Oh, the rain comes...

like it did that time last year, except this time I don't have a hole in my ceiling. Which is nice.

I am unfocused. I need a guide. I am focused, but on too many things. Too many epiphany-like things. I don't even know where to start in putting all of these things into words, into actions. In the past week, I have done an incredible amount of research (book research) and I have come to several amazing conclusions. And...

And what? There's too much going on in my head now for me to be effective with any of them. I've got to sort out this mess.

At any rate, I've decided that this state of being is "what it's like to be in grad school". That ever-elusive concept that I kept asking Masters and Doctors about last year. They said, "it's like nothing you've ever done before." Which is true, and also entirely unhelpful. So let me put this down into words, and then get back to trying to sort through the rest. It will come. I'm not worried. Much of the sorting is the doing. And I will do. Just not for a few more minutes.

First, grad school is like...

Grad school is like having an employer and going to work, and you have shit wages and too much to do, but you're getting paid to learn about things you really, really enjoy, and you're getting paid to relearn everything you thought you knew, so that you can then understand that you really knew it all along, just in a different way.

Grad school is like having an employer and going to work, and you have shit wages but good hours. All hours, in fact. There are those hours in class, and those hours in your office working, and those hours reading, and those hours tracking down obscure literature, and those hours arguing your points with people who may or may not agree with you but do so vociferously, and those hours where you're not technically doing grad school, but you are anyway, because you've got to think through it all and process all that's going on. Some of these hours occur while watching TV or sleeping, and those hours seem less and less like downtime because your brain is less and less inclined to shut off.

Because it's just so cool! All this stuff, if not new, is exciting! Because it's in your head. And if you took your opinions seriously before (which you did, because they're yours), it's nothing compared to now. It's no longer a matter of acting like you're someone worth listening to and making other people believe it. You really are someone worth listening to. You have entered your field. And you're new; you're the fledgling; your theories are imperfect, but your ideas are valid and therefore worth discussing.

And then you realize you have to figure out how to bring this all back to earth. Because it's great to argue with academics and figure out the answers, but if my people can't talk to me, can't understand me, never see me... what the hell good is it? What the hell good am I?

I feel there is a balance I must walk. I must be consciously aware of "who I am" so that I do not become "one of them". I am not content to live a normal life. I am not content to stand above the people I wish to serve. I seek a world that creates and sustains justice for all. That includes the participation of all players. I seek to be a mediator, I guess.

...

Ah well... this is already a weird Kati's-brain-is-overloaded-she-needs-to-vent-some-of-this-steam-out sort of post, so I may as well go into the absurd psychology of dreams. As a teenager, young adult, and now Official Grown-Up (tm), I have had a series of dreams in which I stood on the porch of a beautiful, old, slightly dilapidated, yet still quite elegant, antebellum mansion. And I looked out, and I see many other beautiful, old, slightly dilapidated, yet still quite elegant, antebellum mansions. They were all floating in the ocean, the porch steps running down into the sea, water sometimes lapping up in a salty spray. And there were other people in these mansions, and there were still other people in the water.

There had been an apocalyptic supernatural End Times sort of thing that happened and it left us where we were -- floating mansions and people drowning. And then there was a Titanic sort of struggle over what to do (Titanic both in the sense of massive and in the sense of the Titanic ship sinking and some people in lifeboats while others are in the water). Some people did not want to help the people into the mansions because these people in the water were homeless and bad, may bring bad consequences with them into the mansions, may as well just drown. But I could never let that happen. I would pull people in, and my mansion would fill, and all the while I would be yelling to other people in their mansions, convincing them to pull up survivors as well.

There would be many trials and tribulations along the way. Too many people, not enough food, struggles for space, heat, arguments, in our mansion, in other mansions. But at the ends of these dreams, our mansions would come ashore. We would have made it through together.

I don't guess I've talked to people about these dreams so much. In a way they seem rather weird -- down home southern-style mansions just floating around in seemingly endless water -- but it was beautiful. Breathtaking. I remember these dreams so vividly, and I have to say, these mansions floating on this oceanic backdrop... it is perhaps the most beautiful sight I have ever seen in dream or reality. And in many ways, these dreams have defined who I think I am, who I think I ought to be, who I strive to be.

I wrote a song about it, many years ago. And yes, I feel I can Officially have "many" years in my past and still be talking about things that have happened in my adulthood. Anyway, it's this:

I built the bridge that crosses the ocean
Gathered up pieces of time’s own creation
Caught withered hands, caught the masses, caught my mission
Watch as it falls, watch it crumble, watch the beginning of oblivion

Pieces fall; night takes it all
Pieces fall; nightmares take it all

I built the houses that swim in the ocean
Housing the people who drift through destruction
Search for the lost, search for future, search for a vision
God’s calling my name, the air screams, I’m lost in a sea of mind distortion

Pieces fall; night takes it all
Pieces fall; nightmares take it all

I built the mansions that drift in the ocean
I heard the battle, the gods fought in legions
Watching the end times, watch in frustration
I bridged the gap, I crossed the ocean

Organizationizing

My new goal is to cherish the memory of that month in which I did nothing.

Granted, "did nothing" is a bit of a stretch. I wrote a novel and then started yet another. I explored my bit of Oahu on my bike. I watched an exorbitant amount of tv shows and movies online. I researched the Superferry and community change research that has been done. I made manicotti one day. I read eight books.

Wow. I get a lot done when I'm doing nothing.

Anyway, I have something to do now. And by "something", I really mean "all things". The coursework this semester is a lot. It's... it's a lot.

I'm taking Social Psychology and the readings in this class rival the readings in Cliff's Community Psych class last semseter, which translates to "150-200ish pages weekly". But interesting readings. I'm not dreading them or anything. But it'll just take a lot of time.

I'm taking a "How to work the State Legislature as a Cultural Community Psychologist" class, in which I'll grab some issues, find corresponding legislation that's up for law, research all background information for these bills (including relevant research with those issues and political things that have happened in other states with those issues), testify to committees, and write up reports. This, too, will be very time consuming. Interesting, oh god yes. And informative. Practical experience I will need as I move into policy work in my field. And just a whole hell of a lot of work.

And of course, my research class. I would like to propose my Masters this semester. I have a topic. I have a theme. I do not have a research question. I don't have participants chosen, even. That is what I need to figure out. Cliff has said I should go ahead and start a lit review, so that's what I'm working on now. This will take a couple of weeks if I work full-on (which I intend to) and maybe after that I'll have a thesis ready for design and implementation. That's the goal, at any rate.

I feel a bit overwhelmed when I look at the whole of what I have to do this semester, or even the whole of what I would like to get done this week. So I write lists, breaking it up into small, manageable bits that I can accomplish in these hours, in this afternoon, in this time slot. And then I can scratch things off my list and look back at all the stuff I've got done already.

The good news is that I have an office. Okay, so technically I already had one, ya? But it was down in the basement, and it was a storage closet for furniture. I went in the day I got the key and I didn't go back again for four months. Last week, I decided I would need a place on campus to get all this stuff done, so I went back to the office. I studied it with a critical eye, trying to determine how I could arrange things so that it stopped being a storage closet and started being a place I could work. Then I decided to go see if any offices had come free upstairs. It was a long shot by several miles, but it paid off. I have a second-floor office. It's shared with three other people, but it has a window, and it's spacious, and it's not in the dungeons. My little cubicle is just great. I've gotten a lot of reading done there this week.

The other good news is that I've taken up drinking massive amounts of hard liquor to balance out the stress of grad school. Oh wait, that's next year. Nah, bike riding and novel writing are my stress relief, and they work great.

In the future, as I organize my thoughts for the semester and for my thesis, I'll write more about that stuff. But right now, I'm still trying to organize my reading list.

peace,
kati

Two Things

I'll give a serious entry soon enough, with discussion on academics and politics and my life weaving through them, but right now is not the time for all of that. I have two things to mention.

One, I cut my hair today, and finally got my face back. It is two weeks since I got contacts and I only recognized myself today. I went back to my old haircut, the one I had years back before I got glasses, and now I can see myself again. Older, yes, but that is totally Kati in the mirror.

Two, we went to see Beowulf tonight at the dollar theatre. It was fun. But I have to say, the thing that impressed me most was that this was a movie, finally, with no pretenses. This was a movie that was quite comfortable shouting to the stars that these epic adventures, these action movies... they're all about dick.

That is all. Peace.

The Woman in the Mirror

In a not-so-sudden fit of desiring visual clarity, Michael and I decided to take advantage of our Vision Insurance and get new eyewear. I decided to go back to contacts this time for several reasons, including:

1) I wanted to

2) so I can wear reading glasses when my eyes are bothering me (I hate bifocals and grad school = massive amounts of reading)

3) so I can wear sunglasses outside (because I live in Hawaii, where it's sunny sometimes) (see above where today's weather is reported with up-to-the-minute accuracy)

and 4) because I felt like it

But the thing is, I have bad vision, right? Like, pretty bad vision. I knew in some intellectual way that I would look different going back to glasses. I have, of course, gone between glasses and contacts before. But I have not ever gone quite so long between glasses and contacts during a time when my vision what quite this bad.

It's going on two and a half years since I last wore contacts, which for all intents and purposes means that I have not seen myself without glasses for two and a half years. At all. Because when I didn't have my glasses on, I couldn't see myself in the mirror.

And then I put in my shiny new contacts yesterday.

I really, honestly, don't recognize myself anymore when I look in the mirror. I don't simply look like Kati Without Glasses. I don't know who I look like, but it's not the face I had two days ago, or any other day previous since mid-2005. It's really disconcerting, actually. It's like I had plastic surgery and... I don't know... part of my face was amputated. And the strangest part is that I'm not even exaggerating. That is actually what I feel like when I look in the mirror.

I just don't know what to make of it. I'm sure it'll pass in a couple more days. So no worries, ya? Just... odd.

Anyway, on to far more important matters.

I am now the proud owner of "Amy Vanderbilt's Complete Cookbook", published in 1961 and sold to me by the Moili'ili Community Center Thrift Store for three dollars just two days ago. Amy Vanderbilt is, of course, the author of such greats as "Amy Vanderbilt's Complete Book of Etiquette" and "Amy Vanderbilt's Everday Etiquette". So, in case you were wondering who this Amy Vanderbilt person was, it's her. One thing I'm not entirely sure about is that the title page credits the drawings in the book to "Andrew Warhol". Could it possibly be THAT Andrew Warhol? Of that, I have no friggin' clue, and for the following reasons:

1) The introduction says, and I quote,
"I believe that the ability to prepare and serve good and attractive meals is a delightful feminine virtue. The importance of this and of being a good housekeeper were drilled into me from the time I could walk."

2) The introduction also says, and I quote,
"On one hand, I had the influence of my mother, a third generation American of English and Irish descent, who strongly needed around her all of the aspects of gracious living but who found them difficult to achieve without servants."

(I'm not sure what 'strongly needing gracious living' means, but, well, I think the point is made regardless)

3) The introduction further says, and I quote,
"On the other hand, in our household, almost from the time that I was born, was my aunt, brought up in the New York-Dutch-American tradition wherein a woman must know all of the household arts whether or not she has servants to instruct."

(which I'm assuming is about as close as this woman ever got to women's liberation)

4) The introduction goes on to say, and I quote,
"The men in our family were all quite sure of their roles as men, which in my opinion is the way it should be. My father and my grandfather were never to be found in the kitchen mixing a cake. They did, however, consider it their proper prerogative to purchase and carry home from the Washington Market every bit of meat the household consumed. The buying of meat, they held, was not a woman's business, any more than was the carving of it. I still think the art of carving belongs to the male, but I am willing to agree that women have had to learn how to buy meat, just as many of us have had to learn how to carve, either because the men in the family won't or because there are no men in the family."

Oh, whew! I guess she got the point of women's lib after all. And it's a good thing, too. Because Amy Vanderbilt seemed to be pretty busy putting together books about etiquette and cooking and it made me worry that she would have difficulty balancing her feminine virtues with book writing (book writing is apparently not a traditional female virtue). But don't you all fret about what recording knowledge might mean for her ability to take care of her family. She says,

"My children and I, despite my career, have a warm and loving relationship."

How is that possible, you may be wondering to yourself. And that's a damn good question. I mean... a career AND a relationship with your kids? Surely not. But Amy Vanderbilt manages, because she's all about some feminine virtue.

Anyway, we bought this cookbook even before discovering that true gem of an introduction, because it's huge and old and beige and looks and smells like an old cookbook that might have been in my grandmother's kitchen. Either grandmother, now that I think about it, although I was originally thinking about Mimi. Anyway, it's 800 pages of cookbook with little notches on the side like a bible with gold markers proclaiming such things as "desserts", "poultry", "herbs", and "chafing dish".

So far all I've made from the book are cornbread cakes, although I made them into muffins because we don't have a griddle and I used a bit of bacon fat instead of just butter because I'm southern. And oh lordy, they were not bad.

Which made me realize that even despite her career, that woman could cook.

Obligatory New Years Post

So... it's 2008. And you know, I think this is the first time in, well I can't remember how long, that it has actually surprised me when a new year dawned. I think it has to do with the fact that the weather hasn't shifted in the ways I'm used to. It doesn't feel like it could be a new year because it never got cold like it's supposed to when the year changes over and I never went home to mark the holidays with my family and friends. Even in New Year's preparations, even going out to Waikiki to watch the fireworks, even kissing Michael as the crowds screamed, it didn't quite register that I'm going to have to start dating things with a different number.

Not that that really matters. It's just... odd.

Some of you know I write fanfiction. I've just completed (yesterday, on New Year's Eve) a project I'd been working on for four years. I'm still estatic having finished it, and my readers were just great cheering me on as I made a mad-dash to the finish before the end of the calendar year. I updated the story on December 30, noting my hopes to be done by the closing of December 31. "But luckily I get a bit more time," I said (paraphrasing myself here), "Because I live in Hawaii, so I'm at the very end of the day." And I am. There's one more hour I think before the international date line.

I really like that idea. The very end of the day. Like, we get to close everything up for the night. I feel like there's a story there, but I don't know what it is. But I feel it in me.

This year holds exciting things. I'm taking Cliff O'Donnell's class that will tie me in to policy work as a Community Psychologist -- the class goes to the state legislature, gets involved in local politics from the perspective of Cultural Community Psychology. I'm so excited about that class.

Next, over the summer, I'll be participating in the Quentin Burdick practicum that will take me for six weeks to rural Hawaii on the Big Island, living in a community of activist academics, working closely with the local community to further develop their social programs. Again, very exciting stuff.

And finally, come winter, ("winter"), I'll be closing out the year with 20 billion of my closest relatives since everyone is coming up to see me. It's just the best thing to look forward to. I love this rock, but I really do feel so very far away. Even in Chicago I never felt this cut off -- I could always just rent a car and drive home in eight or nine hours if it came to it. But my god, I'm half an ocean away from the mainland, and then almost the entire mainland away from my friends and family. It's a great feeling of anticipation to know they're all coming here.

I guess I kind of feel like, no matter what I do, this is going to be a great year. Things are in the works. I can coast through and it'll be better than fine, will be good, will be great. But I don't want to sit back and let the year happen to me. I want to be the cause, the instigator, the impetus, the drive of the good things that happen. But I don't want to take away from these great things already in the works by spreading myself too thin.

So, my grand plans for 2008: I will take my opportunities and run with them. I should be proposing my Masters in the next three or four months. I should be getting involved with Hawaii politics. I should be developing a relationship with a rural community on the Big Island. So, what I really want to do... I want to get to know Hawaii. It's time to get involved. It's time to really BE HERE, be a part of it. And I already have these parts of my year leading me to that goal... I just need to throw myself into them. Really DO them. Be an active member of my community (school, neighborhood, political, etc.). That's what I want to do this year.

My friend Jeremie reminded me that that's what I like to do, who I like to be, and what I value most about myself. So that's what I'm gonna do.

And also take ukulele lessons at Kaimuki Community School down the street.

And develop a taste for poi (haoles are supposed to hate poi).

Oh, and finish my nano novel rewrite and sell it for millions of dollars. (but that goes without saying, so I don't know why I bothered to say it)