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All about communicationthoughts... January 27 i am NOT updating this space any moreat one point of my life I had four blogs, and it was time to consolidate them. I will no longer update this blog. Thanks for coming here from time to time. Colleagues, please go to http://cuihua.wordpress.com for research-related/professional/academic content. Friends, please go to http://piggie.blogbus.com for other non-academic, non-English, and trivial stuff. January 26 Busy and not busyUsually, I feel very busy as a PhD student. But from time to time, it dawns to me that I know I am not busy enough. For example, sleeping till noon, surfing aimlessly for 3 hours before reading a really serious word. Or easily going to bed without finishing the work that is long over due....and not feeling guilty about it. Doing something as crazy as a PhD is a battle with oneself, and a losing battle, by the way. I keep feeling like an idiot, underachiever, and loser, these days. And actually liked about it. Some sting is much better than none, and of course, makes me work a little harder. January 15 The everlasting questThe day before yesterday I went to play World of Warcraft at my friend's boyfriend's apartment (hmmm I know it is complicated). Both of them are loyal addicts of WoW (that is how they call it since it is such a wonderful thing) and actually WoW was the reason they found each other in the real (virtual, actually) world. I used to be an addict, not surprisingly, to those beautiful Chinese role playing games. You know what I am talking about if you happen to be one of the privileged college students who could afford the time and equipment to play computer games. Yes, I used to think what motivated me to play were the narrative (absolutely beautiful and interesting story, trust me) and the sense of exploring and shaping the lives of those characters, as well as conquest, achievement, and completion. I have to admit, rather reluctantly as a used-to-be gamer, that I haven't really understood the sweeping success of massively multi-player online role playing games (MMORPG). Yes they got pretty 3D environment and interesting quests and weapons and guilds and all that, but there are no uniform story to tell, no final ending, no success of killing the ultimate boss 'cause there is no ultimate boss, and you just never reach the point of success. And people are paying 15 bucks a month, spending hours and hours, and even get websites and formal schedule to organize their guild of manpower (or should I say horde power?) to finish some quests, and they boast about and kill for some mysterious weapons and clothes. The gist of playing is well beyond exploration and finishing a story, but also status and accomplishment (it is all about level! People look up to you when they see 60 or a purple icon) This is exactly what Justin Hall's idea about passively multi-player games ((http://www.boingboing.net/2006/06/16/passively_multiplaye.html). When you take that out of MMORPG and look around people working in front of a computer, you get the sense of an everlasting "leveling up". There are those who associate themselves with del.icio.us, those who put up a banner of creative commons, those who have facebook profiles, and those dudes who only check news and weather (you know you are out of date!). All these activities with the internet tells us the degree of acquaitance with the newest communication technology online. And, of course, there are people who get points/experiences for being at a forum, filling their to-do lists online and speaking like an expert. I am always interested in the symbolic value of being someone "senior" and Justin Hall has provided an interesting angle for looking at this. After all, we are all aspiring to the next level, and want others to know about it. November 29 relationships...it explains allI have to cite this: "...individualism leads to ambivalence concerning close relationships and fosters a wilingness to leave relationships that are not beneficial to the person. Conversely, the theoretical lieterature implicates collectivism with use of equality norms and willingness to remain permanently in relationships, een in personally costly ones." -- Oyserman, Coon, and Kemmelmeier, 2002, Psychological Bulletin. Now it is crystal clear why Americans can easily change partners (which doesn't mean that they don't feel the obligation when they are in a relationship) when love fades, or there is someone they are more attracted to. And it also explains why Chinese people opt to stay in an unhappy relationship even though it is "personally costly". The orientation of individualism and collectivism is a powerful source of variance. Of course, they are not only talking about American and Chinese. The individual difference could be a strong indicator of whether the relationship lasts. Hence, before anyone commits, giving your partner a questionnaire to assess her/his individualistic/collectivistic orientation would be a great idea..... Hmmmm, will s/he love me forever? Is s/he likely to change partner or stay with me when the magic love fades away? Just look at the score..... you know I am kidding, again :) October 31 HalloweenReading papers on "exponential random graph modeling" (say that 5 times, fast) for the past two days, muddle-minded...And this afternoon the guest speaker talked about the simulation software he and colleagues developed at U of Melbourne. We listened quietly for 3 hours and few people here at USC even had a question...Is it a seminar on communication or advanced mathematics? How are we supposed to understand Makov, graph theory, and all that in three hours and do the lab on our own? Peter finally said, well, it is Halloween and it is the time to haunt us with math! (in three weeks, we will have another painful lab on SIENA...so it never ends.) Spent another hour after class discussing with classmates, trying to figure this thing out. I had headache after concentraing on math for that long and my head almost went exploding....wanted to chew rubber bands.... I went for the swing class to give myself some nice interlude. And it was fun. I learned a "free swing" this time and my body just swang and swang like a merry-go-round. A guy in the class put on a black sweatshirt and sweat pants, with white bands glued to them to resemble a skeleton. What topped it was a pair of bikini on that, with a tag saying "Nicole Richie", and of course, a blonde wig finished the ensemble. So ironic and creative! I was laughing from ear to ear.... So that was my second Halloween in LA...got back home and turned off all the lights to shun those kids away....doing endless homework and reading endless papers, without a treat.... October 12 Sleep deprivation...and moreOkay, I know the title sounds scary. This is not something you would normally expect from a 20-something person. But what about a graduate student? or a professor? ....hmm, maybe.
Last week's organizational behavior seminar, T and I were exchanging our complaints about how hard we worked and how little we slept right before this class. T slept at 2 am and me even at 4 am -- because I needed to make up for a conference leave -- and got up like 8 am that morning. The same thing just happened every week.
Prof. K talked about his early career as someone who strived for tenure (sounds familiar?). And among the list of "I-worked-very-very-hard" symptoms, he pointed out that the worst thing is not sleeping less than you want, but not being able to sleep even if you got the time...He recalled how he could wake up very early because of anxiety....anxiety about research projects, papers, courses...etc. The sad fact is, I experieneced that too recently. When I thought I was just getting used to sleeping 6 hours a day and wake up at 8am, the truth is I couldn't sleep as much because I felt very anxious....about school, research, and other things that plagued me. And, it is, as T pointed out, a true sign of depression.
Well, if the above is not scary enough, Prof. R and me had a corridor conversation this Monday. She told me that it will never end...and in fact, will get worse and worse as time goes by. However, this job is still considered a good one, if compared with people struggling in the corporate world. We have freedom, flexibility, and sense of self-actualization, although the workload is insane. What should be learnt for academics (especially women) is to cope with the anxiety and try to have a life despite all the pressure. And from time to time, we should know we cannot have everything as perfect as we want. There are times when it is better to compromise, to give up, to recognize that we are not superman...
Despite all this, I still love my school and the work I am doing. I just hope all the bad things can disappear, and the darkest moments will never come back. And I hope I don't have to wake up due to anxiety (hope the reason of that anxiety can disppear, actually). And I hope I can get more time to sleep. And I want more hugs from friends ........... :) September 28 5 months updateIt has been a while since my last blog entry. Yes, life has changed, again and again, in ways I never could have expected. Before I delve into the east coast convention scene (which is lovely), perhaps a rough sketch of what I was doing in the past 5 months is necessary (It is not because that I am ego-centric enough to think what I did is worth remembering, but because I want to remind myself that these things DID happen.)
After an excruciating semester, I was finally free to go home. Sweet, sweet home. I attended two best friends' weddings, being bride's maid in one, and saw what an extravaganza meant in the other. My deskmate in high school asked me to be her bride's maid and I felt so excited and happy for her. The moment of her union to another guy - a guy we could never have dreamt to be connected with - brought me mixed feelings. I know I was nostalgic - my little deskmate is someone else's wife now. And one day, all of us are going to be "someone else's wife". That "someone" may well be a stranger that enters into my life by sheer accident. It is just a matter of time.
The other wedding was much more light-hearted for me. I knew both of them, as well as the steep twists on their road to the altar. Tying the knot was such a cherished (and expensive, by the way) moment. Advisor and students flew over from Carnegie Mellon University where my friend studies for PhD and they were so impressed with the Chinese wedding ceremony and were absolutely astonished at the extravagant dishes....
I spent more than a month in Hangzhou, revisiting friends and doodling around the ever-so-romantic West Lake. My days in Hangzhou were carefree and happy. There was nothing to be worried about (or should I say, I intentionally chose not to worry about). Shopping, eating out, karaoke, visiting friends.... Life was so easy.
Then I got home and spent quality time with parents and friends in Suzhou. And I rediscovered Suzhou, with trips to Wang Shi Yuan, Ping Tan performance, with old friends. I ate and shopped a lot. I slept enough and thought about nothing important. I seldom went online. I was as happy as a pig.
Yes, and I turned twenty-five this summer. One of my best friends (she is in Hong Kong now) once said: all women, regardless of their age, want to be 25. Now I am 25, not too old to be pessimistic, not too young to know what I want. In the song "Memory", the cat sang "life was beautiful then". It is THE MOMENT.
I got back to LA this August and expected something to happen. I take classes, get involved in two research teams, and teach at the same time. A lot of things did happen: I got robbed. I got an advisor. One friend left. Another friend is going through a divorce. I went to network workshop. started to learn dancing. Life is busy, and.......I had a strange feeling that there will be a turning point, somewhere, around the corner. I feel that I am snowboarding and there seems to be a fork.....and I am sliding to a different route, some route I haven't thought about before, but it looks interesting.
I sensed that...and I am agitated.
April 30 How to Enjoy a ConventionThe following is a terrific guide to budding communication scholars….I got it from my dear prof :)
How to Enjoy a Convention
1. Never pass up an opportunity to go out with a group to eat, especially in favor of a gathering with "more important people" that may or may not occur.
2. Don't let yourself get cynical about schmoozing. This IS what the meeting is about and that's not a bad thing. It is quite common for newbies and beginners to feel left out because they don't know too many people. A common response to this feeling is to express disdain for how "it's all just a big reunion of people who don't care whether a nobody like me lives or dies." That's true. The secret, though, is to know that that IS all that it is and the only reason you feel that way is because you don't know too many people yet. Give yourself some time. Quickly slipping into the defensive wall-flower frame of mind is a sure recipe for prolonging the period in which you feel like you don't know anybody.
3. Related to this, don't get too turned off by nametag gazing. It is what people do at these things. Yes, people will check yours out, discover that you are nobody and then move on. Some of the folks doing this are real ass-kissing idiots who are just looking for famous people to kiss up to. Don't sweat it. Don't let the turkeys get you down.
Think about this sociologically. You have a gathering of several thousand people from one profession. Most of them work in middle of nowhere places with two colleagues, one of whom they loathe. They spend all year teaching the writings of other people (some of whom are their heroes) to 19 year olds. Some of those heroes are walking around the hotel. Of course they're looking at the name tags.
Alternatively, here you have a gathering of several thousand people in the same profession. Profession and job is one of the most common categories for sorting the people in one's world. If everyone around you is in the same profession, you need some other status markers to help you order the crowd. Look at the nametags.
4. Remember that it's OK to engage people in serious conversations about what they do, what they think about, etc. This may be the only time all year where you don't have to explain what communication is.
5. Don't worry about money -- that's what plastic is for. In the end, you are going to spend more than you intended; no use wasting emotional energy fretting about it.
6. Stay in the main conference hotel whenever possible. The idea of staying with a friend who lives just twenty minutes outside of town is almost always a bad one.
7. Recognize and celebrate the fact that the most important and enjoyable part of the annual meeting is the stuff that occurs OUTSIDE of the sessions.
8. After you've heard your fourth or fifth poorly presented paper on poorly thought-out research, remind yourself that the speaker teaches for a living and wonder how someone who talks in front of groups 4 to 8 times a week can fail to have ever gotten good at it.
9. Upon checking in, locate the health club or fitness center in your hotel and see what their hours are. Then look around to see if they have a decent breakfast buffet in one of the restaurants. Next, scan through the index of the program to see if there is anyone you absolutely don't want to miss a talk by. Draw a little time chart and note where these talks are and when. If you're not doing anything else, you can try to catch them. After this, make a list of all the people you want to say hello to, have a meal with or meet. This roster is your main task list for the meeting.
10. Remember that everyone else is feeling like they don't know anyone too.
11. Always remember the first law of socializing: act like a host. This means taking the initiative and introducing yourself to others. It means keeping in mind the people you know and have met so that when you meet someone new, even if your interests are a million miles apart, you can always say "Have you met so and so? You should. I'll introduce you when I see you together." And then, when you do, they'll possibly be grateful for the intro, but definitely remember the service. All of this is based loosely on good network theory: weak ties are all --be one whenever you can.
12. If you have the opportunity to introduce someone big and someone small, do it by asking the big person if they've met the small one, not vice versa. It's a wonderfully pleasant way to go against the standard status inequalities.
13. Be as socially generous as possible. It almost never "costs" anything to invite someone along, bring them into a conversation, introduce them to a colleague, connect them to someone of common interests, etc. and these things (a) are always remembered, and (b) go around and come around.
14. Buy some books.
15. If you're giving a talk, just tell us what you did, why you thought it was interesting and what we should remember about what you found out or showed. The point of the talk is to help me decide whether I might want to read your work or not.
16. If you are giving a talk, do not read your paper. Do not fight with the organizer over time. Do not be convinced that the audience will be enthralled if only you can get this one last point in. Do not edit out whole sections on the fly as you notice time running out. If you find yourself falling in love with your own prose, exercise caution.
All of these things will serve only to make you look inept, unprofessional, immature and uninteresting.
17. Don't join your nutso colleagues in the mad rush to grab books at a discount as the book exhibits close. The behavior of some folks at this moment is truly embarrassing -- best not to join them.
18. Remember, you are going to spend a few days with 3 or 4 thousand people who are, perhaps, better at analyzing the social world than participating in it. Be kind. We're all in this together.
April 12 NoshNosh came today and gave an amazing talk. I guess everybody here, no matter faculty members or students, are fascinated by him. He will definitely be offered the position of our new faculty member.
And I had the privilege to have lunch with him (seats were so hot...). He said when he was doing PhD in our school, one semester he did seven courses, and worked his butt off....and he slept from 6 am to 8 am.....That is what it takes to be a great scholar....OMG. April 09 Love is CompanyI just went back from a wonderful 1970's broadway musical "Company", written by Sondheim. The most funny, exquisite, and exciting show I have seen this year!
Well, it is about a 35-year-old bachelor Bobby, searching for the meaning of love and marriage from his married friends. After all the disillusioning quests he ended up with the finding "love is company". Well, not too good, and certainly not too bad either. At one moment I was regretting for seeing this show becuase it was so depressing...I shouldn't be making myself so depressed while what I needed was some good sound laugh to drag me out of this abyss, but it turned out to be not as bad. Well, maybe it was, but after all, it should have some good twist in the end. We still have a long, long, and boring life to endure.
The show tasted like a Broadway version of "Wei Cheng" (the enclosed city). You know what I mean. It is disillusioning, and my friend said it is a good thing, becuase this is the way life is. No more sweet nonsense, no more rosy day dreams. Let's be adults and face the music......and this is the simple fact I have been denying for the past three months....maybe all my life. What a coward.
April 03 An eventful MondayMonday is always eventful. I met Elihu Katz in the noon. He is such an adorable old man, witty, nice, and nurturing. He recommended "Canonical texts in media studies" as a must read.
Then I rushed to Howard Rheingold's talk at the Annenberg Center, but unfortunately missed the first hour. When we arrived, he was saying "now please ask questions". Perfect timing! I read a lot of his work and finally met him in person. He is younger than I thought, in a greenish shirt with oriental patterns and purple pants, and hat of course. What a figure.
I sat in the online community class after his talk and got inspired by the network individualism idea. But I have too little time to read anything extra this semester. I must read the following in the summer:
steve weber's book on open source;
ostrom's book on property regime;
richardson's book on cultural evolution?
dunbar's book on language and social grooming
damasio's book on Decartes' error
beth novak's book on the democracy of groups
perhaps nancy fraser on the Habermasian public sphere
I see my theorerical framework is emerging. And many people, including Howard, think my topic is very interesting. but I have to explore the theories!!!!
By the way, Nosh is coming next Tuesday--for a job talk!! Wow! Finally! March 30 Sex and the cityI used to enjoy watching and talking about “sex and the city” with my female friends, because the life depicted there is so remarkably “fabulous”, and to a large extent, “liberating”. Precisely for this reason, the show is tremendously popular in China, where white-collar, educated, and perhaps single (but under the pressure to marry before a certain age) girls adore these 30-something urban and sophisticated women for their freedom, courage, sex life, fabulous parties, and of course, never-repeated pairs of Manolo Blahnik.
These characters are iconic. People talk about their career success, beauty, charm, fine taste, attractive dates, and everything fabulous. The common question seems to be: why do they have fabulous life but I don’t? Can I be like that? Well, for the present Chinese girls this could be a promising future to look forward to-- but certainly not a close one, and surprisingly, it was not until I set my foot to the US that I realized the “sex and the city” lifestyle is also somewhat distant for most American women.
However, when I was trying to think beyond its face value, that lifestyle starts to lose its luster of “women power”, “emancipation”, or “freedom”. Do fashion, boyfriends, and numerous sex partners denote power or freedom? If we try to analyze how the show defines a “fabulous life” for a 30-something, upper-middle class, single, white, and heterosexual woman, the dominant discourse is strikingly similar to what we know so well about “objectified” and “powerless” women in a male-dominated society.
Miranda Hobbes, a lawyer, went to a speed dating event where she could meet a couple of guys and talk to each of them for 8 minutes. First she told every guy the truth that she was a lawyer who went to Harvard law school. No one seemed to be interested in her. Then she said she was an air stewardess instead, and this time some people showed interest (and she finally got home with one). This is a truthful reflection of the dominant discourse of the society, if not of the show itself. There are still very ingrained gender stereotypes associated with career choices. An air stewardess is “feminine” while lawyer is usually men’s territory. Whoever violates the gender expectation is somewhat unwelcomed. Or thinking about it more broadly, the man job usually associates with power, while the woman job should be trivial, domestic and unimportant by the traditional standard. Of course women can be lawyers—while the women audiences are saluting that, or thinking about emancipation, the woman lawyer paid paying a price by being considered unattractive by her dates, which she thought as a woeful failure and finally decided to fake her identity. This is one example of the dominant discourse of the society—it got repeated/reinforced in the show, and somehow subdued the alternative discourse (since Miranda faked her identity).
If the above example at least indicates some resistance of current discourse, the second part of the story shows even more subconscious acceptance of it, which fundamentally justifies the prevalence of its dominance. Miranda faked her identity as an air stewardess, and went home with a guy who claimed to be a surgeon, and he turned out to have faked his identity too in order to appear “professional” since he believed this was a sexy job to attract women. If the faking of her identity is a kind of resistance, choosing a surgeon—which is considered attractive for women—itself constitutes an faithful agreement with the dominant discourse. To decode these powerful, successful, and fabulous women as anti-patriarchy is not appropriate any more. They maybe discontent with who they are, not because of their disagreement with the common expectation, but precisely because they cannot fit into the expectation. A little flavor of “power/freedom” does not have the intension to alter the whole structure. Instead, it aims to add on their sexiness in a largely traditional, but slightly modern and consumerist culture.
This intension can be illustrated in the fashion component of the show. “Sex and the city” is considered a fashion bible, which is saturated with brand-name luxuries that normal people are unable to afford. Apart from its focus on fashion which itself represents a consumerist culture, the show has lengthy depictions of how these women took a long time dressing themselves for every date, and be conscious about their different taste (fetish). They dress themselves according to the standards set by the other sex more than by their own standards, and the common standard of beauty is rarely challenged. Samantha and Miranda worried about the sizes of their breasts and even thought about plastic surgery. Charlotte thought her body is ugly. Carrie, conscious of her shortness, wears incredibly high – and painful – heels.
The above examples (and there are many more of them) reveal the acceptance, rather than resistance, or the dominant discourse about gender stereotypes, beauty standards, and consumer culture in our society. “Sex and the city”, though appearing to be liberating at the first sight, confirms rather than challenges the notion of contemporary urban women.
March 21 My big planOne of the 2006 summer plans is to build a personal website, which I am planning for a long time. And now I am thinking of making it even Bigger.
I will either make this academic blog more academic, or start a new academic blog--haven't decided yet. I want to synthesize all the seminar notes, musings, project ideas, meeting minutes, and reaction to readings to this blog--a truly PhD blog:). How does that sound like? Ideally, it should also include citation info, link to libraries, pointer to wikipedia, resources, ...a knowledge web. I will definitely love to have a tagging system, but don't know how to do that yet.
Suggestions welcome :)
March 03 The political economy of .....Fried chicken, or Starbucks?One of the most shocking as well as intriguing facts about contemporary Chinese culture is the prevalence of “fast food culture”. Every time I tell people that no matter how trashy it is perceived elsewhere in the world, Starbucks is hugely popular among middle-class Chinese, they won't believe it. Yet this is the sad fact.
Although the term "fast food" has a much more inclusive denotation today than when it was introduced (or invented) into the Chinese vocabulary two decades ago, covering fast food, television, magazines, fashion, leisure, etc, it is not difficult to trace and distinguish its earliest ancestors, namely the fast food chain stores KFC and McDonalds. Although “fast food culture” has a slightly negative connotation in China today as everywhere else, its popularity is largely based on the social distinction it implies. The fact that not everyone could afford KFC or Starbucks makes it so popular. The huge success of KFC and McDonalds in China are often regarded as legendary examples for marketing study.
It is essential to understand the potential consumers of fast food in the mid-1980s when KFC and McDonalds made their debut in China, which, along with other western transnational corporations, reflected the opening-up policy of China and the upcoming exploration and exploitation of the vast virgin land. While cheap Chinese labor (compared with western standard) dramatically lowered production cost, ironically, the exploitation catalyzed the rearing of a group of white-collar workers who were relatively better paid than their counterparts working in state-owned enterprises. These workers usually lived in industrialized city, normally with higher education, and were often exposed to western culture because of their job and educational background. These workers were the forerunners of the emerging working class in the increasingly capitalist society, although in many ways they resembled the workers described by Adorno and Horkheimer around half a century ago. The evolution and expansion of contemporary Chinese bourgeois demanded certain social markers that could distinguish them from other social classes. Their lifestyle was drastically different from traditional workers in state-owned companies or farmers, imprinted with protestant values such as efficiency and convenience. Their comparatively higher salary and education level demanded social distinction. And their frequent contacts with western culture kindled admiration and the desire of imitation.
The business strategies of KFC and McDonalds recognized and exploited the ongoing demand of the newborn Chinese bourgeois. They created new values – efficiency, standardization, and conveniences – for Chinese customers who were used to slow and fine dining, and associated fast food with fast-paced modern life in an increasingly industrialized society. They advertised fried chicken and hamburgers as unique cultural representations of the west, inducing and exploiting the admiration of American way of life among educated Chinese people. Finally, they made the price inhibitively high for low-income workers and just affordable for bourgeois, despite the low cost of ingredients and labor of their products. A piece of fried chicken was sold around $1, while a white-collar worker in foreign company can make about $200 a month, and a normal worker in state-owned company only around $100. By consuming western fast food, the emerging bourgeois were provided with social distinction they sought after.
It is interesting, however, to observe the coevolution of “fast food culture” and the Chinese bourgeois. With more disposable income, more exposure to western ideology, and cultivated taste in the two decades after the first KFC or McDonalds opened up in China, the Chinese bourgeois are gradually shifting from the original fried chicken to something that appears more sophisticated, more classy, and less “fast”. KFC or McDonalds is out now. They are increasingly more for the common public, and can serve no more as a social marker. The new favorites are Pizza Hut and Starbucks, with the latter being the symbol of urban middle-class lifestyle. February 15 The silent spring(I am not referring to Carson...)
This is early spring of California. Beautiful, beautiful sunshine outside. I used to love sunshine a lot. But this spring is silent, and me depressed.
So many terrible things happened since the beginning of this year. A's mother just passed away yesterday, within one month from the time she was diagnosed with lymphoma. We thought A would just commute between LA and New Jersey for some time. And we didn't know it was so fast.
My friend K has just separated with her husband, a very interesting guy. Just two months ago, they were such a great couple at the party and we had so much fun together. But everything is gone now.
And this morning when I checked email, I got one note from Andre, saying that his God sister was diagnosed with leukaemia and they are searching for a matching donor for bone-marrow transplant. They have to find that person within three months, otherwise she will be gone.
What can I say about these? They say nothing lasts forever. I used to be too damn complacent and idealistic. I used to believe in love. I used to be very, very naive, and trying to convince everybody else about love. Now I am wondering if my life till now is a total failure.
It is so ironical that I even dare not put this on my regular blog...which too many people will read so I have to put on my regular happy face. I know some of you are very nice, but please leave me alone and silent.
PS: the following is what I got from my friend Andre. Please distribute it if you can. That is all that I could help.
2/15/06
Dear Friends, Family, Associates, and Colleagues,
Below is a photograph of myself and my God-sister. She is young, beautiful, vibrant, intelligent, and full of life. She is a Fashion Designer and Physical Trainer. As many of you would be...myself and the family were completely staggered to learn of her recent diagnosis with Leukemia.
Some of you remember my time spent with her, late 2004 and early last year, as she underwent extreme chemotherapy. By God's grace, she eventually came through the long and painful experience with an absolute clean bill of health. Over the better part of a year, she has bounced back MORE BEAUTIFUL, MORE STRONG and MORE VIBRANT and AMBITIOUS as ever...making GRAND PLANS for her life.
This held true, until just a week ago.
A recent medical visit declared a 40 to 60% return of the cancerous predator, Leukemia. She is in 'DESPERATE' need of a bone-marrow transplant, to avoid death. Within 3 months. The cancer has radicalized and is moving fast, and we have not found a donor-match.
Donor databases in the U.S. are sorely void of matching criteria for the Black, and the Brown. Therefore I am asking for your help in the speedy locating of a willing donor match to save her life.
Many of you in our industry remember Nelly's younger sister who passed away from the same condition unable to find a donor match. Their database was a total of 1000 choices. I am currently emailing 450 of you. If each of you can assist us at finding '2' people willing to offer their credentials to the database, our odds could beat the aforementioned. If each of you could assist us at finding 10 or 20, I know that we could save a young vibrant life.
We have set up a foundation and website through which free DNA kits can be obtained anywhere in the country and abroad. It only takes a simple swabbing of the cheek. We are looking for those of African, Latino, Hawaiian (Pacific Island), or Mixed Heritage descent. Actually the more mixed the blood, the higher probability. Those of you in Europe, Canada, Africa etc....Your help would also be appreciated.
Those of you on this list in media, BET, Ebony, ABC, Disney, Film, Clear Channel Radio, P.R., and Music Entertainment are of special value. We solicit your Brain Power, and ideas to find creative ways of getting the word out to potential donors. Press Releases, PSA's, Community Service Ads can be provided for your various mediums.
Please see our website at www.greekgrayleukemiafoundation.org, and PLEASE CONTACT ME PERSONALLY with your wealth of ideas that we may save the life you see below. We have 3 months to find a donor. _______________________________________________________________________________
IMPORTANT NOTICE: Greek Keelyn Gray is in dire need of a bone marrow donor now! "Swab for Life to Save a Life" let a simple cotton swab determine if you or someone you know can become a donor match for Greek Gray by calling 1.702.471.6700. Contact LabCorp (Laboratory Corporation of America) HLA Department to receive a BUCCAL Cotton Swab Collection Kit free-of-charge by calling 1-800-533-1037 . ________________________________________________________________________________ January 15 my life, ratedHere Are Your Results:
Your Mind score is very high, much higher than the average.
take the rate my life quiz at : http://www.monkeyquiz.com/life/rate_my_life.html December 31 The overwhelming joyI am just back....from nature's wonders as well as man-made beauties. I love every place I went to, but if I have to make a choice, I'd say Grand Canyon and Death Valley. I will definitely come to Grand Canyon again, to get the ultimate hiking experience down the canyon.
I took around 700 pictures during the nine day trip. To my delight, some of the lousy pictures are not as bad as they looked in my camera. Giggling.....:)
When I got back tonight, I checked email and... the final exam results. Guess what? I got THREE As. Not even A minus. Can you believe that? This new year is way too happy! =) November 24 a fascinating quote
November 18 Matrix, as a computer gameThis Tuesday on the patio, we had an interesting discussion on entertainment media/games and human beings. We always succeeded in pushing any trivial discussion into a kind of profound (as well as confusing) quest for truth...because this is what grad school has trained us to do!:)
One central question is: what is entertainment? Just as any question of this kind, there is no easy answer. Another related question is: why do people play games? what is the hook? why is it entertaining? Indeed, these questions lead to a more fundemantal thinking on human beings' "mission" in the world, if there is any, and further ask for the ultimate meaning of existence.
Several weeks ago there was a UCLA scholar giving an impressive seminar on gaming. He adopted an evolutionary perspective to explaining gaming. It is quite interesting that evolutionary psychology is very popular in UCLA . Everybody seems to embrace it. The conclusion is that people use computer games (or all kinds of games, the example he used is the rudimentary chase play) to exercise and train themselves with necessary skills for life.
Miraculously, his argument coincided with an English essay I wrote three years ago at college, in which I said in computer games people have more opportunities and pay less price to access different life experiences. Everything is at your fingertips, with a small price which is highly unlikely in real life. Computer games, regardless of their genre, simply replicate life itself and offer mass audience an identity/experience tour that mock or simulate real life situations, with an affordable price and even destined victory if played hard enough. People can be a millioinare, have beautiful partners, experience true love, and exert power. Play can be, at least, an opportunity to explore the unlived, a way to supplement real life experiences, or more radically, a way to substitute real life experiences.
I always think the trilogy of Matrix, one of my favorite movies, is actually a fable. The Matrix resembles a computer game in many ways. People there are psuedo-real, and leading simulated lives. They are the players immersed in the game. So the question is: Why should Neo came out and do what he did at all? What is the meaning of that revolution?
In the movie I remember there is one traitor, who were bribed by the Smiths and tried to stop Neo's mission. His creed represents the essence of this question: if he can get what he want: money, power, beautiful women...in the Matrix, why the hell should he get back to the "real" world? It does not matter at all whether the physical body would really be there and experience, as long as people "feel" it is real.
The core to explain Neo's mission, as pointed out by Drew, is perhaps that people want to control themselves. They want the sense of freedom, though I still found this explanation suspicious. The dissatisfaction with Matrix, as the attacks on evolutionary theories as a whole, comes from an arrogant belief of human agency, which held fast for thousands of years, ever since the existence of human beings. Indeed we are confident and optimistic, and just could not stand any challenge on our power, our freedom, and our staunch belief that the world is under control. Again, with all the reading and thinking these days, I just cannot help being suspicious of it.
November 13 This is hilarious...!!!I downloaded Dr Tom Goodnight's conclusion powerpoint, and found this at last, captioned "FINISH" (he meant the finish of this semester).
THIS IS HILARIOUS!
Dead leavesSaturday afternoon is usually spent in procrastination, personal struggle,and finally,remorse. In the recent two weeks, even the well-known Californian sunshine refused to stay with me, leaving myself brooding in a bleak house....what a dire picture!
Today I decided to go out, at least for the nice weather. It should be autumn now...early November usually mark a golden and mellow autumn elsewhere, but maybe not in LA. People on the street still wear sleevelesses, shorts and flip-flops, while in the evening they envelope themselves in all kinds of nice overcoats and luxurious fur shawls. Interestingly, here we dress according to the time of the day, instead of the time of the year.
In front of Doheny Library there is a beautiful fountain in the center of a little park. This is one of my favorite places in USC campus, partly because it reminds me of the French style parks in Paris and Vienna. Today I found that, surpringly, there were dead leaves all over the grass, in the city of Los Angeles. I was blown away by the beauty of dead leaves....How I love them. I just couldn't imagine any form of death that is more serene, more graceful, or more stately. When you tread on dead leaves, the sound itself constitutes poetry.
And the beauty of dead leaves is sincere, unlike some other beautiful things I found here, with an apparent American accent, which contaminates their sincerity as a European derivative or offspring. Indeed I can't help decoding them as mocks of the distant models across the Atlantic ocean, and it is the recognition itself that adds up to their tackiness. Ok, I guess Stuart Hall is right. It is the beholder, not the leaves, that matters.
I was not making any progress on research, therefore I procrastinated again and wrote the above crap.
November 10 Some critique on George Lakoff's view of moral politicsTuesday we five people did a workshop on George Lakoff's metaphor theory and it was great. Prof. Goodnight said it was beautiful (well, as usual, a metaphor). My best experience of group collaboration and also one of my best presentations ever.
Lakoff's theory simply challenges the traditional view of human cognition, by saying that metaphor is the way we conceptualize and understand life experiences, not just a trope, as people normally believe. Some of the implications of his metaphor theory have stirred up discussion in philosophy, mathematics, artificial intelligence, ...which I will write about some day because i am totally fascinated by his theory.
One application, which seems to me as a superficial one, is political framing, which brought him fame and even stardom (thinking of McLuhan?). He has been talking and interviewed about how democrats are using the language of republicans while they should have use their own. one example we mentioned is "tax relief" by republicans as well as democrats who should be saying something like "tax as an investment". Nixon also made himself a prime example by simply negating the frame "crook". He was called a crook and reacted "i am not a crook", while he should have said "i am a victim of a scandal". The above is a simple explication of metaphor theory. Actually i have extra copies of our workshop report, so i am happy to send it out if anyone is interested.
However, as i ponder after class, Lakoff's idea "don't use their language, use your own language" does have significant limits. One thing to consider is the potential "psychic cost" (I borrowed this from James Potter. don't know if it is appropriate here) people encounter when they try to adopt the alternative metaphor. Indeed, if the conventional way of conceptualization is deeply entrenched and works fine, like "tax relief", people either feel reluctant to change or just negate the new metaphor because it challenges their traditional way of conceptualization and shakes the ground which people's system of meaning are based on, like the idea "tax as investment". So metaphor does have some effects but to name something in your favor is not all.
In Tuesday's presentation we did not mention the point (but I remember it is somewhere in his book) that metaphors, as mental shortcuts to abstract things, are also difficult to discard. Once the path is established, people tend to beat the same track over and over again. However, I don't know if Lakoff actually addressed this point in his book about moral politics. When he emphasized the potential of political framing, he did not tell us how far it can go, or what cost is involved when we ask people to get rid of the old metaphor and try to instill the new one.
More to come on Lakoff. Another aspect is "embodied mind" which has not been talked about very much in the academia yet but is absolutely revolutionary.
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