Restarting, take 29348

I am lying on my bed, in my pajamas, watching the darkening grey sky that is either a result of the Icelandic volcano or just normal England spring, and it’s 8:30 pm. Why am I in my pajamas at 8:30 pm, you might ask? Well, because this week I started an internship. It’s supposed to be only four days a week, but since this is my first week, I’ve gone in every day – to make myself known, to let myself get to know the project and the people.

It’s a four month internship, so I’ll be there until the end of July. Four months of sitting in an open-plan office, making databases and sending email. I honestly could not be more thrilled. I said, after last fall, that I needed a quiet office job, and that is what I have right now.

Plus, the database I’m currently making is of research case studies from every school in the university. I get to read representative research from every field. How could I not love this? I said in an email to my supervisor today that I keep getting distracted from building the database by actually reading the case studies. I keep finding out about research centres that are based here that I had no idea even existed. Like the Centre for Evidence-Based Dermatology, which is actually in the same building as I am.

It’s amazing how hope and energy come back when you have something external to do. I’ve picked up some writing from a “content mill” (where you get paid by pageviews, for the most part), plus this internship, and I’m starting to feel like a productive member of society again. And even though I’ve been fairly tired when I’ve gotten home this week, it’s been the kind of tired that makes me yawn, not the kind of tired that makes me unable to do anything but stare mindlessly at the computer. (Instead, I stare mindfully at the computer. Or something.)

The tiredness also may have something to do with the commute – I’ve walked both ways every day. There is a bus combination that could do it, but honestly with the waiting and the changing it would probably take about as long. And it’s been mostly nice outside. Like I said at the top, the greyness of today is either due to typical English spring or the Iceland volcano that’s pushing an ash plume across the British Isles and northern Europe today. Tuesday afternoon was drizzly, and I probably should have taken the bus, but every other day has been fine or sunny. It takes me just under an hour to get to the campus where I’m working. Home again takes a little bit longer if I stop at the store for some food (even though I really should be eating what I have in the house, by the time I am coming home I am so hungry that I can’t focus on “what do I want to make tonight”). As the weeks go on, I’m sure that I’ll get used to the hours and the walk and the lack of snacking (or manage to snack more) and I’ll be fine. I’m developing some calluses on my feet already from the shoes I’ve been wearing.

I really am excited about the project I’m interning on. It’s sort of a University-wide practice for the research assessment that’s coming up in a couple of years – the guidelines and requirements have changed, and no one really knows what to expect, so it’s probably best that we figure it out before the real thing comes. It manages to satisfy my mild organizational obsession with the database creation and the file-naming, it lets me be in thrall to academia and research (even if it’s not my research) for a little while longer, it lets me work with adults who know what they’re doing, and work on things that I kind of know how to do, and am getting better at every day (even little things like “go to Marie and ask her to do this thing” – that’s something I’m getting better at!)

I’m already not looking forward to (late) August, after this job is over and after my mom goes home. I know that this summer is going to be fantastic, and I won’t want it to end.

Moooooooooooooooom, I'm booooooooooored.......

There was an article in the New York Times about boredom recently. It started with the fact that book reviews rarely use the word “boring”, even if the book in question is, meandered through the history of boredom and contemporary culture’s attitude toward boredom, and concludes with boredom in literature (specifically David Foster Wallace’s new book).

Boredom is something that I’ve thought about quite a lot recently, like within the last year or so. For me, at least, boredom is not a case of having nothing to do – it’s a case of low motivation and not wanting to do what you do have to do, or not being able to decide what to do (a big problem for me right now). Having nothing to do is boring, but you can justifiably fill the time with mindless entertainment or something. For me, boredom has a mild frustration element – of wanting to have nothing to do, of not being able to focus, of not having the panic of deadlines pushing me to finish things.

It’s lack of interest, mostly. Lack of interest in the things on my to-do list. Lack of interest in what’s going on in the world, in my life. When it comes to boring books or movies, lack of interest in what’s going on in the story. It’s not necessarily something inherent in the book or movie, although it might be. What is profoundly uninteresting to me might be fascinating to someone else, and vice versa.

The article brings up some good points about boredom – how it was created by the rise of the middle class, leisure time, and individualism born out of the Industrial Revolution. People pre-Industrial Revolution might have been bored, but not quite in the same way that people post-Industrial Revolution were. The argument, sort of, is that it took the rise of leisure time for people to realize that boredom was a possibility, that you were responsible for filling your own time and that you could enjoy what you did.

One of the references in the article is to a recent study that shows the neurological patterns of a “resting mind” – they analyzed the patterns of people in an fMRI machine who were told to “just relax” and empty their minds. For a lot of people, that is boring – but for me, at least for a while, it would be relaxing. I wouldn’t have to worry that I’m supposed to be doing something else, that I’m missing out on something. Of course, after a while, forced inactivity does become boring – but again, it’s because you can’t stop thinking of the things that you should or could be doing instead.

(I’m not sure if this post is turning out the way that I wanted it to…..I may have to revisit it at some point and rewrite….)

Online round-up!

There are a fair number of tabs up on my browser right now. Let’s see what I can get rid of:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/6952220/Why-were-in-the-grip-of-medieval-mania.html

Okay, let’s get one thing clear. Tudor and medieval, as periods, are not the same thing. Don’t conflate them, or the medievalists and Tudor specialists are going to kick your ass. We have studied close combat. I write about music and musicians and romances, and I have studied close combat. There is such a huge difference between the fourteenth century and the sixteenth. When I say I am studying “medieval literature”, no, I don’t mean “like Shakespeare.” They are not even close to the same thing.

Basically, this article…sucks. He seems to think that an interest in anything pre-19^th century is unusual and worth remarking on, even as he says that it’s always been popular, and even as he remarks – twice – that ancient history is just as popular (although he only refers to two writers on ancient history, and one of those two he uses twice). He also only uses two publishing events and the new V&A exhibit that are actually medieval to establish his “mania” and “obsession” with the medieval period (three if you count Wolf Hall, which is Tudor) – and completely ignores the continuing success of the Georgian and Victorian periods in literature.

Skimming this article a couple of days ago, I was annoyed. Reading it more carefully, it just makes me angry.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/simonheffer/6957419/The-true-great-20th-century-novelists-who-irked-the-Bloomsbury-snobs.html

Am I just in a bad mood? This article annoyed me as well. Of course, he put me off almost instantly by praising Joyce and deriding Lawrence. (Not denying that Lawrence had “carnal obsessions” but HELLO, Joyce was obsessed by the body to the point of nausea. At least I find it nauseating.)

He makes a fair point about the snobbery of Bloomsbury and the focus in schools on the modernist movement to the exclusion of the Bloomsbury enemies (Wells, Bennett, etc.), but is it really fair to denounce Bloomsbury for propping themselves up at the expense of others and then do that exact same thing? There must be a way for Galsworthy et al to regain some measure of respect and popularity without having to put down Bloomsbury and the other modernists first.

http://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2009/02/demetri-martins-palindrome-poem.html

Palindromes are awesome! I know this is from nearly a year ago, but I just heard about it recently. Also, Demetri Martin is cute and funny.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode.cfm?id=computers-cant-show-you-the-monet-10-01-04

This is just cool, and proof, of sorts, that computers are not going to take over the world any time soon, because there is still a place for emotion and emotional response.

This absolutely disturbs me. I don’t have a problem, per se, with a ranking system based on how many students drop out, since I think that is a relatively reasonable indicator of quality. I don’t have a problem with a ranking system based loosely on student satisfaction surveys, with appropriate caveats for personal bias and whatnot. I don’t even have a problem with a ranking system based on results, although that requires some sort of standardization and runs the risk of ‘teaching to the test’. In general, I don’t have a problem with ranking systems for education – with so much choice, there has to be a way to narrow the field a little bit or people get overwhelmed.

Earning potential should not be a part of these ranking systems. I understand that my attitude is born out of an upper-middle-class, privileged background that allows me to think this way, but education should not merely be a means to money. People should study something that they’re interested in, ideally in a program that provides transferable skills. (And employers should recognize these transferable skills, no matter what it says on a person’s certificate or diploma.) If you aren’t learning about something that you’re interested in, if you don’t work at something you enjoy at some level, then all the money in the world doesn’t matter.

Also, future earnings can’t possibly be a secure, reliable factor. Look at how much the economy has changed in the last couple of years, and the last decade. Plus, a qualification is not a guarantee of a job offer, much less a salary band. Certain courses – the ones that list higher potential earnings – will be flooded with people who have only a minimal interest in the subject, which will overload the job market – which right now is overloaded anyway. I see no good reason that is not purely mercenary to include potential earnings on a ranking system.

This is not to say that potential earnings do not have a place when people are making a choice about what to study. Just that they shouldn’t be used in a ranking system, and especially not one linked to funding of courses or – especially – whether or not a course continues to exist, as is implied in the first paragraph of this article.

Also, quango: Originally: an ostensibly non-governmental organization which in practice carries out work for the government. Now chiefly: an administrative body which has a recognized role within the processes of national government, but which is constituted in a way which affords it some independence from government, even though it may receive state funding or support and senior appointments to it may be made by government ministers. [OED]