Point of Reference

I found out today that a friend of mine needs a roommate, and I have to say, his timing is impeccable. I spent several hours yesterday looking at Toronto housing ads and despairing at the rental rates for a 1-bedroom, so I was ecstatic to hear from him. I've been spoiled by low rent over the past few years and unfortunately, the difference in funding between the two schools does not cover the difference in rent. We've thrown a few emails back and forth and so far we seem to match up in what we're looking for, but we're going to talk tonight to make sure. ::crosses fingers::

I finally finished rewriting my application for the collaborative program. Now I just have to edit it. And then back to the thesis!

I was reading an interesting article by Craig Calhoun about imagined communities and indirect relationships. He argues that imagined communities help to mediate the transmission of tradition, thus helping to spread common values and a sense of community across a larger population than can effectively be reached through face-to-face communication. He also argues that this reliance on mass media favours the elites in the propagation of tradition. Meanwhile direct transmission of tradition is becoming increasingly difficult because it's nearly impossible to use it on a large-scale, and on the local scale direct transmission is undermined by open-ended social networks that lack the density and multiplexity needed to reinforce and reproduce patterns of action. I think his argument has merit, though I'm not sure I agree with it on all points. It seems to ignore the interpretion that inevitably accompanies the receipt of any message and the willingness of individuals to ignore parts of any message that they disagree with. In short, I'm not sure that we're as culturally unified as he seems to indicate in his article. Nonetheless, I'll probably use it in my thesis. Yes, this is how I spend my days.

For my fellow academics, there's an interesting article in University Affairs about the single ethics policy. Apparently more than one researcher in the social sciences and humanities is unhappy with the way the policy has developed. They believe that it's been colonized by a biomedical model that places unnecessary and unreasonable restrictions on non-medical research and fails to take into consideration the differences in research methods and goals. Since this is something that my fellow grad students and I frequently complain about during our regular bitch and moan sessions, it was nice to see the issue receiving some attention. It probably won't change anything, of course, but at the very least it gives us something to send to the local research ethics board the next time one of us tries to explain yet again why he or she can't go into an unstructured, open-ended interview with a pre-approved script. Did I mention that our REB doesn't even have policies in place for how to conduct appropriate and ethical qualitative research? 'Cause it doesn't.

Advantages of summer:

1) Fewer pesky undergraduates running around competing for scarce library resources.
2) The leaves on the trees hide the hideous buildings that comprise the campus. (Now if only they could do something about the seventies art on the inside of the buildings...)
3) I don't have to spend ten minutes putting on extra layers before taking the recycling out.
4) Fresh produce! (Now if only I had time to cook.)
5) Hey, I'm pretty impressed that I even managed to come up with four.

Disadvantages of summer:

1) Heat (I know, I know, it's not the head--it's the humidity. However, since I've never experienced a dry heat, it's all the same to me.)
2) The profs keep insisting on going away on vacation. (Although given the rate at which my thesis is progressing, I should probably list that as an advantage; supervisor on vacation = fewer pointed questions about my lack of output.)
3) Fewer people to eat lunch with. (Apparently some of my fellow graduate students have decided they're also entitled to vacations)
4) No more Reading Buddies program at the library. (I miss reading with the little guys!)
5) Well meaning people keep trying to convince me to sign up for softball teams, despite my repeated explanations of how much I detest sports that involve flying objects.

Yeah, I realize that's all I've been posting these days. There's really not much going on in my life right now, apart from thesis work and I don't think any of you require daily updates of that. I did manage to see Far From Heaven at last. Lovely, touching movie with gorgeous use of colour that makes me very glad I don't live in the 1950s (as if I really needed another reason).

This one is from my sibs again:


You represent... hope.
You're quite a daydreamer and can be a hopeless
romantic. You enjoy being creative and don't
mind being alone at times. You have goals, and
know what you want in life... even if they are
a little far fetched.


What feeling do you represent?
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I'm spending a few days at my parents' house, having come back for my grandparent's 50th wedding anniversary party. My mother promised my grandparents a 50th annivesary party ten years ago, but I don't think they expected her to actually do it because she moved to the States three years ago. They were surprised and pleased.

I spent Canada Day wandering the streets of Toronto with a few friends. We missed the fireworks because we spent the evening buried in stillvisions' parents' basement. It was eerily reminiscent of high school, but fun nonetheless.

Tomorrow I head back to Waterloo to resume work on my thesis. Fun times! Right now I'm going to head downstairs to eat the supper that my mother very kindly prepared for the family. Returning home is always an exercise in regression.

It's been a moderately productive day. I had to stay home this morning to wait for a phone interview for a TA position for the fall. I think that went fairly well, although union regulations prohibit the professor from making offers until September. During the interview, I got a lead on research project that might be interesting to get in on if it gets off the ground. Something to keep in mind for next year, anyway.

More good news: this afternoon I found out that I don't have to write a new research statement for the collaborative program after all--apparently they lost the old one and didn't realize I'd sent it. So that makes me happy. Now I can devote the rest of the afternoon to Ferdinand Tönnies (and Talcott Parsons' comments on his work). Yay.

It started raining as I was walking to the grocery store, so I got very, very wet. :-(

I was plagued by computer problems over the weekend. On Saturday afternoon, my Internet access mysteriously disappeared and two hours on the phone with my unofficial Redmond tech support team (my father and brother) didn't help. I finally got it to work on Monday evening after swapping my modem and ethernet card. I hate hardware problems.

I went to Toronto yesterday to talk to a potential supervisor for my PhD. The trip was his idea, and I still don't really know why he wanted me there. Perhaps he thought I'd have a better idea than I actually do about what I want to do in the fall. I'm not really sure the two hour meeting was worth the six hours of travel time, but on the bright side, he did supply me with a copy of an article that I really wanted and had been having trouble obtaining.

And finally, quizzes. This one seems to be the current favourite among my siblings...


You're British Columbia. You're hip and happenin'
but also a nice person who isn't a snob. Career
is important to you but it isn't your whole
life. People assume that your life is perfect
and that you have it all, like you were born
with a silver spoon in your mouth. But it's not
true; you do have your own set of troubles just
like everybody else.


What Canadian Province Are You?
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I learned yesterday that I've been accepted into a graduate program at the London School of Economics and Political Science. It seems unlikely at this point that I'll actually go, largely because I don't think I can swing the funding. I was originally focused on going to Cambridge and it wasn't until after I'd applied to the two that I learned from various discussions that the LSE might be a better choice academically. By then I'd already indicated that I was going to apply for an ORS scholarship through Cambridge and not the LSE, and without that, I don't think they'll give me enough money to go. Which is okay. One of my main reasons for applying to England was to see how I measure up on an international scale. Now I know that I can succeed beyond the boundaries of my own country. I've also become rather attached to the idea of moving to Toronto. I think returning to my roots as an adult could be fun. Of course, the idea of living in London is also appealing. Right now I'm trying to decide whether or not I should bother sending in the financial aid forms, on the off-chance that the LSE does have a large, unassigned scholarship just sitting around.

I saw The Matrix: Reloaded on Saturday. I know some critics were less than impressed, but I enjoyed it. ( Don't read this if you're spoiler-avoidant and haven't seen the movie. )

I'm working on my paper for the Halifax conference today. Right now I'm trying to sort out the differences between space and place with an emphasis on how each concept can be applied to the Internet. It would be much easier if there were any consensus on the issue, but there doesn't seem to be consensus on much of anything in sociology. That's part of it's charm, I suppose. Sociology forces a different view of progress on its practioners--progress does not come solely from building on those who came before to reach new levels, it comes from adding perspectives to gain a more complete view of the way things are.

So I've only had access to lj for one day, and already I've spent more time on it than I can honestly afford. Addictive indeed. I'm moderately happy with the way my icon turned out, though. It's been a while since I had an excuse to play with PSP. And I still get to design two more!

I'm not sure yet what I'm going to be posting here. Updates on my activities, of course, but I'm going to need more than that if I'm to avoid boring my audience to tears with reports of how many pages of my thesis I manage to write each day. Ideally, I'd like to use this journal as a way of working out and articulating my thoughts on issues that are important to me (hence the subtitle). Will I actually manage it? We'll see.