estimates bQMI are asymptotically normal with mean bQ and a consistent variance–covariance estimate B.

2. The within-imputation variance estimateW is a consistent estimate of the variance–covariance estimate U with variability of a lower order than Var(bQMI)."
-Stata Help Manual

Oh yes!!! That's right! I forgot that Rubin ignored the more technical definition. Silly me!

Why I'm No Longer a Fundamentalist Christian - Part II

2009-09-08T08:45:00.000-07:00

Reason #1 - The Fear Factor

In my last post, I introduced the social context (a private evangelical Christian school) in which I first learned about fundamentalist Christianity. In this post, I am going to describe and analyze my conversion experience. This post will likely be quite serious, but my next post will probably be about music, so the heaviness should lift a little.

As I mentioned in my last post, not only did the curriculum at my new school contain Bible classes, we also had Chapel once a week, which functioned much like a normal Christian church experience. In addition to these formalized opportunities to learn about Christianity (which included watching this movie* about the rapture, complete with people-less lawnmowers driving into hedges, electric razors spinning in sinks, and people being guillotined in the middle of a thunder storm), there were also numerous informal opportunities that reinforced the underlying message that god was to be our "all in all," from saying grace before our lunch, to discussions of the books we were reading in our spare time, to random comments that Mormons and Catholics were not "true" Christians. The school functioned much as a total institution, and this was especially true for those students whose parents also believed the message being spread by the school.

My parents did not believe. And neither did I...at first.

As you may expect, this caused me a great deal of cognitive dissonance. The authority figures and my peers at school were teaching me things that my parents (also authority figures) did not believe. And perhaps I would never have decided to convert if I had merely noticed the difference of opinion, but for the fact that the influences from the Christian school had one tool that my parents did not have: fear.

Think about this for a minute. There's no long-term penalty for not believing in evolution. Darwin is not invoked as a deity who will smite the unbeliever. People do not have to believe in the wonder and pragmatics of the scientific method to hold a job.** On the other extreme, one could even live their whole life believing that we all descended from an ancient race of super-people, without having to fear anything but occasional ridicule.

But that's not the reality for fundamentalist Christians (and please remember I'm talking about my experience with fundamentalist Christianity, not more liberal varieties). The penalties for non-belief were explicitly clear, and I was frightened of the consequences. To put this another way, at my young age of 12, burning in hell just did not seem like the best choice.

I decided to convert. To my credit (if I'm correctly remembering), I did not convert until Christmas break of my first semester at the school. This means that I did think about this decision for several months, and I remember speaking about it with both my parents and my Bible teacher (although mostly my parents).

So on a cold, dark Northern California evening, right before dinner, I sat down in my closet with the light off and prayed for Jesus to come into my heart and "save" me. Given that I was 12, I think the best interpretation of this event was that I wanted to be saved from eternally burning to death (i.e., I was motivated by fear). But at that moment, and in the many years that followed, I believed in the larger story, that Jesus was a real person who came to earth and died for my sins through his great love for me, and that the only way to get to heaven was through having Jesus live in my heart, not merely by living a good life (the whole concept is described nicely here).

Right after this experience, I went sobbing into the kitchen to find my mom, who was quite concerned at my tears and wanted an explanation. And I told her that I was crying because I was going to go heaven and she and my father were going to go to hell (I wasn't worried about my sister, because she also went to the Christian school, and I was pretty sure she was "saved" already). To this day, I am ashamed of myself for saying those words.

I could analyze my conversion to Christianity in a variety of ways. I've dabbled enough in sociological explanations of conversion to realize that the two variables most likely to predict conversion were present for me: 1) I had intensive interaction with fundamentalist Christians at my school, and 2) I had affective attachments to many of the people at my school, both with friends and faculty (in addition, my best friend at the time, whom I had met at the public school two years earlier, was a fundamentalist Christian). In other words, the social context was ripe for conversion. But this is an incomplete answer to why I converted. I can recognize that the social context was ripe, but my personal analysis always comes back to the "fear factor."

I was not lead to convert through messages of god's love alone, or even through messages of how to live a good life, but also through fear. And although I bought into the love message for a long time (long after I had discarded almost everything else I had formerly believed to be true, and was still clinging to a dying identity), I was always afraid: afraid of not being nice enough to others, afraid of going to hell, afraid somebody would find out that evolution just made a lot more sense to me than young-earth creationism,*** etc.

I suppose when I finally de-converted (the last vestiges held on until I was 19, and a sophomore in college), I had gained enough wisdom to realize that not only did I not believe in the need to be converted, but that living life through fear is no way to live, that any loving god who existed would not want me living life with such a debilitating weight on my shoulders. And I have never looked back.

*My husband now has this movie on our Netflix cue. If, and when, it ever becomes available, he will likely be watching it alone. Once was enough for me.

**For a mind-blowing experience, try to envision a presidential race in the U.S. between an atheist and a Christian (any variety, even Mormon or Catholic - shocking, I know). Despite our claims to want to have church and state separate, we are not always good at practicing what we preach. Hm...

***In 8th grade I was required to write a report debunking Neanderthal Man. I cringe thinking about it now. My husband desperately wants to read it; yes, he is fascinated by my experiences of the fundamentalist Christian school - he became an avowed atheist around the same time I became an avowed Christian.

Dr. Idealist

2009-08-31T10:24:00.000-07:00

I recently decided that it's time to stop encouraging my students to call me by my first name.

This really has nothing to do with them, it's more about my need to self-identify as a non-student now. I don't think I was quite ready to do this last year, because I still felt like an impostor. But going to the ASA meetings helped change this - I sat in panels, actively thought about the research, and felt qualified enough to make substantive comments about the work. While I did all of this before, I didn't feel as confident in my knowledge, nor in my wisdom to know when to correctly apply my knowledge (or to keep my mouth shut when I really know nothing!!!).*

So now I'm answering emails with Dr. Idealist, rather than Practicing.*** It feels weird, but after awhile it will start to feel normal, as I ossify into my professional identity more and more, and leave behind the student identity I cherished for 83% of my life.

*To be fair to myself, I always was "wise" enough to keep my mouth shut, because I did believe I knew nothing, which I guess made me unwise because I didn't speak up when I should have? Now, I am starting to realize the differences between what I really do know something about (and speak up about it!), and the vastly wider area of stuff that I still know nothing about.**

**I love the ridiculousness of the wording in that previous footnote. It makes me happy sometimes to write convoluted language.

***Note: I would much prefer signing Professor to Dr., but since I'm still a postdoc, it's not really the right term. Dr. does seem awkward, though.

America

2009-08-28T06:38:00.000-07:00

What a wonderful reminder this cartoon/article* in the New York Times is this morning, as I prepare for my first day of Race and Ethnicity, which starts in 30 minutes.

*The illustrations and dialogue are beautiful. I encourage you to check it out!

Edward Kennedy

2009-08-26T05:50:00.000-07:00

Edward Kennedy died last night. Despite his many flaws, he always fought for those less fortunate, and for that I will be eternally grateful.

In December, while receiving an honorary degree at Harvard, he stated, “We know the future will outlast all of us, but I believe that all of us will live on in the future we make,” he said. “I have lived a blessed time.”

These is certainly a sentiment worth remembering, as I will be on Friday as I start teaching again.

Goodbye, Senator, and thank you.

Why I'm No Longer a Fundamentalist Christian - Part I: The Beginning

2009-08-25T06:04:00.000-07:00

Awhile ago I decided to start writing a series of posts detailing serious and not-so-serious reasons why I am no longer a fundamentalist Christian. I hope this will not simply be an exercise of self-analysis, but will also speak to larger issues of extremism, conformity, and identity processes, among other sociology-related topics.

So, to start, I will tell you the context in which I came to be a fundamentalist Christian, which seems a necessary background to the objective of explaining why I am no longer a fundamentalist Christian. I blame it on sixth grade, but I don't want to get too ahead of myself.

I did not grow up particularly religious. Although my mother occasionally took me and my little sister to church, it was always to liberal congregations (i.e., Congregational, Unitarian, United Methodist, Presbyterian).* And her main reason for taking us to church was not because she was worried about our souls going to eternal damnation if we weren't "saved," but because she thought that Christianity had some good lessons to teach (seriously, who doesn't think The Golden Rule is useful both individually and socially?).

My mother herself would probably be classified as agnostic, but this is somewhat tricky. The last time we talked about this, she believed that a man named Jesus lived (or at least someone thought he did), and he did good works. But she has never believed Jesus was the son of god, or that people have to take Jesus into their hearts to be saved from the fiery pits of Hell. And I'm not sure she even believes that there is a god anymore, but I think she did when we were little.** So I'll classify her as agnostic for lack of a better category.

My father, who grew up an actively participating Quaker (so active that he was able to legitimately claim alternative service status during the Vietnam War - he served as a hospital orderly), has been a self-proclaimed agnostic as long as I can remember. I'm not really sure why he stopped believing in god (if he ever did), but I think his young-adult experiences turned him away from any sort of organized religion - add to this that he is a medical doctor and scientist at heart. My father seems content in his agnosticism, and has never done anything I've seen to try to get beyond not knowing; it just doesn't seem to be an important enterprise for him.

As you can see, I did not grow up highly religious, or highly spiritual for that matter. I did grow up learning the value of curiosity and education.

But sixth grade was BAD,*** and my sister was also not having the time of her life in public school. Living in a relatively rural location, my parents had one option - a private, fundamentalist Christian school. I think they reasoned that the potential benefits outweighed the potential costs. After all, wouldn't Christian children be nicer than public school children? In addition, they let us make our own decision about which school to attend. And we wanted to go to the private school.****

So we matriculated into a school where Bible class became integrated into our daily curriculum, along with Math, Science, Language Arts, and Social Studies. Into a school where most of the children believed in a different reality from our previous reality, a reality that included Evil and Good constantly warring against one another - there was never any room for grey. And, lo and behold, we both eventually bought into it. But that is a post for another day.

*All four of these congregations range from fairly to extremely liberal in California. United Methodism in Georgia is a much different animal, as I will probably discuss in a future post.

**It's funny how a bunch of adverse conditions that never seem to relent can make one question their faith in a loving god who is watching out for each of us. Hmm...

***In retrospect, I have come to understand that middle school is bad for everybody, regardless of where you fall on the stratification hierarchy, but how was I supposed to understand that then? I just knew that every day hurt emotionally.

****I truly think this was a big mistake on my parents' part, although I am quite cognizant that they were doing the best they could. But think about it...my sister and I were 9 and 11 - hardly old enough to make what would become a very huge decision in our lives.

Should we be asking students for their opinions?

2009-07-28T10:26:00.000-07:00

I'm using a new reader this fall, and it has helpful "Questions to Consider" at the beginning of every reading. I LOVE this kind of thing, but I'm finding that most of the questions ask students for their opinions, rather than to recall information from the reading, or apply the information to another domain, etc. My main concern is that sociology (especially classes focusing on inequality) is often about showing students where their opinions end and good science begins, so I typically shy away from such opinion-based questions. Sometimes I will start with opinion questions, but I quickly steer the discussion towards empirically-based assertions (or try to).

I'd be curious to know what other teachers do. Do you start with opinion-based questions? Do you avoid them at all costs? And, if you do use opinion-based questions, how do you steer your students towards thinking about the sociology behind the topic at hand?

The Problem with Chex Mix

2009-06-09T10:53:00.000-07:00

The problem with Chex Mix is that although it may contain 60% less fat than potato chips, it still contains fat, and is still not the most healthy food around.

Back in the day (college), I was way more strict with myself about food. I wouldn't buy chips (although I did go through a pita chip phase during grad school). I would limit myself to one sweet thing a day. This lasted until a very stressful phase in grad school where I dropped to 124 lbs., and my doctor commanded me to eat more per day (this is when the pita chip obsession began - also my love of bagels with a TON of cream cheese on them). I ended up gaining back the weight, due to my wonderful husband's love, not the food. But I never went back to my strict policies with myself.

Which is unfortunate, because, while at a game night two weekends ago, the hosts offered us Chex Mix. Never before have I enjoyed Chex Mix so much. And now a bag of it is sitting in the pantry, calling to me, singing me its siren snacking song.

Must...have...willpower.

Props to Avril Lavigne and Howie Day

2009-06-08T06:39:00.000-07:00

...and a shout out to minor contributions from Dave Matthews' Band, Keane, and Billy Joel for helping me complete two successful months on the elliptical machine 3X/week for 30 minutes at a time.

After the asthma nightmare that lasted for months last summer and fall, I'm happy to be back doing more than walking the dog around our hilly neighborhood. And my lungs are feeling healthy and strong.

Woo-hoo health! And bring on the pollen!!!

Equality

2009-05-27T06:30:00.001-07:00

This morning my husband and I were talking about the CA supreme court's decision yesterday to uphold the legal status of marriage as a union between a man and a woman. And then the topic shifted to gay marriage more generally.

We both agree that gay marriage should be legal as marriage between a man and a woman is legal, but for slightly different reasons. His philosophy is that a plethora of issues should be legal unless there's a compelling reason for them not to be. Thus, since he can't see how letting two men or two women marry would hurt society, he is not opposed to gay marriage. In contrast, he would be opposed to marriage between adults and children, because there's a compelling argument that such an arrangement would cause undue harm to the children in question. For me, it's about equality; if I get the right to marry the person of my choosing (who happens to be straight), then I believe everyone else should get the right to marry the person of their choosing. Our arguments are very similar, and obviously come to the same conclusion. Additionally, I don't think either of our arguments are necessarily tied directly to the issue of gay marriage. For my husband, if actions are not hurting society, then they should be legal (whatever those actions are); for me, if I'm legally allowed to do something (whatever that something is), then others should also have the right.

I think opponents of gay marriage are also seeing a larger picture behind this particular issue. Their arguments may revolve around the definition of marriage as being between a man and a woman, but the driving force of such sentiment is about god's will. So again, the particular issue doesn't matter (it could be gay marriage, abortion, etc.), but whether the outcome fits within god's will does.

As someone who grew up in California, and attended a fundamentalist Christian school for two years while I lived there, I am not surprised that there is so much disagreement about gay rights in the state. Not all Californians are the same. There's extremely liberal regions in CA, and extremely conservative regions. It's a huge state, and there's bound to be severe disagreements.

What strikes me as more interesting than debates within CA are the three states where gay marriage has been legalized: Maine, Vermont, and Iowa (please correct me if my information is incomplete). We're not talking about states with large urban centers (traditional hotbeds of liberalism)...we're talking about states with large rural populations. So what is going on here?

My first response was to claim something about the culture of the Northeast (where quite a few other states have given legal rights to same-sex civil unions). Perhaps the ideals of two important religious traditions in the Northeast (Quakerism and Unitarian Universalism) supporting equal rights for all people have infused the general culture to a great enough extent that the populations are willing to push for equal marriage rights. But this leaves me not understanding Iowa. I confess I haven't spent much time in the Midwest, but I was somewhat shocked when Iowa legalized gay marriage. Is there a similar tradition (perhaps based on religion, or otherwise) of equal rights in Iowa? Or is Iowa the outlier to the pattern we've seen in the Northeast (and to a limited extent in the Northwest)? What do you think?

Growth

2009-05-25T10:19:00.000-07:00

I have always believed that the person you marry should challenge you to be your best self, and to grow and change when necessary.

Through knowing my husband for the past eight years, there are numerous ways I have grown, but today I'm reminded of how my views of the military have changed.

I grew up hearing stories about the huge fights my mother and father used to have with her family about the Vietnam War. My mother and my father, who grew up Quaker and did alternative service during Vietnam, did not believe in the war. In contrast, Uncle Jack (my mother's oldest brother), had enlisted in the Navy when he was 17 (I'm not sure how), had served in WWII, and was then serving in Vietnam. My Uncle Sonny (my mother's middle brother) had served in Korea as a radio technician, and my Uncle Jim (her younger brother) was drafted to serve in Vietnam as an airplane mechanic.

Although I knew that all three of my uncles had been in the military, I always leaned more towards my father's views of war. In fact, since I didn't believe in war as a good outcome to conflict, it didn't occur to me to think of the soldiers as separate from war, until I met my husband.

My husband, who has no family members in the military, but whose best friend was in the Marine Corps for quite a few years, has a tremendous sense of gratitude for the service of military personnel. This gratitude may be the result of growing up male and being a history buff, both of which have exposed him to the awful realities of war. Whatever the source of his gratitude, my husband has helped me to separate the wars from the individuals, and that has helped me to grow.

I still do not fundamentally believe in war as a solution to political problems (although I do realize its necessity, from time to time), I have come to have a deep appreciation for the men and women who serve in the armed forces. I may not understand why they choose to join the military, or endorse their beliefs (especially the ones who join because they want to further god's will), but they all put their lives on the line for their country, and for that I have immense respect.

On Saturday, my husband and I shook hands with two veterans collecting donations for the Veterans of Foreign Wars Foundation. I'll admit, it was hard for me to step beyond my revulsion for war and thank them, but it was worth it.

Pride

2009-04-30T13:25:00.000-07:00

Today was the last day of class, and my students applauded at the very end.*

It's a good day.

*I must say thank you to my husband for not telling me, "I told you so" when I recounted this story to him earlier. I've been stressing all semester about whether I was teaching a good class or not, and he's had the unenviable job of reassuring me. Well, apparently he was right that I'm a good teacher (or else I'm really good at fooling my class ; ).

Spousal Social Capital

2009-04-29T13:51:00.001-07:00

Today, after reading/editing/commenting on the fifth of the papers my husband has written this year, I realized what a benefit it is to him to have a sociologist for a wife (and for me to have a sociologist for a husband, of course ; ).

Not only can we assess the quality of each other's arguments, in addition to the regular editing tasks (watching for logical organization, comma splices, etc.), but having each other as spouses mean that we have an automatic confidant in the workplace.*

With only my own experience to go on, I'm prepared to say that our mutual career is an incredible asset professionally. And I'm wondering if such "spousal social capital" in the workplace will only become more common as more women have entered, and continue to enter, the workforce.

*Of course, this benefit has also sometimes taken the form of a curse. I remember a specific time period (around completing my dissertation), when I tried to forbid the discussion of sociology outside our department. Not only did this not work very well at all, it caused a bit of friction, since both of our identities are highly tied to being a sociologist, and of course you want to share important things with your spouse. Good times!

Family-Friendly Company

2009-04-06T06:25:00.000-07:00

NPR today has a story about family-friendly companies that are allowing parents to bring their young babies (up to six months old) to work.

The companies are finding that women come back to work earlier, which is useful, since approximately 1/4 of women quit their jobs when they have a baby. And the women feel a lot less stress because they don't have to leave their babies at such a young age.

The number of companies allowing this is small (approximately 140 in the U.S.), but the idealist in me has high hopes for the spread of the idea.

You can find the story here.

Pros and Cons of Being a Grown-Up

2009-04-01T13:04:00.001-07:00

Pros

own home
have nice, new car
live in a neighborhood where trash doesn't blow down the street, and undergrads don't constantly stream by on their way to class
have enough money to no longer need to live a hand-to-mouth existence
have "real" job

Cons

tricksy taxes

Thank you, Dolly Parton

2009-03-27T06:19:00.000-07:00

One of the nicest things about iTunes is the shuffle feature. It often reminds me of music I forgot I had, like Dolly Parton. I just listened to the song "Marry Me" on her Little Sparrow album (which is awesome). If you haven't listened to much of her music, she has a fabulous sense of humor in some of her lyrics, such as the following:

His momma don't like me one little bit
But you know I don't care
Let her pitch her hissy-fit
Cause I ain't a'marryin' her

Just hearing that brought a smile to my face...a nice way to finish up the week. And no, it did not bring a smile to my face because it reminded me of my own life - my mother-in-law is a very dear woman, with whom I get along quite nicely.

Have a nice weekend.

Why does this frustrate me so much?

2009-03-18T11:18:00.000-07:00

Early last week a student asked me for a recommendation that is due this Sunday. I told her I was happy to complete the recommendation, but that she needed to leave a signed copy of the recommendation form in my box by last Friday (this week is spring break), and email me at least a draft copy of her personal statement by this past Monday, so I'd have time to write her a thorough recommendation.

I didn't hear from her until today. She sent me her information, which is good. What is not so good is that today is Wednesday, and she still has not gotten me the first page of the recommendation (which has the important student waiver of information on it), and would like me to campus mail her the recommendation letter. She, herself, will not be back in town until Friday.

I sent her a reply that I will still write her letter if she wants, but it will be less thorough given the time lag. Additionally, I have told her that she needs to get me the first page of the recommendation by Friday morning because I am going out of town for the weekend. I said she'll have to let me know if she still wants me to write it.

Why am I so frustrated about this? I have a really hard time sometimes not taking student actions personally, when they're really only hurting themselves. Have any of you had similar experiences? How do you react to students who aren't on the ball?

Spring Break

2009-03-16T06:52:00.001-07:00

Scene: College classroom; nine bright-eyed, first-year grad students sit around a large square table, waiting for their professor (Dr. X) to arrive. Class begins in five minutes, and the usual chatter is occurring.

Student 1: So, Student 2, what are you doing for spring break?

Student 2: Oh, I'm going to go hiking at _______ National Park and do some camping. What about you?

Student 1: I'm going to ________ City. It will be so nice to get away for awhile and relax!

(Enter Dr. X, who has apparently heard the previous exchange.)

Dr. X (sounding horrified): I can't believe any of you are actually taking a spring break! Spring break is the time when you get lots of work done.

Stunned silence hangs over the room like a shroud. Students 1-9 have been totally schooled...and are seriously wondering why they decided to come to grad school in the first place.
_________________________________________________

This IS a true story, and I was one of those nine bright-eyed first-years who was terrified by Dr. X's admission (there were also other reasons to be terrified of Dr. X), and I did not in the least understand his reaction.

Eight years later, I have more sympathy for his position. I'm especially giddy about this week off from my students, who are lovely and motivated, but, in the tradition of students everywhere, expect me to know things and to teach them, which gets exhausting from time to time. I also have some interesting research projects I'm working on and taxes to do, so this week off from teaching will allow me to get a lot done, thankfully.

That being said, however, I still don't agree with Dr. X's tactics. Despite what graduate programs may want, the fact is that first-years are finding their way within the discipline, and are probably not churning out papers in their first year. Additionally, the transition to graduate school can be really tough, especially for those who recently got their bachelor's degrees, and having some time off is probably psychologically healthy. Lastly, I think one of the biggest lessons to be learned in grad school is how to be productive without deadlines breathing down your back all the time. So, if students are getting their required work done, who cares when they do it? And if they want to take a spring break, more power to them!

Ultimately, this discussion comes down to a larger problem in the top R1 institutions - the illusion that professors are constantly working (or at least should be). Yes, there is always more that could be getting done. But (and I know this may shock people), there is life outside academia, and I'll bet those that take periodic breaks (like weekends and evenings) may actually be more productive since their brains get to rest every now and then.

Enjoy your Spring Break, whatever you're choosing to do with it!

Candy and Social Change

2009-03-12T09:49:00.000-07:00

One of the administrative assistants in the office has some leftover Valentine hearts on her desk.* I noticed today that in addition to the typical "Be Mine" and "Cutie Pie" messages, there was a message I have never before seen: "Email Me." I wasn't able to find a picture of the same heart online, but I did find this, which includes a white "Chill Out" heart.**

I'm beginning to think that we could learn a lot about cultural practices and technological change from analyzing candy. Does this fall under the sociology of culture? The sociology of food?

*In the interest of full disclosure, Valentine heart messages have been a subject of some fascination to me since 8th grade, when I gave each of my teachers at the private evangelical school I attended a plastic bag filled with Valentine hearts. I came to see that this had been a terrible mistake when my Bible teacher (yes, my Bible teacher) read the messages out loud at the beginning of class. Of course I hadn't checked the messages in each bag, and so the whole thing was a big embarrassment. Just another data point on my list of unintentionally/intentionally cruel things that happened to me at that school, but that's a post for another day.

**As a side note, I have no idea what the subtext involved in giving someone a "Chill Out" heart would be. Chill out and leave me alone, you crazy person - I don't love you? Chill out b/c Valentine's Day is so last year? Chill out because we live in the north and it's freaking cold out there? Chill out because we live in south Florida and need to get into the air conditioning?

My Civic Duty

2009-03-11T18:11:00.000-07:00

Tonight I attended a "get to know the candidates" forum for the position of Village Trustee in my new community. Now that I'm out of graduate school, I feel this sudden urge to shuck off the last vestiges of my cocoon and spread my wings. I'll leave it to you to decide whether a community meeting was the best venue for this...

My thoughts upon returning from the meeting:

1. It's interesting to observe status differences emerging in a room with a high proportion of Ph.D.s in attendance. It's somewhat like grad school, but surprisingly, fewer people seemed to be flaunting their intelligence. There was also a good deal of talk about specific status characteristics by the candidates, for those of you up on the SCT literature.

2. I fail to understand how the two "parties" differ.* It appears that everyone is for handicap accessibility, "open" government (whatever that means), implementing a planning committee, fiscal responsibility, etc., etc. What they did NOT mention was how their plan was different from the other guys, but I suspect that's because the plans are not all that different.

3. Re. 2: Which means that this election will probably end up a popularity contest by default. I don't think any of the people running want it to turn out this way (they all seem to genuinely care about the community), but there was little differentiation over the substantive issues. In this particular popularity contest, the vote will come down to the ex-Wall Street guy, amusing retiree, and "stay-at-home mom" (who is so involved in the community I doubt she has much time at home) in one party and the woman who walks/jogs in the neighborhood wearing a jester hat, the woman with a cold who did a good job convincing me she's qualified (especially once she recovers from said cold), and the college professor who is probably a great lecturer, but who should put on a different hat when talking to a group of her peers in the other.

I'm not exactly sure how to decide on this. I would welcome suggestions, but right now the jester hat is honestly in the lead.**

*Parties appears in quotes above because the two parties in our village are new to me: the Community Party and the Open Government Party. Both sound pretty good, hunh? I like community (I am a sociologist after all), and I like open government (it's much preferable to that dodgy closed government that we all can't abide). Give me Democrat and Republican - it's SO much easier to navigate. I'd even be content with Green and Independent.

**The jester hat is really cool - she brought it for show and tell. Each section is a different color and it looks like it's made out of felt. WAY neato.

Musings on Facebook

2009-02-27T06:19:00.000-08:00

Today I got my first Facebook Friend Request from a previous student. Up until now my friends (i.e., a couple strong ties mixed up with a whole bunch of weak ties), have consisted primarily of high school, college, and grad school friends, mixed with some much-needed friends connected in no way what-so-ever to academics.

I always realized that my students were probably on Facebook, and that they could easily look me up. I just didn't think any of them would actually want to be my friend on Facebook - and I certainly did not think it appropriate to be Facebook friends while one of my students was enrolled in one of my classes.*

So now I've taken the plunge and accepted the friend request from my former student. It's a new day.

*Upon retrospect, I think my feeling on this is kind of interesting. Even though Facebook exists in virtual reality, I automatically transferred the taboos against teacher/student fraternizing in the real world to the virtual world. Hmm...

Ah! The vague scent of skunk.

2009-02-09T10:38:00.000-08:00

You know those weekends that are really, really good? When you go hiking in the snow to see a beautiful, frozen waterfall? When you go out for sinfully delicious ice cream? When going grocery shopping doesn't seem so bad after all of that?

And then your dog plays with a skunk at 8:00 p.m. on Sunday night. Brilliant!

There's Lol Cats and then there's this...

2009-02-05T06:01:00.001-08:00

For Christmas, my cat-obsessed friend purchased a page-a-day calendar for me and my husband. The theme is "bad cats."

My husband and I have yet to see the humor in most of the pages, but today's picture went from "pretty lame," to "downright disturbing." I leave you with this (I apologize for the blurriness):

Ethics in the Classroom

2009-02-04T06:54:00.000-08:00

I'm teaching sociology of education this semester at an elite institution. An important component in all my classes is social inequality. This is no less the case in soc. of ed., but it's different this time.

Teaching race and ethnicity at the same institution last semester, I was not uncomfortable teaching about inequality - it comes with the turf in a class like that, and I had a lot of minority students in my class who already understood structural inequality from personal experience.

This semester is different. This semester I am teaching conflict theory to a room full of elites, and I think that is beginning to dawn on them. You can't read Collins' discussion of functionalism and conflict theory and miss his point that students who attend elite institutions often get elite jobs.

I know that I'm not teaching this material differently than I would have at my last institution (a large state school that was not academically elite, although you could make an argument about athletic elitism). However, I realize there's a change inside me. There's a part of me that really wants them to get that they are privileged. That yes, they worked hard to get where they are, but that 1) for many of them, they had significant advantages in getting here,* and 2) that their degrees are going to be valued to a much greater extent than the majority of college graduates.

I have never felt that my job in the classroom was to be an activist, and I certainly don't include activism in my courses, but that's what I feel like right now. And I'm wondering 1) if anyone else has felt the same way from time to time, and 2) what you've done about it.

*To help them get this, I pull out the "sociology of me," and mention that it is no great surprise that I have a Ph.D., given that my father is an M.D., and my mother has a B.S.

Do I have to be a growup?

2009-01-23T07:07:00.000-08:00

I'm trying to figure out Quicken, so that we can be financially responsible. This is an admirable goal, but I'm beginning to think that my old Excel spreadsheet method is better. For one thing, I can actually indicate that my direct deposit is income, not just some random deposit. For another, I can export the information from my bank directly into .csv form. To be fair, I was able to successfully export my bank info. to Quicken once. I've tried about 10 times today (no exaggeration), and I'm still having no luck.

If you have any suggestions, I would LOVE to hear them. In the meantime I'm going to go beat my head against the wall for a little while.

Shameless Self-Analysis

2009-01-21T12:13:00.000-08:00

What does it mean that as a 30-yr. old, happily married, employed, home-owner I'm starting to develop an incredible fondness for Avirl Lavigne?

Or does it mean anything at all, other than her music is actually pretty interesting and good...

Airplane Etiquette and the TSA

2009-01-09T06:04:00.001-08:00

On our recent trip across the country, I was seated next to a small, talkative woman in her fifties wearing a Christmas turtleneck. She looked the part of a kindly mother, but her choice of vocabulary as she regaled the trials of traveling across the country for work quickly changed my impression. Here was a kindly little sprite with quite a strong potty mouth! I made polite conversation with her for awhile, but then begged off to get some rest. Thus, you can imagine my surprise when I groggily awoke to find her painting her nails in the airplane. Yes, folks, painting her nails in the airplane!*

There are obviously questions of airplane etiquette here. And I'm also wondering how/if the Transportation Security Administration determines whether the 1 oz. containers of liquid people are bringing on planes are flammable or not. Hmm...security.

*To be fair, she was painting them a nice shiny cherry red to go with her Christmas turtleneck, and they looked very pretty.

Grey's Anatomy IS Like Real Life

2009-01-08T06:54:00.000-08:00

This past fall there was an episode of Grey's Anatomy featuring the dermatology department at Seattle Grace (the hospital where all the doctors on the show work). The humor of the situation was that the dermatology department represented a sort of Shangri-la to the surgical residents on the show, who got sucked up in the New Age vibes they encountered there, from relaxing music, to massage, to grapes and filtered water. Of course, in the show, reality quickly crashed back in on the residents when they headed back to the surgical ward.

Typically, I do not like to use the word reality when referring to Grey's Anatomy, but after my experience at a dermatologist's office on Monday, I've been forced to reconsider.

Upon entering the dermatologist's office, I quickly became aware of Enya-type music being softly pumped through a speaker system in a waiting room made up of cushion-covered wicker chairs and tables. I was okay with all of this (although my husband's skin would have been crawling), but I felt sorry for the 10-12 year old boy sitting with his mother - he looked trapped. Seriously, a new-agey waiting room is really not the place for a boy that age...or maybe for almost anyone.

The waiting room experience was followed by my meeting with a physician's assistant, who, at various times told me in a very soothing voice, "We can open a window for you if you need some air" (it was in the 30s outside), and "You are so in tune with yourself to feel your blood vessels in your nose dilating when it's cold outside. That's wonderful."

Such was my experience at the dermatologist's office. It was somewhat surreal, and reminded me more of going to a spa or a massage therapist's office than a doctor's. Given that so many dermatologists are becoming pseudo-plastic surgeons these days, this is not super surprising. The soothing environment becomes an exchange for the money you are going to be asked to shell out for laser treatments or face peels.

Personally, I'd rather not sugar-coat the whole thing. What do you think?

New Year

2009-01-03T14:30:00.000-08:00

Holiday Countdown 2008:

1) Baked Christmas cookies/candy, which were then distributed to the office staff in my and my husband's department and the neighbors.

2) Bought and mailed Christmas presents over 1 week before Christmas!

3) Left home on December 17th for a 10-day trip to two cities on the west coast. Got caught in the traffic muddle that ensued after Las Vegas got snow and stayed the night in a sub-par hotel in Phoenix. There was no shower curtain in our room, but once you've been awake for over 20 hours and can only sleep for 4-5 that night, little things like shower curtains don't seem that important.

4) Graduated on December 19th. Yes, it was totally worth it to make a trip to our alma mater for graduation. My husband and I spent 7 years working on our masters and then our doctorates, and getting our hoods felt great!!! It also put closure on a long process.

5) Saw friends in city of alma mater, which was soul-reviving. With the long months of sickness last semester, and getting used to a new place, we haven't yet made many new friends (that's one of our combined resolutions for 2009).

6) On December 20th flew to Santa Barbara to spend Christmas with my parents and grandmother. We took walks in the 50-60 degree weather (which felt wonderful!!!), saw the beach, visited Trader Joe's and remembered why we miss it so much, listened to my grandmother tell stories about her childhood Christmases in Vienna, sang Christmas carols, made really yummy Chicken Cacciatore (Giada De Laurentis made a typically time-consuming, and potentially complicated, dish very simple), and generally spent time together.

7) Arrived back home the evening of the 26th. We were glad to see our pets and our house. Having your own house to come back to changes things.

8) Today: finally got out our holiday cards, complete with a message from the dog. The message from the dog follows. Enjoy!

Dear Everyone,

In the spirit of the season, I have decided to take a break from bone chewing and cat chasing to write this holiday newsletter. This year, two dissertations were earned in our household and my masters are now entitled to be addressed as Dr. X and Dr. PracticingIdealist X. They spent a lot of time on this decision but I don’t really see the point. I just call them ”food guy” and “bride of food guy” myself. Humans are so picky.

As if this weren’t enough of a shake-up, Drs. Food Guy then stuck yours truly, the orange cat and the gray cat into cages in the back of a car. Every morning we went in and every night we came out in some new place. The smells were really cool! I mostly slept but the orange cat spent a lot of the trip complaining. During our nightly breaks I tried to comfort him but for some reason the Food Guys thought I was just biting his leg. Please! Finally, we pulled in to our new home.

The house is amazing! A large back yard complete with big birds and these things called deer and squirrels. I haven’t seen a reptile in months! I’m not so sure about this white stuff that falls from the sky- I barked at it at first but now it seems to know who’s boss. Some days I don’t see the cats for hours on end- they like to hide in the basement, I think, but it’s weird down there. The Food Guys seem happy, too.

Well, that’s the news! We wish all of you our warmest holiday wishes and hope the new year brings you lots of yummy rawhide bones.

Love,
Dog X

Last Day of Class: The Good and the Not so Good

2008-12-05T08:33:00.001-08:00

(Disclaimer: There is some bragging and whining involved in this post.)

Hooray! Today was my last day of teaching race/ethnicity for the first time. It went much better than I ever expected. I have two students who specifically asked if I would be teaching something else in the spring, and one of my students shook my hand today after class and told me I was a great teacher. Hooray again!

On the downside, I have a student who is constantly plauging me about his grade on the second exam. After talking with several students who did not particularly like their grades on Exam 2 (please keep in mind that I grade blind - I not only do not look at the student's name when grading their exam, but I also grade all of one question at a time, so that I'm consistent between students), and given my grading strategy, I decided that it would be unfair to give points back to one or two students. So instead, I told them all today that I would consider applying a curve to Exam 2 after seeing the final course averages. (Please also keep in mind that they have a very cushy extra credit option for which they receive points simply for showing up.)

Two of the three original students with grievances said they completely understood. The annoying student, however, emailed me after class explaining why I should make an exception for him.

This is the part of teaching that I HATE.

Note to self: Remember the handshake, P.I., remember the handshake. And that teaching is over except for the final ; ).

Gay Marriage Will Save the Economy!

2008-12-04T06:22:00.000-08:00

This is just too funny not to share. Enjoy!

Presentation

2008-11-20T08:40:00.000-08:00

Today I'm giving my first presentation as a Ph.D. I have to admit it feels good to have those three letters and two little dots after my name.

It's a good day.

New Things

2008-11-10T10:00:00.000-08:00

Two observations about my new world/home:

All Things Snow

Today it is snowing. According to the weatherpeople on the radio, we are experiencing snow "showers," in contrast to the snow "flurries" predicted for later in the week. At times it does resemble rain showers; it's whiter and fluffier, but people still use their umbrellas while walking in it. I haven't heard any other words used to describe the snow yet, but I'm sure there will be more (including dirty snow and *&^#%* snow that won't melt away - we won't go into all the Eskimo words for snow).

Right now...it's beautiful.

And I'm excited for the adventure-aspect. It's similar to when I moved to the middle of the desert and encountered warning signs on the highway proclaiming certain areas "Blowing Dust Areas," but WAY more fun. Snow in the eyes is distracting, but dust in the eyes really hurts. And again, snow is prettier.

Wait! I live in a real neighborhood now!

Several weeks ago I ran into a nice brother and sister on the sidewalk while I was walking our dog. The little boy was selling popcorn for the Boy Scouts, while his sister was selling cookies for the Girl Scouts. As I signed myself up for one container of popcorn and three boxes of cookies (relatively the same price, to keep things fair), I was reminded of my many years of girl-scoutery in actual neighborhoods. What a weird realization to be on the other side of the order form.

However, all things weren't completely comparable. In this case, the children were British (from London), and they live in the house that my husband has jokingly dubbed "Tara." Ah postmodernism (or whatever you'd like to call it), where the British family lives in a home reminiscent of Southern mansions in the Northeast. When I was selling cookies, the most exotic part was delivering the cookies in our little red wagon.

WOW!

2008-10-24T08:19:00.000-07:00

I teach from 10:10-11:00 MWF. After class this morning I received the following email (paraphrased):

Dear Practicing Idealist,

I'm sorry I missed your class today, I accidentally overslept. I hope you
have a great weekend. Looking forward to class on Monday.

Sincerely,
Penitent Student

Not only does this new university have an awesome library, but there are students like this! I'm not really sure what to think about this rabbit hole I've fallen down.

Best Library System EVER!!!

2008-09-24T08:23:00.000-07:00

I am so excited. Not only does the library at my new school deliver books to my mailbox in the office, but they stamp the books with the following message:

Due Back Upon Recall or Leaving the University

How cool is that?

Our Gendered Lives

2008-09-23T11:14:00.001-07:00

My in-laws are currently visiting. They arrived on Sunday afternoon, and will be leaving tomorrow morning.* The time before their arrival, and their visit, has lead me to make some observations about gender in my life.

1) Before coming to visit, my mother-in-law asked my husband to tell me that I shouldn't worry about having everything spick and span, as she was not intending to bring the white gloves. Note: she did not just tell my husband, she specifically told him to tell me. This makes a certain amount of sense, since I tend to notice cleanliness more than my husband (I'm sorry honey, but we both know this is true), but instead of making me less worried it made me more worried. Additionally, it made me a bit mad that we would be held to different standards. Of course, I am judged by the state of the house, but he isn't.

2) This "righteous" anger was quelled a bit, when I realized I, too, have similar judgments. While cleaning the house, I cleaned all of the baseboards and window sills, which were quite filthy. Noticing their filth, I thought to myself, "Wow! ____ _____ sure didn't keep her house very clean." When I related this to my husband, he admitted having similar thoughts directed at the previous male owner of our house, but with regards to the yard and construction of the house. Ah - how the social construction of gender gets perpetuated. Grrr.

It is very frustrating to realize that you are part of the problem. I suppose that's the first step towards recovery. Just as with race, recognizing stereotypical beliefs in oneself is the first step to changing them. Maybe, if I work hard enough, I will not reify gender when visiting my hypothetical, future daughter-in-law. I'll just pick some other arbitrary standard to hold her to. ; )

*I should point out that I really like my in-laws. We just have very different worldviews from time to time.

I'm losing patience...

2008-09-13T12:28:00.000-07:00

Warning: This post will include whining. I apologize in advance.

When I was in college, I once got a cold that temporarily rendered me unable to smell. It lasted for about three days, but it was a very strange sensation to try to eat without being able to smell. Food just wasn't fun, but I knew I had to eat or I would get cranky.

This time, I haven't had my voice for over a month. It has been a crazy saga, that started with out-of-whack asthma, moved on to a nasty viral infection, and is still persisting with laryngitis. On Thursday, the doctor told me that I will likely not have my voice for at least two more weeks, and even after it comes back, I should treat it tenderly for a week longer so I don't stress my vocal chords too much. Apparently, if you hurt your vocal chords you can cause a permanent laryngitis-type state.

In the meantime, I've been croaking my way along as best I can. I love the looks from salespeople who ask me how I am. They just aren't expecting me to sound like Dr. Girlfriend, as my husband likes to refer to me right now. I'm not supposed to talk any more than necessary, and I have been using a microphone when I teach my classes. My husband and I write notes to each other.

I was patient with this for the first four weeks. I told all my friends that I would catch up with them when my voice returned. Unfortunately, not talking to my friends for quite some time after moving to a new location has the side-effect of making me feel quite trapped. (I don't spend time in the department, because pretty much all I can do when talking to people is nod and smile, and that just isn't that fun.) Not talking to my friends also makes me feel like quite a shmuck. In particular, my best friend found out that she is pregnant, and I haven't been able to talk to her, except to croak, "Congratulations!" She told me to call when my voice was back - that was three weeks ago.

Anyway, I'm SO ready for this to end. I really miss my voice.

Fun Political Meme

2008-09-09T12:28:00.000-07:00

I found this political meme over on Sassafras Junction. My own meme for my as-yet-unborn children follows. I'd love to hear yours.

How to Name Your Offspring the Palin Way!

1. your favorite sport (Track)
2. the city, no, body of water near where you grew up (Bristol)
3. the city in which or nearby you currently live (Willow)
4. cool name, of which there are not many, or, alternately, your favorite bird (Piper)
5. something out of Norse mythology, or favorite school subject (Trig)

My Meme

1. Badminton (seriously, I really like this sport, and they LOVE this sport in China, so much so that FedEx uses badminton players in its ads)
2. Lake of the Pines (this would get really old, really fast)
3. Lansing (everything's just better there)
4. Oriole (although Titmouse is a close second)
5. Frigg (not the prettiest name, but it means beloved, which is nice)

Musical Musings

2008-09-04T10:50:00.000-07:00

When I hear beautiful harmony,* I often become nostalgic for my long years in various choirs (mixed male and female, female, and a cappella). Although I am a natural second soprano, I used to sing alto I most often.** I miss the low, sonorous tones of the alto, and the art of getting the harmony just right.*** Singing (and playing the piano, which I did religiously between the ages of 5 and 18) engages a part of my mind that sociology doesn't, and can't.

When finishing dissertations, some people treat themselves to fancy stereo systems, computers, or long weekends in a big city. My present to myself is going to be a piano, and I will allow myself hours of uninterrupted pleasure singing while I play. It's been seven years too long.

*The Wailin' Jennys were my particular inspiration today. They're my latest favorite, and have great potential to displace The Indigo Girls.
**For the curious, I was taught that most women are natural sopranos. Due to lack of true altos, many sopranos who are good at reading music sing alto in choirs, only to find out later that they have more range to their voice than they originally thought. However, a true alto and a soprano singing the same note sound different; the altos sound is richer, especially in the lower notes. I recommend Handel's Messiah for examples of alto and first soprano solos that should give you an idea of what I mean.
***I know I'm biased when I say this, but I honestly believe that it's more difficult in many pieces to sing one of the harmony parts, rather than the soprano line, which is typically given the melody line.

Sarah Palin

2008-09-02T06:10:00.001-07:00

So, I have talked/listened to reactions of Sarah Palin's candidacy from democrats. The overwhelming response at the beginning was bewilderment, then a kind of jubilation given her inexperience. My reaction progressed in much the same pattern, but this morning my feelings are different. I am now frightened.

Reports on NPR suggest that Palin's candidacy is really energizing the social conservatives, who, as a group have been lukewarm to McCain. Palin, who is pro-life, opposed to anything but abstinence-only sex education, pro-drilling in ANWAR, anti-polar bear, and advocates teaching intelligent design in public schools, is the social conservative dream come true. This means that the evangelicals might come out to vote in the numbers that helped tip the scales in George W. Bush's favor in the last election.

So, yes, I am frightened. Granted, the vice presidency is typically not the most powerful position in the land. But McCain is OLD, and he's only getting older. If he becomes president, and then suffers health problems, Palin would become president. And that's a thought that should scare all of us who care about the separation of church and state and the environment, if nothing else.

Teaching Race and Ethnicity

2008-09-01T11:38:00.001-07:00

I'm teaching Race and Ethnicity for the first time this fall. On the first day of class, I decided to come clean to my students by "admitting" that I'm white, and that as are many white people in the U.S., I sometimes get uncomfortable talking about race. I followed that by telling them I would do the best job I can. This actually seemed to work, especially with some of the minority students in my class (they actually outnumber the white students). I have found in the past that students appreciate honesty, and they are surprisingly good at sniffing out b.s.

Anyway, I'm still daunted by the task of teaching race. I feel I am a reasonably good teacher, and I have been teaching for close to five years, so I'm not entirely green. I also know the race literature relatively well, although it's not my primary area of interest. But I think part of the problem is that I have never known what it is like to be a minority in our country. Sure, I fell qualified to talk about gender issues, but I have led a privileged life as an upper middle-class white girl. This does not mean I'm unqualified to teach about race, but it does make me unqualified to assume that I understand the experience of being a minority. And I think that this is what makes me uncomfortable. How do I teach about racial stratification without coming across as if I presume to understand the experiences of another group?*

To further elaborate, I'll relate two stories from my class today. I feel that the first one went better, and I'm trying desperately to figure out how I could have better responded to the second. (Again, feedback is welcome.)

First example: I was speaking of people of the black "race" (as in socially constructed physical distinctions) by using the term African American. One of the black students asked me why I was talking about African American as a race instead of as an ethnicity. He used as an example a black man in my class who is from Africa. So, I proceeded to have a conversation with my students about the proper use of black vs. African America. We came to the conclusion that black should be used to talk about racial categories, and African American should be used when talking about ethnicity. This conversation seemed to go pretty well, and the students seemed satisfied.

Second example: I was explaining how the line between ethnicity and race is often blurred, given that people with particular cultural characteristics (ethnicity) tend to have a common ancestry (race), and because of processes such as homophily, people marry within their in-group, perpetuating physical distinctions between groups. As an example of the distinction between ethnicity and race, I mentioned that many Latinos have dark skin, given a shared history of slavery with the U.S., but have very different customs than African Americans based on their ethnicity. A very white-appearing woman raised her hand, explained that she is from Puerto Rico, and said that many very "white" looking Puerto Ricans are currently migrating to the U.S., which is shattering a lot of the stereotypes surrounding Puerto Ricans. I acknowledged her point, and explained I was speaking more of individuals descended from the time of the slave trade, and then told her that I would have never guessed that she was Puerto Rican based solely on her appearance. That was the end of that encounter, but I feel uneasy about how I handled it, especially my last comment.

Perhaps I'm being too hard on myself. I believe I am teaching my course appropriately, and with due diligence to the cannon of race and ethnicity research in sociology. Maybe I need to just relax, and let my students correct me from time to time, as my students did today. Any thoughts?

*If you have any ideas, I would LOVE to hear them.

Universals of Human Behavior

2008-08-25T06:20:00.000-07:00

Physical/"natural"/hard scientists often downplay the importance of social science on the claim that human behavior is too variable. In other words, we social scientists cannot identify universal laws about how human beings function, comparable to, let's say, gravity or evolution.

I believe a lot of sociologists buy into this logic. For example, those who buy into the relativism inherent in much postmodern scholarship. Or, on a less extreme, and more valid, note, those who argue that no two events are ever the same, etc.

However, I do believe that we sociologists have the ability to claim certain fundamentals about the way life works, if we're willing to rigorously utilize and test theory. So far, I believe the social psychologists are the best at this, and this is not because I am a social psychologist. Some of the most general, and robust theories in sociology are social psychological.

On the metatheoretical level, there is no disputing that humans are meaning-makers, and that we interact with others based on shared meanings. These meanings become social reality. There are multiple studies corroborating various tenets of symbolic interaction, and there are a long line of rigorous thinkers whom I would consider social psychologists: Mead, Cooley, Berger, Goffman, etc.

On the theoretical level, the group process tradition has produced quite a few robust theories that have been tested in the laboratory. Power-dependence theory provides a basic, but powerful (no pun intended) observation regarding relationship dynamics: as power increases, dependence decreases, and vice versa. This important insight is seen over and over again from the dyadic to the national level.

Status construction theory and status characteristics theory also highlight processes that work in both laboratory and non-laboratory settings, although the scope restrictions of status characteristics theory have still to be relaxed and tested in non-task group situations. From these two theories, however, we can understand how material resources and social rank become twinned (status construction theory), and how status hierarchies develop in group situations (status characteristics theory). Both of these insights have great applicability at both the micro and macro level.

All too often, I believe macro sociologists do not pay enough attention to micro sociologists. This not only means that they are missing important insights that could help inform their work, but that they may be prone to overstate the limitations of sociology.

We are a young science, and I firmly believe that we have the ability to discover universal human laws, given the time and the inclination. Let's not sell ourselves short.

Return

2008-08-22T08:11:00.001-07:00

So, I have been quite lax with this blog, but I find myself surrounded with newness, and I'm going to make a fresh start with Unraveling. In the past three months, many things have changed: I have my Ph.D., a new job, a new house, a new city. It's exciting, and adventurous, and I'm starting to love sociology again. Getting a Ph.D. can often inspire extreme dislike of one's subject area (or extreme like, if you're lucky). This happened to me, but in creating a new course for my new job, sociology is slowly curling it's way into my lap again. It feels pretty good. I'll sit with it for awhile, and try to post more.

Life

2008-04-16T10:12:00.001-07:00

This year my husband and I were invited to attend two weddings: one on May 16th and the other on May 23rd. We can only attend the May 23rd wedding.

However, that didn't stop me from booking tickets for the weekend of the 16th in the location of the wedding on the 23rd. Now, after a $200 change fee, everything is settled, but this is just another indication of feeling out of control.

Thank god classes are almost over!!!

Out of Time...

2008-04-03T10:49:00.000-07:00

I am running out of time until the end of the semester. There's too much to do, and too little time.

When panic looms, I tend to find myself thinking about the past, when it had to be less "complicated." Ah - hindsight is 20/20.

Today, I'm thinking about college, which wasn't easy by a long shot, but was much easier than graduate school in a lot of ways. More specifically, I'm remembering my fondness for R.E.M., and listening to their seventh album Out of Time, which is much more than "Losing My Religion" and "Shiny Happy People" might suggest. In my more melodramatic times (such as now), "Texarkana" seems pertinent to the process of writing a dissertation, or anything else especially diffcult:

Texarkana
- Berry, Buck, Mills, and Stipe, 1991

20,000 miles to an oasis
20,000 years will I burn
20,000 chances I wasted
Waiting for the moment to turn

I would give my life to find it
I would give it all
Catch me if I fall

Walking through the woods I have faced it
Looking for something to learn
30,000 thoughts have replaced it,
Never in my time to return

I would give my life to find it
I would give it all
Catch me if I fall
All alone
Waiting to fall

40,000 stars in the evening
Look at them fall from the sky
40,000 reasons for living
40,000 tears in your eye

I would give my life to find it
I would give it all
Catch me if I fall
(Lyrics are copyright R.E.M. unless otherwise stated as a cover version, in which case copyright is owned by that artist.)

The AWESOME

2008-01-30T10:12:00.000-08:00

Pandora radio is the bomb! If you haven't checked it out, you really should.

The concept is simple. You type in a song or band that you like, and Pandora will generate a radio station for you that has similar types of music. I created R.E.M. Radio and Indigo Girls Radio today. I'm encouraged, because the Indigo Girls station played Brandi Carlile and Cowboy Junkies, both of which I also like; it also played an artist I hadn't heard of before, which is a great way to learn about new music.

The best thing about Pandora is that it's free, as long as you can put up with the ads. The worst thing is that it might be the ultimate in ways to procrastinate, which I really don't need. And now I will stop my Pandora ad campaign.

Happy listening!

Ah, you crazy, run-on sentence loving, social scientists!

2008-01-23T11:35:00.000-08:00

My father, who works in public health, often has to read sociology articles/books for his job. According to him, sociologists take the cake when it comes to run-ons (he must not have read much Faulkner in his day).

Anyway, I'm forced to agree that sociologists (and social scientists more generally) are, what my husband would say, "wordy bastards." I ran across one such example just now while reading an article. Does this sentence make anybody's else brain hurt? It makes sense, but it takes a couple readings to put it all together in logical order. Perhaps we should all strive for more parsimony in our sentences, even if we end up with twice as many.

"We hypothesized that this effect would be enhanced when youths were asked explicitly to focus on similarities between the self and successful others or on differences between the self and failing others versus situaitons in which they were asked to focus on similarities between the self and failing others or on differences between the self and successful others" (Oyserman, Grant, and Ager 1995).

This Makes Teaching Worth It

2008-01-22T10:27:00.000-08:00

It will probably not come as a big shock to many of you that I care about teaching. I like research, and I care about my research, but teaching is where my passion lies. Thus, it has been difficult for me in the past to receive less than stellar teaching reviews. Actually, I usually have a split between students who really liked my class and students who really did not like my class, leaving me with average scores.*

I've come to the conclusion that I get lower results on my course evaluations than some of my peers because my 400-level class is, wait for it... hard. Yes, folks, I require my students to write (a lot), to critically appraise and analyze the information I give them, and in general, to use their brains more than they might in other sociology classes. In return, they get a teacher who is almost always available to them for help (although very few come to see me), who takes time to write comments on their papers, and who truly cares about what I'm doing.

I've resigned myself to the lower teaching evaluations, although this did take time and maturity. When I despair, I remind myself of the professor who once said, "If I get perfect evaluations, I'm doing something wrong. If I'm truly challenging students, some won't like it."

So, that's why it's so nice for me to get positive feedback from my students, like the email I got today from "Joe Student." I won the award he's discussing last year, but this is an amazing compliment all the same. So I'm going to take the risk of bragging today on my blog and present Joe's email in its entirety.

Thank you, Joe, for making my day.

Prof. Idealist -
I hope this email finds you doing well and enjoying your classes in this new semester. Recently, they handed out the nomination sheets for graduate student teachers in the sociology department. I was surprised to not see your name on the sheet, as i had called the department a few months back asking about how to nominate teachers. I feel that you deserve recognition for the amount of time and effort you put forth in our preparation and presentation of your classes. Your class, though very challenging, was as equally rewarding, and has molded me into a more successful student. Many of my classmates felt you had us do too much writing, and complained as such. I agreed that there was alot of writing, however, if anyone actually read the comments you left, it would become apparent that you spent just as much time reading and critiquing our arguments as we spent formulating them. Given the large size of the class, andthe manner in which you thoroughly graded our papers, i believe that alone merits recognition. Yet, i think its more than that. The in-class discussions were excellent and generated many different points of view. You challenged us to look past the status quo and question accepted points of view, and to put our thoughts into arguments furthering our academic development. Lastly, you were always extremly well prepared for class. Your enthusiasim for the subject matter shone bright, and helped spur our interest in areas that were perhaps less exciting. Throughout my college career, i have expreienced a smorgasboard of different professors of various learning styles, personalities, and approaches. However, i have not come across a professor who was able to balance being extremly challenging, interesting, and more than fair all in one. If for some reason you are precluded from being on this ballet, i will do my best to make sure you recieve recognition in some way, and i thank you for the opportunity you have given me, and making me a better student. Good luck this semester, keep up the good work!
- Joe Student

*I also do not trust teacher course evaluations in their current form. The primary question on our t.c.e.'s is "What is your overall rating of this instructor's teaching effectiveness?" There are quite a few problems with this question, but the main one is that this is very ambiguous. How are we to know that what I deem effective is the same as what Tom deems effective, or Marcy, or Julie, etc... For me as a student, a challenging course indicated an effective instructor, but for some, an easy course where the student learns a lot of facts may indicate effectiveness, and we haven't even yet touched on learning styles. From a methodological standpoint, teacher course evaluations are a nightmare.

Knee Deep

2008-01-17T15:19:00.000-08:00

Do any of you ever feel like you've waded into an incredibly large swamp with your research, and it will take forever to get to the other side?

I'm sure this is a common feeling, but right now I feel that although I think I know a lot about the subject I study, in reality I know quite little, and that makes me feel very uneasy.*

When can you tell yourself enough is enough and start writing already?

It's probably not nearly as bad as I'm making it out to be, and I could be laboring under unrealistic perfectionist ambitions. But in the meantime, discouragement is setting in.

*This is after studying the same concept for the past 6 years. Ugh!!!

The Meaning of Friendship

2007-12-31T13:59:00.001-08:00

At the end of each semester in my class, my students and I discuss the implications of technology on the individual. This year, during our discussion, one of my students brought up Myspace, Facebook, Friendster-type sites. We first discussed this type of technology in terms of impression management. How do people construct their pages, why do they put on/leave off certain things, etc.

But then the conversation got a bit deeper (at least from my standpoint). Someone mentioned that she thought the number of friends people had listed was also a sign of impression management. Woo-hoo! Not only did she have a great point, but she was also extending the discussion. But that is a side note. The real point is that such websites are paragons of the changes our social lives have undergone in the face of technology.

As I pointed out to my students, how can you possibly be "friends" with 150 people? The answer is obviously that you can't. There is not enough time in a day, nor enough energy to actually be friends with these people. It reminds me of a distinction my Spanish teacher made between the words for friend and acquaintance. "Friend" in Spanish denotes roughly five or fewer close friends (what we might call best friends in English). Acquaintance stands in for all the other people who you are friendly with, but who aren't necessarily that close.

What we have on sites like Myspace, then, are acquaintances, not friends. This brings me to three questions: 1) Why is having a lot of "friends" on Myspace, etc. considered a status symbol, if we know that most of those friendships are quite shallow?; 2) Is technology actually hindering us from having true friendships with four or five specific individuals?; 3) What is the interaction between privacy and perceived closeness?

I'm most interested in question three right now. Sites like Myspace, and even blogs that function more like live journals, often present quite a bit of personal information about people. Impression management comes into this, but on the other side, the audience gets an inside view into things they might not otherwise know about one of their acquaintances. I venture that this phenomenon creates a false sense of closeness (much like mass emails that detail all the cool things that you have done over the past 6 months - I really hate those, by the way). So, it may not matter that I don't get to talk to you, or even see you, very often, because I know that you had a boob job and that your job is going really well.

Social network research shows us that people had fewer strong ties in 2004 than in 1985 (McPherson, Smith-Lovin, and Brashears, 2006). Why? Perhaps it's the result of technology, as the authors of the 2006 paper point out. Perhaps it's the over-all devaluing of strong, lasting relationships. Social scientists are pursuing answers to these questions as we speak.

However, in my non-scientist mode, I bemoan the fact that I'm so busy that sometimes the only contact I have with people important to me is through their blog, or in a mass email. I don't like it, even if I can talk to my mom on my cell as I walk home through a beautiful autumn day that I really should just be appreciating for itself.

Cat or Cow?

2007-12-10T08:57:00.000-08:00

This morning our orange cat (we also have a grey one), Simon, came into the bathroom while I was brushing my teeth. He looked around for a few seconds, mewed, and jumped up to sample some of the delicious spider plant we keep in the bathroom just for his amusement (she grins sarcastically). After eating up a tender young spider plant sprout (?), Simon hopped down to play with his brother, Tobey, under the door (one cat sits inside the bathroom, the other on the outside of the bathroom - great fun ensues). While playing, he came upon a small stone. Suddenly, the stone was WAY more fun than Tobey. So fun, in fact, that Simon tried to eat it quite a few times (or at least treated it like chewing gum).

Mmm...spider plant and rock. The breakfast of champions for cows, and apparently now cats.

Liberal Craziness

2007-11-29T14:34:00.000-08:00

I don't usually enjoy writing about rifts between conservatives and liberals. I realize that the rifts are out there (and my husband gets particularly incensed about conservative Christian bias, which he shares with me often). However, I choose not to concentrate on such differences too much, because, quite frankly, it makes me too upset inside.

Luckily, I inhabit a world primarily composed of other liberal individuals (if not always liberal-minded). I am surrounded with other sociologists and highly-educated people, and even if they disagree with me, we usually have quite similar views of big social issues.

This week, however, I have been pulled out of my safe little world three different times. And, as I have predicted in the past, thinking about these issues has caused quite a deal of stress.* I'll let these anecdotes speak for themselves.

To start, on Monday, a student of mine walked back to my office with me after class. Along the way, she was telling me how much she liked my class (which was nice to hear!), and how much she had hated taking a required freshman survey class that happened to be taught by an anthropology professor. Apparently, she didn't like this class because he made her memorize the fossil history of mankind. The nerve!

I was shocked because this student is quite bright and works hard, but I tried to use this as a teaching moment. So I said, "Well, maybe people in the U.S. would better understand each other if they understood each other's views. So, you had to learn about evolution, and perhaps it wouldn't be so bad for your professor to have to learn about creationism." She dismissed this with a "Yeah. It did make me more open-minded, though." Thank god for small favors.

This attitude was reinforced by an NPR story I heard yesterday afternoon. A reporter had gone to a Republican meeting in some small town in South Carolina. The members had representatives from different G.O.P. campaigns come talk about their candidates' platforms, and then there was a "fake" primary election. The leading candidate was Mike Huckabee, followed by Mitt Romney and Fred Thompson (I think McCain may have gotten a vote or two, but Giuliani got none). When asked why he "voted" for Huckabee, one man said (this is paraphrased), "Huckabee doesn't just say that he's going to consider his religion when creating policy. He says that his policy will be based on his faith. He's a strong Christian, and so am I."

Okay. I used to be a fundamentalist Christian (I'm not actually proud of that time in my life; I see nothing wrong with Christianity the way Jesus taught it, but I do take umbrage at how fundamentalists have bastardized the inherent good in the religion). I get what he's saying. But does he care at all about the separation of church and state? I would normally not worry too much about this, since there are some fiscal conservatives who I know are disillusioned about the Christian Right. But I also know that there are a lot of people like the man I quoted above (probably including my student!). I'm pretty much scared ****less.

So, that gets me to my next story, about the man who believes liberals are ruining the country. I sent out a letter about my dissertation study to a bunch of people yesterday. It included information about the study and the fact that subjects were chosen "randomly," etc... So, this man called this afternoon and wanted to know about the study. I basically repeated the information already included in the letter. Then he asked how his name came to be selected (in a nutshell, he believed that he had been chosen because he had a negative value on the dependent variable). I then explained to him how random assignment works (which he finally equated to a lottery, a good comparison, and one I will probably use in the future). So, after all of this, he finally said, "Well, I don't want to participate. If you ask me, this is just a bunch of liberal craziness. That's what's wrong with this country. Too much liberal craziness."

I feel privileged to have a job that allows me the freedom to "be a liberal." But, these three situations helped me remember that the United States is not as "free" as Thomas Jefferson hoped it could be (Habits of the Heart gives an excellent description of Jefferson's views of America, most of which I agree with). People cling so desperately to their own points of view, and confirmation bias allows such views to be perpetuated.

And I'm tired. I am tired of fanatical conservatives and fanatical liberals. If we truly want to understand the world, we're going to all have to be "liberal-minded," regardless of our political and religious convictions. Listen to others. You don't have to agree with them. Just please, for the love of god, listen.

*To be fair to myself, my dissertation has been going really badly this week, so I'm more prone to stress in general.

Dear Student

2007-11-14T14:22:00.000-08:00

Dear Student,

I care a lot about your education. I may even care more than most of your other professors; I am young, and still idealistic. Yet, my propensity to care can only go so far. I am a busy person, and don't have all the time in the world to give to you personally.

I want you to understand the material in my class. I spend a lot of time preparing for my classes, and I am quite willing to answer questions in class (provided you've actually read the material before attending class). I am also quite willing to answer specific questions that you email to me.

However, I will not answer emails that boil down to "I don't get it." If I get this type of email from you, I will tell you to reread the article and take thorough notes (not just highlight ad nauseum).

If you do not understand an article after reading it, and have gone back over the article to try to increases your comprehension and still don't understand it, here is what you must do for me. Email me with a specific question about a particular point. If your problem is that you don't comprehend the general ideas of the reading, then email me with a synopsis of what you think the reading is saying, and then ask me whether you're on the right track or not.

You see, emailing me a synopsis of your interpretation indicates to me that at least you have done the reading and are trying to understand it. This information goes far in my book.

I just can't stomach the "I don't get it," primarily because the message I get is that you don't want to have to do the heavy lifting of understanding Berger, or Mead, or Simmel. We discussed impression management in class. Please seriously consider the impressions you're projecting before you hit the "send" button.

Sincerely,
Your Frustrated Instructor

Update

2007-11-06T13:17:00.000-08:00

I have been corrected. Astrosociology is not an official section of the American Sociological Association. But...it definitely wants to be!

The section for Animals and Society is an official section of the ASA.

And, just to clear everything up, the section for Women Who Have Cats is completely made up, and not an official ASA section.

The Sociology of Women...Who Have Cats!

2007-11-06T10:17:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, I was speaking with two members of my cohort, and we came up with a new section for the ASA. You've got it, the Sociology of Women Who Have Cats.

This was pretty funny to us for awhile, I have to admit. There are so many random sections of the ASA now that this did not seem any more random (although I do admit that it is stranger than Astro-sociology and the Animals and Society sections). Here, we're bridging the study of gender with the study of animals in society. Woo-hoo!

What's interesting to me a lot of times is how compartmentalized we like to be in sociology. I think this is actually to our detriment. So, for example, instead of having the Sociology of Organizations, of which Education, Religion, Work, the Space Program, etc. are subcategories, we have five different sections. I believe that every one of them is important, and deserves credit, but if we're really trying to create general theory about organizations, wouldn't we want to test our theory on the wide variety of organizations there are in order to find out generalizable patterns about organizations as a whole?

You may think I've veered off topic here, but the point is that creating artificial distinctions between subdisciplines in sociology is not helping to foster cross-subdiscipline discussions of general patterns. The super-macro people may disagree with me here, but doesn't all sociology ultimately boil down to three things: organizations, networks, and social psychological processes? And, if I'm correct, wouldn't we all want to be working towards better understanding those areas by testing our general theories on more spheres, which just means expanding our scope conditions?

I don't think we're ever going to be treated as a "real" science until we can come up with universal theories about social behavior that are as robust as the theory of evolution and the theory of gravity. We won't do that by stomping our feet and camping out in our own corners of "Sociology Land."

So, to get back to the Sociology of Women Who Have Cats...at breakfast, I was speaking with my husband about where we might study such women and their cats. We came up with the following places, and research questions we might want to answer: the work environment (What happens when women bring their cats to work?); in the home (Are cats part of the family network? What role-identity would cats have?); at the park (What happens when women with cats bring their cats to the park and there are lots of dogs?); and my personal favorite, in space (How do women with cats interact with men with dogs on a spaceship?).*

*This last one, actually, reminds me somewhat of the old Muppets sketch, "Pigs in Space," only here we would have "Women Who Have Cats in Space."**
**Just pretend a woman is there - the picture was too funny not to use it.

Practicing Idealism

2007-11-04T15:54:00.000-08:00

I find that I often take time to report about my bad students on this blog, and neglect to point out the awesome students that I do have. I think we all have a tendency to do this from time to time, and unfortunately, the general trend in education is not necessarily towards "bad" students, but definitely tends towards lazy, unmotivated students who aren't used to taking responsibility for their education.*

However, this past week and a half, I have had students making excellent points and asking thought-provoking questions (I also had almost an entire room full of 55 students who didn't do the reading the day their paper was due, but that's a different story). The two comments that stick out the most follow. I long to teach roomfulls of such students someday.

This comment came the class after my students were asking me where stratification comes from (which is cool in and of itself):

"Don't you think that stratification is so ingrained into humans that it's probably just a result of our evolution?"

"Yes, yes, yes!!!" said Practicing Idealist, jumping up and down (I didn't actually jump up and down, but I was inside).

This comment came during review for an exam:

"So, I understand how Marx thought the structure of society (i.e., capitalism) was the cause of all other social consequences, but how does culture fit into his theory? Or did he discuss culture at all?"

These comments both clearly showed that some of my students are thinking about the material in my course, and I'm trying to remind myself to remember the proportion of students who are motivated to learn on the days when I despair. The are out there.

After teaching for awhile I've come to the conclusion that being a good teacher is one of the hardest jobs in our society (it's easy to be a bad teacher - we can all come up with multiple examples of them). This means, however, that bad students can lower the morale of good teachers faster than anything else. So, my new plan is to teach to the students who meet me halfway and are motivated to learn. In class discussion, therefore, beyond cursory review of the day's article, I start asking the students to talk about what interested them in the readings. This means that the students who haven't done the readings are probably left in the dust quite quickly, but it's not my job to hold their hands. I would much rather teach to the students who are thinking about the material, and have thoughtful, intelligent conversations with them.

Perhaps this makes me insensitive to the needs of the whole class, but I can only be as effective as my students are prepared.

*I blame two major things for this trend: 1) policies like No Child Left Behind, which encourage teachers to teach to the test if they want to keep their jobs, and thus promote a culture of non-creativity and non-curiosity in the classroom from a young age; 2) the "self-esteem movement" that started roughly 20 years ago, and promotes feeling good about yourself as the end-all/be-all, rather than encouraging students to achieve in order to reap the rewards of high self-esteem. We know that it's easier to change behaviors than it is to change beliefs, so it should come as no surprise that teaching students that they are incredibly awesome, without the substance to back it up, is going to lead to some disastrous consequences when they are actually asked to perform in order to get an "A."

My New Identity

2007-10-28T19:22:00.000-07:00

I recently got married. Things are going very well so far, and I wanted to make sure to introduce everyone on the blog to my new husband. To that end, I have posted wedding photos of us below, courtesy of Build Your Wild Self, via Wicked Anomie.

Any guesses on what our children will look like?

Hooray!

2007-10-04T09:21:00.000-07:00

Through Kristina B, I have discovered the blog "Rate Your Students." What a great idea! Professors can email in comments about their students, or just generally express concerns to other professors out there in cyberspace, and get feedback from others who share our pain. It's nice to know we're not alone.

So, while grading my students' exams yesterday, I ran across a choice sentence that could easily fit on "Rate Your Students." I asked my students to tell me what falsifiability means, and why it is so crucial to the scientific enterprise.* In response to the second half of the question, I got this response:

Sociology is always changing. The more things change, the more we learn, and even make educical guess on the next round of evolution.

I think this quote speaks for itself. I really had nothing to comment but a resounding "No."

*Keep in mind, that the day my students learned about falsifiability and the "four pillars of science," was the day my fiance came to give a guest lecture. Let's just say, he's really into science (as some of you are all too aware), and so did an excellent job explaining falsifiability to the class. Therefore, I have little patience for answers like the one above. The lecture was so good, that one of my students went up to him and shook his hand at the end of the lecture!

UPDATE

2007-10-03T15:40:00.000-07:00

On the up side, I just won the UK National Lottery!!! Here's what the email said:

Dear Winner, Your ticket number:56475600545 188 with Serial number 5368/05, drawlucky number: 29 Congratulations, you have just won yourself Â£500,000 in the satellite software email lottery conducted by UK NATIONALLOTTERY inwhich e-mail addresses are picked randomly by software powered bythe Internet.Your email address was amongst those chosen this quarterand you are to contact our Financial Controller for Clearance. Here arethe contact info: CLAIMS AGENTMr.Gray SpencerEmail:agentgrayspencer334@gmail.comyou are to forward the following details to enable us clear your file for immediate payment: Full Names: __Address: __Age: __Sex: __Marital Status: __Occupation: __Phone numbers: __Fax number: __Country: __Yours faithfully, UK NATIONAL LOTTERYUNITED KINGDOM.

It is certainly my lucky day. And yes, I am feeling bitter.

Dissertation Hell

2007-10-03T14:30:00.001-07:00

So, the name of this blog is appropriate today. I am in the midst of unraveling; the song "Running to Stand Still" comes to mind.

Today the problem is with the Institutional Review Board, wielders of considerable power and condescension. Namely, they said I could do something last spring that they are now recanting, which will cause a 10 fold increase in the time it will take me to collect data.

I should have never decided to do research on a protected population of human subjects. Canned data sets are looking very appealing right about now.

Today I Smell Like Soup, or...Wickedly Bad Cliche Day

2007-10-01T13:48:00.001-07:00

Today is Monday, October 1st. I am currently 28 years old, and will be for the next 4 days. I am also currently unmarried, and will be for the next 19 days. Much is changing in addition to the rather un-momentous birthday and the wedding, but it's better not to summon the demons by speaking of them. Let's just say that if someone were to give me one of those questionnaires that asks about all the current stressors in your life, I'd have a score off the charts. This is probably why my mom's advice to "Take a deep breath" yesterday just didn't seem like it was going to cut it.

But I do think laughter can. So I guess it was fate that caught my foot in the cord of my laptop today, while I was trying to talk to my officemate and eat a bowl of Trader Joe's ramen. The ramen cascaded out of the bowl onto my office chair, the floor, and my pants. The computer, luckily, was not splattered with the hot soup, and I was not burned. It was all rather comical in retrospect, and it gave me a catchy title for this blog post.

More importantly, although taking a deep breath seems a little shallow (pun intended), the soup experience helped me to remember, quite zen-like I might add, that there are very few things in life that we can control, and nor should we try to control everything (I mean seriously - have you ever tried to control when you're going to spill something?). Additionally, although I currently smell like soup, and although this is a horrible cliche, this too shall pass.

Gender Relations and Vanilla Ice

2007-09-18T11:50:00.000-07:00

Last week, my fiance (D.t.U.) and I (P.I.) were discussing how men and women sometimes communicate quite differently. Here is the scene:

P.I.: So, my friend Tess just wanted her boyfriend to listen to her feelings, and he kept wanting to fix things. I think that happened a lot in the beginning of our relationship, but you really worked hard to just listen to me sometimes, and I worked hard to express that I just needed you to listen sometimes.
D.t.U: I think that's true. I also make sure to ask if I can offer advice before I do.
P.I.: Yeah, you're awesome.
(Pause)
D.t.U.: "If you have a problem, yo' I'll solve it. Check out the groove while the d.j. revolves it." (He then proceeded to pull out his best early-90s dance moves.)

I guess Vanilla Ice* was socialized to have traditional gender roles after all...who'd figure? You can check it out for yourself below.

*For the record, I have no idea why I used to think this guy was cool. Ah, high school.

Ice Ice Baby

2007-09-18T11:44:00.001-07:00

The First Sign of Fall

2007-09-13T15:03:00.000-07:00

Fall is my favorite season,* and summer my least favorite. Thus, when fall comes around, I'm pretty excited.

It snuck up on me today while eating an ordinary gala apple.** Throughout the summer, I usually stay far away from apples; they're not in season, and have no flavor. But, I decided to risk buying apples this morning at the store, and my choice turned out to be a good one. With the first bite, the taste of fall awakened my taste buds.

Now we just need global warming to call it quits throughout the country and allow fall to gently nudge summer back under the rug for awhile.

*This is true for a variety of wonderful reasons: I love the scent of smoke in the air, and the coolness that invites you to curl up in a warm sweater; fall always signalled the beginning of school, and thus brought anticipation of new things to come, in the form of new friends and new knowledge; my birthday is in the fall, and birthdays are the one day in the year that belong just to you; the fall colors in certain parts of the country can rival any beautiful, fresh spring day (although spring is my second favorite season); I like the clarity and crispness of fall - haze seems to melt away with the cooling temperatures, and clear blue erupts above us; lastly, I like feeling the knawing feeling of nostalgia in the fall, like something wonderful is always right around the corner, but that you've already found it long ago and can't remember exactly what it was.
**I have to admit that I'm somewhat of an apple snob. When I was little, my family lived on an acre of land with a small apple orchard in the front, in an idyllic little town, and I got spoiled on the most amazing apple I've ever tasted: the Gravenstein. Unfortunately, Gravenstein's don't stay crisp for a long time, and thus can't be shipped to many places without becoming mushy, so most people have never tasted one, and I don't get to eat them nearly as often as I would like. (For the record, I know that sentence is a run-on, but I'm feeling daring today.) Check out the link, though...Gravenstein's rock!!!

Status, or I Am a Social Psychologist After All

2007-09-05T15:25:00.000-07:00

A couple weeks ago I lamented the lack of status markers on the invitations my fiance and I sent out for our wedding. Basically, I forgot to include "Dr." in the appropriate places, beginning with my father and mother's invitation.

As a response to my post, Jeremy commented:

I can't imagine anyone would be bothered by a missing "Dr." from their wedding invitation. My druthers is not to ever use "Dr." Besides, if people are really into the prestige of honorifics, "Professor" is more prestigious for non-medical doctors than "Dr."

I actually quite agree with him, and I'm pretty sure none of the doctors (or professors) cared that I slighted them (although my soon-to-be mother-in-law was horrified that some people would get the "rejects" response cards - ha, HA! we didn't have extras, and had to send them to my family and our friends, who don't seem to care too much about etiquette).

Anyway, this whole etiquette name thing started me thinking. In our new world, where many more women are earning advanced degrees, what happens? Think about the following scenarios:

A businessman is married to a doctor. Then, do we address the letter "Mr. and Dr. Balthazar Smith?"
What if a doctor is married to a doctor? "Dr. and Dr. Balthazar Smith?"
And, my personal favorite, will people have to address us as "Professor and Professor Balthazar Smith?"

I find myself drawn to having my status proclaimed in formal address (especially after putting in the time to earn my Ph.D.). And I'm wondering if other highly-educated women feel the same way. Perhaps it's not as important to male Ph.D.s, because they already have high status based on their sex (they have the high value of this diffuse status characteristic). So, males don't necessarily need others to recognize their high educational achievement, since they're already on top.

I don't know. I'm not making a feminist argument for changing archaic etiquette rules. But as a social psychologist who understands status processes, this is starting to bug me.

Secret Word of the Day

2007-08-31T15:41:00.000-07:00

When I was a child, I sometimes (usually when there was nothing else on) watched the show "Pee-wee's Playhouse."* In a nutshell, this show consisted of the host, Pee-wee (played by Paul Reubens), who would do crazy things with a cast of characters for 30 minutes. This was all designed to make kids laugh, but usually it made me want to pull my hair out, especially the infamous "Secret Word of the Day" segment. In this segment, Conky the robot would generate a secret word. Then, for the rest of that episode, whenever somebody said that word, everybody had to yell and scream. Paul Reubens yelling is not my idea of good television.

Anyway, while reading an article this afternoon, I came across a word that I was able to figure out in context, but decided to look up anyway since I had never seen it.** And so, I shall present all of you with my own secret word of the day, but I want to change the rules. Instead of yelling when the word is used, I would like you to try to use it as often as you can over Labor Day weekend. It will be an interesting experiment to see how people react. I'm predicting that they're going to say, "What?" a lot.

So, without further ado, here is my secret word with a link to its definition...

milquetoast

Have fun!

*You should really go to this site by the way. The music is WAY trippy, as is the house.
**As a side note, if you already knew this word, then I'd like to know. Where has it been hiding all my life?

Role Conflict

2007-08-26T16:59:00.000-07:00

I am both a sociologist and a fiance/woman/real person. This combination of identities, and their consequent roles has caused me more trouble than usual* this weekend, as my fiance and I are trying belatedly and madly to finish wedding invitations. Role conflict has occurred in two ways:

Publishing an article (any article) in a journal (any journal) has become so salient that even with a template of a response card in front of me that gives the options "Accepts" and "Regrets," I accidentally typed "Accepts" and "Rejects." My fiance also did not notice this, which makes me feel some better. Thankfully, we've only printed half of the response cards, so we anticipate sending the incorrect ones to our sociologist and blind friends and sending the correct ones to the people who love Miss Manners. This is definitely a case of my sociologist role getting in the way of my "real person" role.
Beginning with my father, I forgot to add the appropriate "Dr." title to the addresses. This means that our lucky friends who have already graduated, and several of my parents' friends, will not be getting the appropriate status labels on their invitations. Normally, I might not care about this, but I know enough about Status Characteristics Theory (and I value my own higher education enough) that the sociologist in me is quite angry at the "real person who is really stressed" in me and is tempted to madly call people to apologize (especially our friend who is single but has gotten her Ph.D.).

Thankfully, there are other parts of me, including the "rational self," who reminds me that if people are that worried about their incorrect status then they can just Reject us and we can move on with our lives. Back to work, then...

*Academics have a very hard time separating their work from their home lives from time to time.**
**Okay, you caught me. I mean 95% of the time.

Guilty Pleasure

2007-08-22T14:52:00.000-07:00

I have to admit that I get addicted to reality shows every once in awhile. It's just incredibly interesting to me to watch identity maintenance in action. It's also a perfect microcosm of reality construction in the Berger and Luckmann sense. Hm...maybe I should start showing clips to my students.

Anyway, for those who haven't been exposed to Berger and Luckmann in the past, the main idea is that humans are born into an existing society and internalize the messages from that society accordingly (thus, a little girl will probably grow up feminine and a little boy masculine*). However, existing society came from somewhere, and this is where it always stumps my students. Individuals (and more commonly groups of individuals) are constantly creating and recreating their social worlds. So, an individual is born into a society, but that individual will help perpetuate (or change) that society with his/her actions. Today in class I used the example of my students sitting in seats staring at me, much as they have for the past 15 years of their lives in similar classrooms (because they were socialized to do so from the age of 5). Nobody challenged my status as a teacher. Likewise, I played my role** as teacher, and didn't start doing cartwheels, which I can't do anyway...maybe I could have done a somersault. Anyway, I digress. Ultimately, Berger and Luckmann argue that the relationship between individuals and society (or any social system) is dialectical; you can't understand one without the other.

What's most fascinating about reality shows is that the participants both conform to/recreate the norms learned/internalized in their larger social system, as well as create new "realities." I linked to "Age of Love" earlier, which I am hesitant to admit watching.*** The show's producers created an artificial rivalry between the "cougars," or 40-somethings and the "kittens," or 20-somethings, who were all vying for 30-yr.-old Mark's attention. What was interesting to me was the way that the women so quickly bought in to the rivalry, but this wasn't surprising. Hierarchy is a part of human life (especially when a valued good is introduced to the situation, although I still don't understand the draw of that man), as is homophily (the tendency for people to choose similar alters). In America, age stratification is not always that pervasive, but these women made it so. They started identifying themselves less on their occupational or parental status, and almost solely by their age status, which created a nice little "reality" that looked somewhat similar, but not quite the same as the normal reality of most of us who don't constantly think of our age.**** In other words, age became a more important status characteristic than it usually is for the majority of us...or perhaps it just became more noticeable that we have deep stereotypes based on age.

*Although this is a simplistic example, given ongoing findings about biological differences between the sexes, gender is one of the easiest things to observe in our everyday lives, and so it serves as a good jumping off point here.
**Brad Wright has a nice discussion of role theory on his blog here.
***Did any of the rest of you find the guy completely devoid of substance? If we trust homophily, that says a lot about the woman he chose.
****To be fair, I may feel differently about this when I'm no longer in my twenties.

Public Sociology in National Geographic?

2007-08-21T09:50:00.000-07:00

I've recently been thinking about venues through which sociologists could get our insights out into interesting, public venues that highlight good science. National Geographic (N.G. from now on) seems like it would be an excellent candidate.

For a long time, I have immensely enjoyed reading about anthropological studies in N.G. More recently, N.G. published an article in March (2007) titled "Orlando Beyond Disney: The Theme-Parking, Megachurching, Franchising, Exurbing, McMansioning of America." The title of this piece alone should send shivers up any respecting sociologist's spine - they used some of our terms!!! More concretely, this article discusses sociological concepts in a very straight-forward, commonsensical way, without using a lot of mumbo jumbo or reams of statistics with effects that only those versed in logistic regression can read.

I really encourage you all to read it (especially those of you who have been to Orlando, or any other location with rampant suburban sprawl - think Atlanta, Phoenix, Los Angeles, etc...). Then I'd love to hear your thoughts on using N.G. as a venue for our work. Perhaps I should suggest a section at the ASA next year to discuss this topic. Hm....

No, Our Wedding Website is NOT a Porn Site

2007-08-20T15:11:00.001-07:00

Funny anecdote, as well as a sociological insight into the technological rifts that course through different generations...

My mom called me yesterday to tell me that the fiance and I had made our wedding website overly difficult to find. I replied, "Didn't you type in the address that was included on our save the date card?," thinking that perhaps I had mistyped something (or miss-cut & pasted).

Do you think she just typed in the URL? No, she had typed in part of the address in Google, because Google is the first window that comes up when she opens the internet, and she always uses Google to find everything.

Fair enough. She was an excellent executive secretary for a time a long time ago (when typewriters were still in vogue), and my father's frustration with computers over the years* has led her to be overly scared of messing them up,** which explains the over-use of Google.

Anyway, when she typed in part of our wedding website address into the computer, reams of porn*** sites came up. And, to be fair, one of our family friends (from my mother's generation) also did the exact same thing my mom did, and came up with the same porn sites.

When I told my fiance**** this anecdote over breakfast this morning, he just laughed and said he should have figured that people might accidentally find porn when they went looking for us. When I asked him why (I never expected them to find porn sites, you see), he replied, "For one thing, people are stupid. For another thing, there's a lot of porn on the internet."

And that seems to explain it all.

*I'd like to mention that my father gets frustrated with computers because he always expects them to do the most complicated tasks, and then gets cranky when they don't cooperate.
**My father also instilled me with this fear. Fortunately, I was taught about computers early on in my life, and somewhere around the age of 22 realized that I know WAY more about them than he may ever know. However, I will always also know that when the computer is bad, you should "damn it to hell."
***Don't worry...this link won't take you to actual porn.
****Interesting trivia of the day...Tom Selleck was originally recruited to play Indiana Jones.

Disturbing

2007-08-07T10:09:00.001-07:00

This past weekend I went into Victoria Secret to redeem a coupon I had for a free pair of underwear. While there, I decided to try some stuff on (while my fiance patiently waited in the store for me*).

Anyway, while in the dressing room, I heard a pair of teenaged girls talking. In addition to talking about whether their bras were "cute,"** one of the girls decided to declare, "God, I wish I were anorexic! I tried not to eat today, but my mom made me eat because I was grumpy." To the other girl's credit, she had no reply to this.

I, on the other hand, was very, very disturbed.*** Obviously, the pressure to be thin has not waned since I was in junior high or high school. But it's going a bit far to wish you were anorexic.****

I realize that generations are always lamenting the awful morals of subsequent generations. However, my experience in Victoria Secret, coupled with Slag's excellent analysis of the "morals" of Bratz dolls over on Total Drek, brings out the same reaction in me. I'm more than a little frightened about what my children will face in middle and high school.

*He hates doing this, mind you. I believe his exact words were, "I either look like I'm waiting for somebody, or I look like a random pervert." Ah, impression management...
**I swear, I must have been quite backward in my teenage years. What my bra looked like made very little difference to me, but then I was the only one seeing it.
***My fiance was also quite distressed when I told him this story. My parents, on the other hand, laughed. I still don't get their reaction.
****I could go into long sociological analysis here, but I'm going to stop my analysis here, and just let this anecdote speak for itself.

Growth

2007-08-03T10:09:00.000-07:00

Well, next week the annual meeting of the American Sociological Society is going to occur. I'm getting nervous as I prepare my talk. I'm not nervous about my talk per se, but the criticisms I might receive. However, disagreement is inherently built into the scientific machine - otherwise we would still be thinking the sun revolved around the earth. In addition, occasionally facing the fire and coming through to the other side is good for my growth as a scholar and a human being.

Our garden is growing, too. I am so excited that we will soon have our very own tomatoes and jalapenos. Yum!!!

Well, I'ts Nice to Know I'm Not a Slytherin

2007-08-01T15:16:00.003-07:00

The sorting hat says that I belong in Ravenclaw!

Said Ravenclaw, "We'll teach those whose intelligence is surest."

Ravenclaw students tend to be clever, witty, intelligent, and knowledgeable.
Notable residents include Cho Chang and Padma Patil (objects of Harry and Ron's affections), and Luna Lovegood (daughter of The Quibbler magazine's editor).

Take the most scientific Harry Potter Quiz ever created.

Get Sorted Now!

Status in Academia, or What is in a Calling?

2007-07-30T10:15:00.000-07:00

I have a lot of friends who believe they have been called to ministry (specifically ministry in the Unitarian Universalist church). I have always liked the idea of a calling. In a world so full of choices, it seems comforting to feel so drawn to a particular profession that you just know is what you are supposed to devote your life to. Let's just say that when I started graduate school in sociology, I wanted to be a professor, but I don't think I would have ever used the word calling to describe that want.

However, I do believe that people are called to be professors (and I've grown to understand that I was called to be a professor, too). The trick is that to fulfill the professor job requirements, we are really asked to have a calling for two different professions with two different (and not always compatible) sets of skills.

Professors are expected to be excellent teachers (which is no small task) and excellent researchers (which, again, is no small task). The general public tends to think that a professor's main job is to teach, which has led many a discouraged graduate student to become quite frustrated when talking with his/her parents. However, within academia, a place where theoretically you're paid to teach the thousands of students who pay tuition, teaching is rarely supposed to be the main focus of our endeavors.* Instead, we are supposed to write, and procure, research grants that actually bring in a lot more money in total than the tuition of students.**

This system may shock those of you who believe, like I did until about my third year of graduate school, that the university system is a highly noble mecca of learning. It is a highly noble mecca of learning (sometimes), but teaching often takes a back seat to research interests.*** This problem is brilliantly discussed in the PBS Frontline film (and companion book) Declining by Degrees.****

This gets me back to sociology. I, like many sociologists, study inequality. As a discipline, we have done an excellent job of documenting inequality and trying to find solutions to ameliorate it, especially in the realm of status differences. However, we are also excellent (like many humans) of overlooking the "inconvenient truths" that we don't want to see.

Teaching in our society is undervalued. In traditional occupational prestige tests (please email me for citations - I just don't want to look them up right now), teachers score much lower than doctors, lawyers, and even professors. Despite the immensely important job of educating/socializing our children that they do, teachers are not given status commensurate with their tasks.

The same is true within many academic institutions (especially the big state schools that so many students get funneled into every year). Professors who spend time being excellent teachers are not given the prestige/status of those professors who spend time doing research. This seems easily explained with pure economic theory (at least in the eyes of the university). Research brings in more revenue, and revenue is good for the university.

I'm not advocating that we abolish research (it does help to pay the bills). However, I do think that more balance needs to be struck between the status accorded to teaching vs. research. And I also think that our values need to shift somewhat. Professors and graduate students are constantly complaining about the lack of quality in our students. I think it might behoove us to work a bit harder to stimulate intellectual excitement, instead of the alternative.

Lastly, to get back to the idea of a calling in academia...I'm not really sure whether there are a vast number of people who are ideally suited to both teach and do research (although there are definitely a good number of excellent teacher/researchers in sociology). However, I would urge those of us called to do research to remember that we are bright, capable people who can learn to teach well with some work. Similarly, those of us called to teach will be better teachers if we understand the messy process of research, and are up-to-date on the latest developments in the fields that we teach. Even the strongest calling requires perseverance to maintain.

*I am speaking specifically about research schools here, but even at smaller state schools and liberal arts colleges, research is an important component of the tenure process.

**Did you know for every grant that professors bring in, the university automatically gets 51% of the money? This is one reason why grants are written so large. And why the university takes notice when a professor brings down $1,000,000 in grant funds. Guess who will get tenure now?

***In our department, the faculty pretty much leave the graduate student teachers alone, unless we have very low course evaluations. At my most cynical, I imagine their attitude is that we should strive to be mediocre teachers (not too bad, or the students will complain; not too good, or our research will suffer).

****Incidentally, I believe that all people working in higher education should have to see this movie, but I'm not sure how to implement my evil plan.

The Consequences of Adoption

2007-07-27T09:53:00.000-07:00

I receive health tips in my email a couple times a week from RealAge.com. These tips are usually quite helpful, and quick to read.

Today I received this tip about weight. In a nutshell, the tip encourages people to pull out old family photos and compare how their ancestors looked at the same age and their own current weight. I really like this idea - it's a nice baseline to have when contemplating our own weight.

But, this is another one of those health-related benefits that knowing about my birth family would give me.

I was adopted the day I was born, and I have no real desire to meet my birth mother. She's not my mother, and while I hold no contempt for her, I really just have nothing to say - we're not connected.

However, I would really like to know my genetic history. Fortunately, the technology now exists for me to get a full genetic profile of proclivities for certain diseases. Unfortunately, this knowledge might also limit my future elligibility for healthcare, so I will probably not utilize it any time soon.

If I ever go in search of my birth mother, it will be to find answers to health questions, nothing else.*

*My mother did tell me a few years ago that my birth mother gave up two babies prior to giving me up. I do have the curiosity to find them - it's a different case with them.

Sociological Props

2007-07-25T14:26:00.000-07:00

The other day I heard a very interesting interview on Talk of the Nation with Eboo Patel, an American Indian Muslim. Patel has written Acts of Faith: The Story of an American Muslim, the Struggle for the Soul of a Generation to discuss his thesis that if we want to stop not only terrorism, but violence perpetuated by gangs in our own streets, that we need to teach children peaceful ways of belonging, and most importantly, religious pluralism (just as groups like the Taliban an al-Qaeda spread messages of hatred, and religious extremism/domination among children).

Patel made a very reasoned argument. I was most impressed, though, by a particular point that he made. Patel said that to truly combat violence/terrorism, we don't need a psychological or political understanding of the problem. Rather, he says we need to take a sociological view of the phenomenon. Specifically, he argues that the problem of terrorism lies at the institutional level of analysis. Terrorist groups often target young children within their schools, and start teaching their message very early in the life course. Patel says that there is a lack of such institutions teaching our children religious pluralism and peace among religious groups. He advocates for the creation of more.

Patel must have paid attention in his sociology classes in college, and I am both impressed with his dedication to his cause (and his solution, which I agree with), and his use of the sociological imagination to find a solution to a real world problem.

I encourage you to listen to the interview and/or read the book. My description has only touched the surface of what this amazing man has to say.

8 Random Facts

2007-07-16T09:26:00.000-07:00

Tom has tagged me with my very first blogging meme. I'm kind of excited about being noticed enough to be tagged with a meme, but that might be the same fleeting-type of excitement run into when first added to somebody's email forward list, only to rue the experience later. However, I do appreciate the gesture.

Here are 8 random facts about me:

1) I have played the piano since I was 5, and have sung in numerous choirs and a cappella groups since the 4th grade. Although these loves have not been pursued much since graduate school, I once dreamed of singing on Broadway when I was in high school.
2) I once drove Michael Stipe's red Volvo 240 station wagon (oxidizing paint and all) - for those who are curious, it smelled like the flower section of a craft store. And, for reasons listed in #3, I was significantly less nervous about driving Stipe's car than I might have been otherwise.
3) My family has always driven Volvos. I currently drive a Volvo 240 sedan, my mother drives a 240 station wagon, and my father drives a 740. I expect the trend to stop soon, since cars are now much safer than they once were (my father used to be an emergency physician, and had good reasons for keeping us in bullet-proof tanks).
4) After college, I drove across the country a couple times (in my Volvo). Once, I stayed in a "hostel" in Memphis. This hostel was actually one bedroom of a duplex, run by a man named Patch, a burly fellow with a long blond ponytail and (you guessed it), an eye patch. There is much more that could be said about that experience, but we'll leave it at this for now.
5) If stranded with only one meal selection for the rest of my life, the menu would read: steamed artichokes, crusty sourdough french bread, Fontina cheese, an excellent bottle of Chardonnay, and Swiss chocolates. Mmmm.....
6) I was just given the most amazing late anniversary present! - a planter box filled with potting soil, two types of flowers and a strawberry plant. I'm about to go out and plant the following: basil, oregano, rosemary, parsley, a jalapeno pepper plant, and tomatoes. We'll see if I can achieve 10% of the green thumb my mother has.
7) My hair is a mystery color. Sometimes it is classified as blonde, sometimes as brown, sometimes as red. I just think it changes with the lighting and my outfit. The sun also contributes from time to time - in the summer it's usually much blonder than usual.
8) If I could be anything I wanted to be right now, I'd go to work for National Geographic as a photographer.

That's it! I'm supposed to tag 8 people. I'll tag half that many, and leave it to the more established bloggers to tag more: TDEC, Beth, Slag, and Drek.

Sociology is Right in Our Own Back Yards

2007-07-05T10:59:00.000-07:00

I have been fortunate to have a mother keen on showing her children the United States. During numerous family vacations, I have explored national parks from Yosemite to the Blue Ridge, travelled through corn fields in Nebraska and had ice cream from the Ben and Jerry's store in Vermont, and smelled the summer both in the hot, dry West, and the moist, warm South.

Given all this, it should come as no surprise that I'm pretty fond of my homeland. It probably also won't shock anybody that if I had my way, our national anthem would be focused more on the beauty of our great nation, rather than a bloody battle. My favorite patriotic song is "America the Beautiful," and the sentiments in the song are true to my experiences exploring this amazing country (scroll to the bottom of this page for a visual representation).

The 4th of July was yesterday. As the daughter of a former Quaker, and a liberal vehemently opposed to the War in Iraq, the 4th has been difficult for me the past few years. I love my country, but it is difficult for me to fall in with patriotic fervor when I hear that many of our young troops took the opportunity yesterday to reenlist - in fact, it makes me feel queasy. However, this post is not designed to be a rant against the current president and his posse. Instead, I'd like to talk about what does make America beautiful.

In travelling, and living, in different parts of the U.S., my parents gave me a gift. They helped me see, not with words, but through observation, the many ways that Americans are similar, despite differences in accents, social class,* race/ethnicity, religion, etc.

The truth is that we are all Americans. People in red states are just as friendly (and sometimes more so) than people in blue states. And as a sociologist, I know intellectually that there are similar processes underlying all of our behaviors. But it's deeper than that. We are all connected by kinship to this country. That same kinship causes young men and women to reenlist, while it causes me to go to peace marches and structure my classes in such a way that my students can learn the tools necessary to view societies objectively (at least this is my hope). It also causes me to want to know ever more about the world we live in, both geographically and sociologically.

It is too much to hope that all Americans will get to experience the richness of our country. Despite apathy on the part of some, there are real socioeconomic barriers to travelling around the country for many.

However, regardless of how much of our country we may all individually see, the 4th of July for me is in large part about remembering what makes us whole, and what makes us beautiful. Personally, the beauty of the people and places that are already within our borders is enough, and remembering such beauty causes me to feel quite patriotic.

*These two movies are actually quite interesting looks at the social implications of status characteristics. I highly recommend both of them.

I'll Let This Speak for Itself

2007-06-22T09:45:00.001-07:00

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Morning

2007-06-22T09:06:00.001-07:00

Mmm....a good cup of coffee and Celtic folk music. What could be a better way to start the day?

New Bruise

2007-06-21T08:26:00.000-07:00

This morning I have a new bruise on my right knee, and a slightly bruised ego. Apparently, while I'd like to tell myself I'm good in an emergency, when it comes to huge Doberman Pinscher puppies (keep in mind that this "puppy" was half of my size) running towards me and my fiance's dog clumsily, I completely freak out.

In this particular case, I backed up as quickly as possible, and kept shouting "Please get your dog, please get your dog." This was all happening as (1) the owners of said Doberman Pinscher (Ronan, I later learned) were desperately trying to retrieve their dog (who was not aggressive, just extremely curious, as most puppies are), (2) our dog (imagine this dog about 15 lbs. heavier - our dog is also part Aussie Shepherd) was starting to get aggressive (probably in part because she's missing a back leg and a huge dog was running at her, in part because she sensed my distress, and in part because she's just a "pissy little dog," as my fiance would say), (3) and a random passerby was also trying to get a hold on Ronan.

All of this was over quite quickly, but it was stressful enough that I started to cry when it was all over. Not big gushing tears, but I felt kind of foolish, nonetheless - especially since Ronan's owners were so distraught at having caused me stress. They offered to get me something to drink and the random passerby put a comforting hand on my shoulder. Meanwhile, Casey, our little crazy aggressive dog, was acting very friendly (which she usually doesn't, as our friends can attest) - she's sometimes quite good at impression management.

I have hope that the rest of the day will be a bit calmer.*

*As a side note, I really wish I were at the place in that picture right now, instead of the summer heat!

I Admit It

2007-06-07T13:16:00.001-07:00

I love Josh Groban.

I know that his music is derided by every man I know, including my father and fiance, who are quite sensitive men.

I know his lyrics are repetitive and lack much substance.

But have you heard him sing?*

As somebody who participated in numerous choirs throughout high school and college, I appreciate his form and clarity.

As a girl who does not get chills from just anything she hears, I appreciate the way Josh Groban's music makes me feel.

I have to face the fact that I love his music... even if he is among the latest classically trained, quasi-pop singers** out there, who are trying to blurr the lines of traditional music categories.***

*I can't help myself...he's also beautiful to look at. Check out that link.
**To this classification I would also add Charlotte Church, Hayley Westenra, and Il Divo, among others.
***This is a discussion for another post.

One Step at a Time

2007-06-04T11:35:00.001-07:00

After allowing myself to not work for somewhere between 6 and 8 days, I find myself having already worked this morning for 2 1/2 hours. Woo-hoo!!!

I knew (as did my fiance) that this would happen. I was always one of those kids who wished school would start earlier than September (back when kids started school in September). I just get bored too easily without more interesting entertainment than Civilization IV, which is quite addictive, and mentally challenging.* I just can't stand staring at the computer all day.**

At this point, I'm babbling. I just wanted to send a virtual message to myself that all was not lost in sociology land, and that I can be a productive member of society.***

*My Civ addiction is similar to the SimCity addiction my best friend and I had in middle school. We figured out how to get free funds on the game, and would spend hours taking turns playing the game and watching the other one play the game. We did take breaks now and then to play dress up, watch Avonlea on the Disney Channel, and play wall ball. Life was simpler then, and we were very innocent...
**I also have the problem that I only want to play the earlier time periods, and never advance into the Industrial Age. Life was just so much more interesting when the 7 Wonders were around.
***The past couple of months have been really hard.

The Stoopid Test

2007-05-24T12:05:00.000-07:00

Well, this is what happened when I took the following test:

I'm not sure this test is completely accurate. For instance, if I'm so smart, why am I sitting around taking such tests when I really should be revising one of my articles for submission to a journal? That's a question for the less stoopid out there to answer.

Take Note

2007-05-24T10:14:00.001-07:00

Awhile ago, two friends and I attended a fundraising dinner for an American Indian cause. The guest of honor was an Indian shaman. He spoke to us for about two hours.

This was a new experience for me. And, as I sat there surrounded by the wealthy, privileged class of the city in which I live, I found myself ignoring the context of the situation and focusing on the magnetic man in front of me.

He said a lot of things. But one important idea had the most impact. He said that we tout certain days "special," such as birthdays and holidays, and celebrate them accordingly. However, he wanted to remind us that every day is cause for celebration - we are alive, we are well, and we are given the gift of another day.

I forget this simple idea quite often. My fiance and I visited my cousin, B, and his fiance a couple weeks ago, and I was reminded that my wonderful cousin does not forget to celebrate every day. Of course, he is sometimes impractical in his excitement,* but the excitement is infectious.

All of this is to say that I would like to be more excited about every day before me. They truly are gifts, and shouldn't be squandered. There is too much to experience.

*The most notable example of impracticality on that particular trip was taking the dog on a hike over quite rough rock, where she clearly did not want to be. My cousin at one point exclaimed, "See, she LOVES it!," as the dog bravely trudged on after her master. Ten feet behind, far enough so that B didn't hear, my fiance said to me, "I think it's more accurate to say that she TOLERATES it, because she loves B." This is just one of many examples of why I'm with my fiance, rather than somebody like B, no matter how great he is.

Anger

2007-05-23T16:57:00.000-07:00

"Do not meddle in the affairs of Wizards, for they are subtle and quick to anger." - J.R.R. Tolkien

I wish right now that the above quote related to me. For the past few months, I have become angry, with brief periods of sanity, and unfortunately, I'm not a wizard, and so have no excuse.

I have a book on my shelf that my mother gave me several years ago titled "The Dance of Anger." It's a self-help book promoting good ways for women to express their anger, since we have a tendency to hold things in, thus denying ourselves, or burst out violently, thus living up to the "bitch" label given to lots of us. I have read some of the book, and am not ready to claim it fully good or bad, although I think the author is doing a good job discussing the emotions that often occur as a result of gender roles. However, this is a side note to the larger point, although perhaps I'll blog about the book once I've finished it.

I've become quite good at hiding my anger in public. Unfortunately, my fiancee gets the brunt of it, most of the time undeservedly, behind the closed door of our home. This makes sense; I'm a social psychologist, and know the tools of impression management well. But I don't like it.

I'm tired of being angry. It saps my energy, it makes me dislike myself greatly, which leads to low self-esteem and a general feeling of malaise. It also makes me quite irritated at little things that used to roll off my shoulders. Most of all, anger is not the best emotion to be feeling when trying to have right relations with others. Anonymous had it right when s/he said, "Don't hold to anger, hurt or pain. They steal your energy and keep you from love."

Obviously, I'm not going into the sources of my anger. There are quite a few, dealing mostly with family, and I don't feel like venting them here. But I can't seem to get the anger to go away, so perhaps publicly discussing it will help spur me to action. Or, perhaps I can just change my occupation and become a Wizard!

"Gems"

2007-05-02T14:33:00.000-07:00

I collected these gems last week while grading my students' final papers for my class. In no particular order, here are the Best Of's...

Best Transition:
"This brings up another point but from the view of Durkheim, not Simmel."

Best Typo (that only sociologists are likely to understand):
"Durkheim talks about anomie or the condition of relative normalness in a whole society or in one of its component groups."

Best Unfortunate Use (or Lack of Use) of the Possessive Tense:
"The two important features of urban life that affected those living in the cities thoughts and behavior, has to do with the intensity of nervous stimuli or sensation from the city."

Best Over "Simplification:"
"With the emergence of Second Life, people are able to show a more possible self, what people want to become or are often afraid of becoming, where they can simply create an avatar by what they want to become or what they are simply afraid of becoming in reality. Avatars are lifelike icons that displays what a person's identity is by simply choosing a template and dressing it up. These avatars can change simply like our personal identity, which can be created then recreated as time passes."

Best Topic Sentence to a Formal Essay:
"While getting myself familiarized with the game Second Life and also brushing up on the articles from Kenneth Gergen, I was trying to take in every aspect I could in order to find comparisons between the two."

There are others, too numerous to list. And of course, there were stellar essays as well. Oh well, now it's time to grade the final exams.

No Motivation

2007-05-01T16:39:00.000-07:00

UPDATE

I have two wonderful, wonderful friends who looked at me in the wedding dress, and made me feel like a princess with their comments! Life is looking up.

Thank you, gals!!!

___________________

Tally of what I've done today:

1) I have graded 5 (of 40 papers).
2) I have done one load of laudry, but not yet folded it up (although it is dry).
3) I have messed around with Flickr (which was enjoyable, but not "workwise" productive).
4) I have picked up my wedding dress from USPS.
5) I have tried on said wedding dress.
6) I have sat morosely staring at old photos of me when I was one-two sizes smaller (after trying on said wedding dress).

I'm kind of in a daze, partly due to the lateness of the semester I'm sure, but also because I think I'm trying to stave off my growing disappointment with the dress. Why is it that being a nice, healthy, normal size is not enough?

Ugh. Back to grading...

Teaching and Guilt

2007-04-30T16:23:00.000-07:00

A student just turned in his paper with the wrong sized spacing. He apologized for this, but I know he already cut his paper from 12 to 6 pages to conform to the limits of the assignment.

I looked at him and found myself. This student has been one of the most conscientious, thoughtful, and intelligent students I've had all semester. It made me cringe to hear him apologize several times.

And I do it to. My fiancee and I went away for the weekend, and I kept apologizing for the lack of "perfection." "I'm sorry that the bed and breakfast isn't better," "I'm sorry that we didn't go on this hike, but the other one," "I'm sorry for being sorry."

It's insanity. Slowly going insane on imagined guilt that shouldn't be. It's an unfortunate reality that I'm much more forgiving with others than myself. There was a part of me that wanted to give my student a hug (the maternal part), but I rarely want to give myself a hug in a similar situation.

Ah - reflections are sometimes so reflective!

School Shootings, R.E.M., and Reflections

2007-04-20T10:31:00.000-07:00

This morning I received an email from one of my "A" students. She explained to me in her email that her mother called her this morning at 7:30 to ask her not to attend her classes today. My student asked for my understanding in this matter, and I have no problem granting her (or her mother) my understanding.

This week has, to put it bluntly, sucked. Graduate school is typically challenging, tiring, etc..., but I think that being in academia has especially attuned me (us) to the tragedy at Virginia Tech on Monday.

On Wednesday, I decided to devote some time to discussing the incident with my students, and making sure they knew where to go if somebody were threatening themselves or somebody else. And I got mixed reactions. Some of my students welcomed the information, wanting to know what to do to potentially stop these incidents from happening in the future. Other students had a completely opposite reaction. "It's a big world," they said, "We can't possibly report every threatening incident, and we personally can't do much to stop a crazy person."

I agree with this second group of students, up to a point. But then the sociologist steps in. As I told my students, the "Bystander Effect" is quite strong. I also told them that I hoped they would take the time to report strange behavior from those they knew.

In addition to this, I found myself agreeing with yet another group of students in my class who said that blaming the victim cannot be the entire answer, that we as a society have a responsibility to our fellows.

Sociology gives us the tools to know that estrangement causes alienation and anomie, conditions which are much more likely to lead to destructive behavior (either towards self or others). Although it's easier to shrug it off, I firmly believe that we do have a responsibility towards each other. Yes, the shooter was mentally unstable, but his words reveal that he felt completely disonnected from other people.

I was lucky to go to college mostly pre-Columbine (the Columbine shootings took place at the end of my junior year of college). My students aren't so lucky. At least one is missing my class because of the fear that the violence on Monday has caused. That makes me angry (much as my colleague's comment the other day that we should now be "extra nice" to our students so they don't get angry and shoot us, including giving good grades to all!!!), but it also makes me very, very sad.

It's not enough to say that the problem is "too big." However, to get beyond that, we have to accept responsibility for helping to sustain a safe society for all of us (even, or perhaps especially, the mentally unstable among us).

I'm listening to R.E.M.'s "Automatic for the People" this morning. Not only does this album remind me of college, but quite a few songs remind me that there are more connections between us than divisions. In particular, "Everybody Hurts" does this. We're all alone there in our own particular cars, trying to get where we're going (for very real sociological reasons - think organic solidarity), but we don't have to be.

Let's use our knowledge for power.

Sleepy

2007-04-11T21:54:00.000-07:00

I'm not exactly sure when the exhaustion ends. There are so many responsibilities right now. I need to:

1) find some way to collect my dissertation data (I'm almost there with this one, but the last day of the public schools is 5/24, so I'm down to the wire)

2) publish something?

3) be a good teacher, when I'm frustrated at half my class for putting in sub par work while expecting an "A" or a "B" (incidentally, this makes me want to scream sometimes)

4) plan a wedding with my mother while coping with family issues

5) figure out what said "family issues" are (this is not a quick process)

6) try to spend some quality time with the fiancee (which is getting harder and harder to do as the stress mounts up)

7) continue the ongoing saga of "Cat/Dog Summit," in which we get the animals together for a nice sit down (in actuality, this is when the dog runs around like a spaz, and the cats cower on my lap for awhile, while getting intermittently "kissed" by the dog; however, they all have come a long way on this (i.e., they can all lie peacefully next to eachother for 15-30 minutes, the cats just can't really move without the dog spazing again))

8) exercise?

9) keep the headaches under control?

10) find time to breathe? (at least I stick to my yoga routine every morning)

I'm tired. Everything will undoubtedly look better in the morning. Hopefully...

Otherwise, I might need to change my name from Practicing Idealist to Practicing "Something Else."

Quote of the Day

2007-04-06T09:55:00.000-07:00

The stack is almost gone. I just wanted to share the latest "gem" that has been placed before my eyes (if you think the last part of this sentence is badly written, I'm absorbing it from my students' papers).

Anyway, here it is (with no editing on my part)!

"My values are similar to my parent's values andpeople with the same beliefs as me. I think my values are similar because we all believe in the same thing."

You know, I have to agree with him. My parents' values are similar to mine, too...because we all believe in the same thing.

Constant Catch-Up

2007-04-04T09:34:00.000-07:00

The stack is still here, though slightly smaller.

There's now a stack of essays exams next to the stack of papers.

My mom was here over the weekend. And as much as I love her, when she left yesterday I only had the energy to stare blankly at an annoying little logic game on my computer screen and decompress.

I'm coming out of the fog today. Time to start decreasing the height of the stack. Maybe by tomorrow afternoon I'll be a bit more on top of things. Maybe...

Stacks...

2007-03-26T16:24:00.000-07:00

of paper. With words.

At my most cynical, they represent incredible frustration: annoyance at improper comma use, and the rampant rape of the english language.

At my most hopeful, they contain indescribable brilliance: excellent syntax, unequaled understanding of tough concepts.

At my most realistic, they are both. And thus begins the long, arduous task of grading.