JMP

Does anyone use LJ anymore?

2018-04-06T16:42:51Z

If Russia already knows everything about everyone from the whole Facebook/Cambridge Analytica thing, then there's no more harm in posting to LJ, right? Perhaps as a privileged white american I have an overestimated sense of security, but I'm not so sure that Russian trolls would find my life interesting, or my opinions manipulatable.

Besides, all I wanna do right now is write about music and be self-reflective.

It's frustrating that no matter how hard I practise, I will never be as good as people who started playing when they were 15, because I didn't start learning bass until I was 26. But I can play Boris the Spider and London Calling and a handfull of other songs, so I bet my 15-year-old self would be more proud of me than regretful. Although one thing I have yet to master is the art of not measuring my own sense of accomplishment by comparing how much other people have accomplished. I fully realise that this path only ever leads to me making myself feel inadequate, but still I do it all the time, in everything I pursue (work, school, hobbies).

I might not quit bass yet, because there are still so many songs I want to learn. I want to learn Time is Tight, because I love that tune and I should try to learn some instrumental songs. Kyle made me a Clash mix to listen to in the car which has a cover of it that I hadn't heard before. I'm more familiar with the Booker T. and the MG's version, because I have it as a 45. One of the first 45s I bought, I think it was at Dodd's.

It would be cool to be able to play a Mitski song or more Breeders songs, since getting into their music last summer was one of the things that prompted me to ask my mum if she still had the bass.

The Art of Being Hummus

2018-03-12T19:37:52Z

*** I feel obligated to include a disclaimer at the beginning of this post, because I know I'm extremely lucky to have a job, let alone a salaried position in my field. And my coworkers are incredibly talented and stellar human beings. But I don't think just because I'm lucky I have to be totally satisfied and complacent. ***

I knew that taking a job in Detroit meant I was signing myself up for a 45 minute to 1+ hour highway commute each day both ways, but I'm a year-and-a-half in to it now, and I haven't moved any closer to my work as I'd hoped to, and I'm sick and tired (mostly tired) of spending 10 hours a week just for commuting. It means if I want to drive to Grand Rapids to see friends and family or drive around Ypsi I'll have to do even more driving than I already do. So instead of my big-city job making me less of a recluse, it's had the opposite effect.

On a typical day, I wake up at 7, sit for an hour staring at my coffee, scramble to get ready at 8, leave the house at 8:30, arrive at work at 9:30, sit for eight hours and thirty minutes because they automatically take a thirty minute lunch out of my shift whether I take a break or not, leave work at 6, arrive home at 7. If I have to pick Kyle up at 9 from his work, I have two hours to piddle around doing housework or making food or going to store. Pick him up at 9, arrive back home at 9:20, eat dinner around 10, go to bed at 11:30, toss and turn for an hour until I fall asleep, then wake up and do the whole thing over again on a growing sleep defecit. I'm miserable from this. I'm not sure it would be any easier if my commute was shorter. Maybe if my work felt more meaningful, but that's not going to happen without a more advanced degree, and even then, I don't really know. Sitting and staring at screens and roads are my least favourite things.

Other reasons I am ready to go back to school:

I've had 3 bosses in 1.5 years because my department keeps being shuffled around to different managers.

No one outside our department understands or appreciates the work that we do, which is both disheartening and also mind-blowing, because you would think that maintaining the collection would be a top priority for an art museum.

Zero job security because since no one sees my value I'm at risk of being laid off. Despite the fact that my team is great, and does things like meeting project goals 6 months ahead of schedule.

Despite having a higher wage than I've ever made, I am broke all the time. Commuting is time-consuming but perhaps more significantly it's expensive. My $215/mo. car payment plus my $206/mo. insurance payment, plus more gas than I'm prepared to count just gobbles up my salary. Of course I didn't expect to be making a lot of money working an entry-level position, but I had hoped that being salaried would mean I wouldn't still be living paycheck-to-paycheck.

I've come to realise that I'm only really satisfied when I'm busy and in the process of striving for something, and right now I'm feeling myself stagnating physically and intellectually.

So I applied to graduate school(s), because I'm not broke enough already. I'd do anything to shake up this routine. In the humanities, apparently you're supposed to* go to graduate school when you've gotten to the point where you're a serious and mature researcher with very serious research and academic ambitions and an important-sounding reserach proposal. If only it were just that simple and straightforward.

I applied to seven schools and tailored nine different application letters. One each for Columbia's PhD and MA, and three for Courtauld because you can apply to up to three special focus courses:

UC Berkeley (PhD, Art History) - ~~I'm a assuming this is a rejection because I haven't heard from them.~~ Update: Rejected.

Northwestern University (PhD, Art History) - Rejected with a generic email to check the application website on Saturday.

Columbia University (MA and PhD, Art History) - Rejected from the PhD programme but they said they will consider me for the MA programme, which I won't be able to afford anyway. Update: Accepted to MA!

UC Riverside (PhD, Art History) - I interviewed with a professor in early February and she emailed me last week to say I was waitlisted. I don't think their funding situation is as reliable as other programmes, so maybe it's for the best. A curatorial internship at the California Museum of Photography was on the table though, so that's a bit disappointing.

Tufts University (MA, Art History) - The Dept. chair called me last week to tell me I was accepted and that I have a scholarship to cover 50% of the tuition. This is a good programme and I'm glad to have more than one option. Update: They also offered $1250 inrelocation assistance.

Courtauld Institute of Art at the University of London (MA, Art History) - I got a generic acceptance email in February, which was surprising because usually they give interviews. I'll find out in April if I've got a scholarship, but it's usually rare for international students to get them. Still, it's a 9-month programme at a non-US school, so it would cost about the same as Tufts. This is probably my first choice right now. Update: Still my first choice.

San Francisco Art Institute (MA, History and Theory of Contemporary Art) - I interviewed with a professor last week and it was very positive. The professor, school, and programme seem amazing but unless I get a fellowship I wouldn't be able to afford attending a private college in the most expensive city in the US. Update: Accepted with a small scholarship.

The whole process of applying to grad school is extremely arduous (and expensive!) but I'm glad I have something on the horizon.

*according to so-called experts who write guides about applying to graduate school

An update

2018-03-02T21:53:48Z

I used to always start or end my posts mentioning how I hadn't updated LJ in ages, but now that it really has been a long time (7 years) it feels kinda cheap to write that, so I won't. I used to do that in all my handwritten journals too, and I bet my mum has a whole tote in the attic full of Lisa Frank notebooks in which I only ever wrote one or two pages lamenting about my failure to keep a regular journal.

I had a dream the other night that I was walking down Golfside, near my apartment but closer to the rather dodgy area by the empty At Home (formerly K-mart) parking lot. When I was in school still, I used to cut through that parking lot all the time to catch the 4B bus on Washtenaw to campus. I was just one of many bus-riders who cut through the parking lot. That it was so wide and empty was useful; you could flag the bus down easily if they started to pull away, and you didn't have to worry about getting run over by cars the way you do in parking lots that have cars in them. But the wind would whip through that parking lot on a cold day and cut through all your layers, you just had to go through it as fast as possible. It wasn't too cold or too hot in my dream, fortunately.

The strange thing was that everyone: men, women, children, etc., had the same haircut as me. And I thought, "Huh, that's kinda strange that they have the haircut too. Well okay then." And then just continued on with what I was doing.

I've disliked my haircut since I got it two weeks ago, because unless I put a lot of effort into styling it, it's a mom-bob. When I told Kyle about my dream he just laughed with me and said, "You must really hate that haircut." And I do.

Chiefly British

2011-10-13T11:04:05Z

I haven't used LJ forever!

And I have a brief rant so well-fit for a livejournal post!

I realise that because I am used to spelling certain words differently from other Americans (or, to explain it more accurately, because I spell words the proper way), I will occasionally have to be in defence of my colourful spellings. But I take considerable offence to an action by my physics professor to circle "utilise" on my lab report.

Dear professor, you may be well-schooled in physics, but as for English, I probably know more than you. I have a 3.9 GPA and I am a multiple-language major who is employed by the same entity as yourself to work an English tutor! Also, why did you not circle "metre?" For if you insist that I add "centimetre" and "metre" on every single unit in my report, I find it rather hypocritical that your grading of my grammar is inconsistent. You are, after all, supposed to grade my grammar in this physics course, aren't you? Next time, please consult a dictionary before you decide to take points off for "professionalism" because you think I improperly utilised a word. It's right there under "CHIEFLY BRITISH."