The run is over...

The Badgers lost to North Carolina today, 88-82. I'm gutted - I thought we had them for a while. But I'm rather proud of them all and all - the experts said that the Badgers could never run with Carolina, they couldn't keep up in a high scoring game. Well, they almost did. Two teams from the Big Ten - Mich. State and Illinois - made the final four, so the conference is looking pretty good right now. Which is a good thing indeed, as everyone thought it was a down year or couple of years for the Big Ten.
Other than that, not too much to say. The Right wing continues their righteous indignation about Teri Schiavo's feeding tube being removed, while when an Iraqi hospital is bombed they don't even care. I guess that nice, white Christian suburbanites are worth "saving," while "others" don't make the cut. Hypocracy at its finest.

The eve of Easter

Not too much to report today - India's mother has returned to Beantown, the Badgers are still alive in the NCAA basketball tournament, and my momma sent yummy baked goods to me for Easter. This morning, we ate breakfast at a little place called "Sophia's" in the E. Johnson neighborhood of Madison. Great place - best croissants I've ever had. The place is tiny - our living room is bigger than the dining area. The staff was very interesting - the woman taking the orders and delivering the food was very pretty, and had tattoos covering most of the skin that could be seen, and presumably a great deal of it that couldn't be seen. She also had these rather interesting piercings in her ears, much like one particular tribe in Ethiopia which I've seen in National Geographic in the past. Holes are cut in the earlobes, and wooden plates are inserted. Her's were probably not quite as big around as tennis balls, but just larger than a golfball. She had this adorable three year old daughter that was running around the place and talking to everybody. And there was one guy there who appeared to be her significant other or partner or what have you. He had a black eye, was limping a bit, and appeared to be inebriated or under the influence of something. All the while, some rather interesting, most likely South American/Andean music was playing in the background. All in all, interesting breakfast, to be sure.
More typing to be done tonight. I'm dreading the return to normalcy that will come with monday, as switching from a nocturnal to a diurnal schedule is never pleasant and will require loads of caffein. And so it goes. Go Badgers!

Survivor (and not that horrible reality show nor the horrible '80s band)

Well, it's now about 20 minutes shy of 8 am, and I can say that I've spent a night in Haunted Science Hall and I can live to tell about it! Not too much to tell - just an old, creeky building. But I did manage to bulk the thesis up to 31 pages (40 if you include photos, maps, and bibliography.) So progress is being made. And you all know how I feel about progress...

Embracing the Insomnia

Tonight, after having dinner at the Taj (considered Madison's top Indian restaurant) with Keli, India, India's mother, our old friend and geographer Cindy and Cindy's very interesting parents (her father, a retired doctor who bought us all dinner, told us all of these great stories about doing medical missions in Central America), I've decided to make a radical change in sleeping policy for the remainder of spring break. As it seems that I accomplish more in the wee hours of the morning and little during the day and I don't have to be anywhere during the day, I'm going nocturnal! So, tonight, I'm doing something that few people would dare do: staying up all night in Science Hall, where I am almost certainly the only person. For those of you not familiar with the campus here at UW - Madison, Science Hall, home to the Geography Department and my office, is about 113 years old and considered to be HAUNTED. So I may have to change my underwear before the night's over...
Other things are falling into place that will facilitate my escape to Bangkok, as it appears I have a sublettor for the apartment and a buyer for my car. The weather's getting better, so things seem to be going swimmingly. Hail progress!

Insomnia - riding again

In the midst of Spring Break 2005, Insomnia seems to have returned. Thesis typing is coming along, but it's gonna take a pretty big effort to crank out a draft by Monday. But we'll get there - a caffein-fueled all-nighter during Spring Break seems to be on the cusp of insanity to most sane human beings, but it may be what I need to get me to where I need to be, as I attempt to incorporate the works of Sociologist Rogers Brubaker and Discourse Analyst Norman Fairclough in my writings. That's not an easy task, mind you, as I have yet to read either of them. Hail adventure!
The other interesting story is that last night, while my fellow Geographer Chris Limburg and I were taking a study break and watching Star Wars (the most recent one,) I looked out the back window to see how rapidly the ice was melting on the lake in our backyard. While I was looking out, out of the corner of my eye I noticed the green canvas lawnchair that my father gave me was set up, and on top of it was an opossum! It seems he/she was building a nest on it. I flipped it over after the possum had left to dispense the marsupial's nest. Kind of crazy.
India's mother comes to town tomorrow. Should be fun. Time to make an attempt at sleep.

On! Wisconsin!

Much to report in this posting of the web log. Following a Thursday night at my favorite bar in the world, the Karaoke Kid (where several high school basketball coaches were getting’ their sing on and where I met this really drunk guy who looked like a sleazy Republican and yet had a very friendly and attractive Japanese wife with whom I practiced my Japanese), Keli, India, and I took a quick yet successful trip to northeast Wisconsin, including Oshkosh, Green Bay, Door County, and Sheboygan. Highlights included hanging out with the parents of my ever-cheerful roommate, Keli, in Oshkosh, running on to Lambeau Field, staying in a very quaint and cozy cabin overlooking Green Bay (the body of water, not the city) and watching basketball and Japanese Animation until very late in the night, driving around in Door County and enjoying the great scenery, stopping off to watch the Badger basketball game at a bar in Sheboygan known as “Burps” and eating dinner at a Supper club just down the street known as Rupp’s, which served good food but had the look and was playing music much like one might expect to hear in a funeral home (an instrumental version of “Memories” was playing as we walked in) and a quick drive through the bizarre fordist company town, Kohler, where Kohler faucets are made. A few notes: While touring Lambeau, our tour guide pointed out that the Vikings (my favorite football team) had never won a championship. I wanted to raise my hand and ask the man “who won the first ever game in the newly-renovated Lambeau Field and the first ever playoff meeting between the teams?” However, in Packer country, it’s best to just grin and nod, grin and nod. So I didn’t. Secondly, while at Burp’s (which felt and looked like the quintessential small-town Midwestern bar) and watching the game, we were fortunate enough to meet the owner and namesake of the place, Burp himself. I could understand why Burp earned his name, as he had a voice that had clearly only been achieved through decades of chain smoking, sounding only a notch or two above a tracheotomy. Anyhow, he was standing in front of the television and telling off-color jokes to these three thrity-something, heavily Midwestern accented women during the tensest part of the Badger’s victory over Bucknell which put UW into the Sweet 16. (Go Red!) Well, Burp felt bad, and then the bartender bought us all another round of Spotted Cow. I wish I could repeat some quotes I heard from Burp, but they wouldn’t be very funny without hearing them in Burp’s voice. So I won’t. At the same time, some young man at the other end of the bar was trying to hit on my roommate, India, commenting that she “looked nicer in dreads than any woman he’d ever seen.” (India does have very nice dreadlocks, by the way.) So she got a free Spotted Cow out of the deal, which is nice. But she had to make it known to the guy that she was very much taken, and the very friendly bartender made sure this was known without crushing the poor sap’s soul.
Now we’re home, and tomorrow begins the great writing marathon that will be the remainder of Spring Break ’05. In one week, I will have a full draft of my thesis. So there’s lots of work to be done, and I’m gonna get some sleep to help me do it. Hail Progress, and Go Badgers!

The Scent of Heavenly Jasmine

Not too much to report in this blog, other than extreme fatigue and two obsessions - filling my apartment for the summer (anxiety over which is a major contributor to the aforementioned fatigue) and the scent of jasmine. I bought some Jasmine Green tea at the Willy Street Coop the other day, and I can't get enough of the aroma. At this point in time, if a woman walked up to me and she smelled of jasmine, I'd likely ask her to marry me. I have these fantasies about going to Bangkok and smelling the scent of fresh jasmine floating through the air everywhere I go. I know better than this - I know what Bangkok smells like, and it's far from the scent of fresh jasmine. But it's still a nice thought, and I know that I'll be able to buy it from markets and such all the time.
Anyhow, this is what I'm rambling about in my sleep-deprived state, so I should probably just shut up now. Hail Sleep!

April 22 - T-Day

After a rather relaxing weekend (likely one of the last to which I'll be able to apply that adjective in quite some time) I feel as if I really should've done more, as deadlines are looming big.
Saturday consisted of, well, relaxing and dinner with my roommate India, DeBauchery, Nate ( another Geog. grad student, a man with the best temperment anyone could ever hope for) and Erica (Nate's fiance.) India made a nice stew with some sort of name I forget. Sunday had me watching the Badgers lose to Illinois (d'oh!) , and doing a massive load of laundry.
However, the real big news is that Thesis defense date is now official - 22 April. Scary! Lots of work to do before then. However, good to have a date set. Much to do between now and then, and I really hope that I can find a sublettor soon to get that worry out of my head to allow me to just focus on April 22 and that which goes with it. And so it goes. I anticipate high amounts of caffein consumption in the days and weeks to come. God help me! Hail progress!

Just Like Honey...

Just finished watching Lost in Translation with my roommates, Keli and India, and my India's partner and one of my good friends, Nick "DeBauchery" Bauch. Now this is the first time that I've actually sat down and watched the entire movie since I saw it in the Theatre more than one year ago at the Westgate Art Cinema here in Madison, and I was curious how I would respond to it. You see, when I watched it the first time shortly after it was released in October of 2003, my relationship with Atsuko, my last significant other whom I was with in Japan, was on the rocks and nearly done, so it was quite emotional for me to see that movie. At that time, I was feeling very nostalgic for my time in Japan, as I was struggling a bit with the adjustment to graduate school and questioning my decision to come back and wishing that my relationship with her was going better, and seeing this movie didn't really help that. That's my big problem (or one of them, anyway) I think - I tend to remember only the good about the past and forget the struggles and the difficult parts, such as having my feet stepped on constantly at the supermarket, the huge prices on everything, and the impossibility of being comfortable anywhere that was Tokyo life.
Anyway, to get back on task, watching it again was cool because I gave running commentary about the different neighborhoods it was filmed in, what they were doing, what was being said, and so on. And while I did feel nostalgic for Tokyo and missed things like strolling through Ginza and eating Shabu Shabu, it was far easier for me to watch this time. And I still enjoyed the movie - well done!

Thesis, Mother of Achilles

Or is it Thetis? Whatever - either way, it's a mother! The night before last, woke up at 2 am to make the paper (or what I had of it) a little bit less embarrasing for when I handed it to Dr. Robert J. Kaiser, my advisor, yesterday. After handing him the 25 pages (not including a two page index and five page bibliography) that I've written thus far, we discussed dates for making things happen, and 22 April has been tenatively tagged as a date when I'll be defending the mother. So pretty exciting - light at the end of the tunnel is in plain view.

In other news, but also around academic lines, the seminar on Tuesday on Migration and Citizenship, lead by Madeline Wong, was a good one. We discussed Geographical Scale and the politics of it, which is what the above mentioned Thesis is all about. I was naturally asked to expound on the subject a fair bit, which I did. It was heartening that the people in the class, most of whom were non-geographers, found the concept useful and interesting. I also got some names of theorists in Sociology who work on something that they call "framing," which is very similar. So it's good to know that people in other disciplines find this stuff useful, which means I'm not completely wasting my time on this stuff. Hail progress!

The Reverend Preaches

Electrifying night - saw the Rev. Al Sharpton speak in the memorial union to a packed house. One of the best speakers I've ever heard. Some quotes:

"Pres. Bush pushed through his 'no child left behind' program, but then left all the funding behind."
"The Right wing wants to privatize health care, privatize social security, privatize everything, except what you do in your bedroom, which they want to make public."
"God gave us free will, and we can go to heaven if we want to or go to hell if we want to. I might not agree with your activity, but it's not the government's place to stop you. If you want to go to hell, I'm gonna fight for your right to go there."

It was beautiful!

Slappin' hands with Boone on the way down

Today was a day of rest and recovery following one wild wild night which included getting really drunk at one of my professor's homes, going to a bar with another professor afterwards, and having my coat - my favorite coat in the world, the famous Northwest Airlines jacket - burned when someone threw it over a candle sitting on one of the tables. It's still salvageable, but has a hole burnt through it. So I stormed off in my drunken anger, and on my walk home encountered my roommate's ill-tempered cat, who was busy urinating on one of the neighbor's houses. It was a surreal evening, and despite my anger and the hole in my beautiful coat, actually fun.
So other than nursing a hangover today, I've managed to make a bit of progress on the thesis and spent far too much time on friendster, my latest addiction that I just don't need right now but can't seem to put down. Other than that, just drivin' that train. Hail progress...

Only in Wisconsin...

Following work at the Arthur H. Robinson (may peace be upon him) Map Library today, I made a beeline for Madison's horrible yet interesting East Towne Mall. Why would a hater of ubiquity , suburbia, and yuppie commerce like me head for such a ubiquitos, suburban, and yuppie-commercial place such as the East Towne Mall, you ask? Two words: Colossal Colon! That's right - in an effort to raise awareness about colon cancer, some agency from the UW has made a mammoth plastic model of a colon, showing polyps, hemmoroids (sp?), and all sorts of unpleasant things in a three foot diameter and 50 foot long plastic colon that children can crawl through. I read about it last night on madison.com, and decided that it was too bizarre to not go and take a few photos. So I did. And now, perhaps finally, I can say that I've seen it all.

incendere est

As I type, I sit in my living room chatting with my ever-cheerful roommate Keli while exchanging glances with my other roommate's (India) ill-tempered cat as the fire in our fireplace slowly burns to nothing. India sleeps silently on the couch. I'm taking a break from reading RD Sack again, and anticipating a cold day tomorrow. Other than that, not much to report. Happy March!

The Bloodsport of Social Science

In class today we went further into the heated debate around the excellent book written by sociologist Mitch Duniere (sp?) entitled Sidewalk. Highly respected French sociologist Loic Wacquant thought it was a load of stercus (if you don't know the meaning of stercus, find a latin dictionary), while most everyone else, despite its weaknesses, thought it was very impressive. I agree with everyone else - well written, and while not perfect, it's readability and message that homeless people aren't all bad is an important one that needs to be read. Go out and find the book - an excellent read.
Other than that, guest lecturer Anna Secor of the University of Kentucky came to visit class, which was very interesting, as she does research in Turkey. The biggest news of the day, however, is that I have a ticket to see the Rev. Al Sharpton speak here in M-A-D one week from today. Now that's gonna be cool.