subdee

Sitting around feeling sorry for myself because I haven't finished any fiction in almost 18 months -- which is backwards, I should be feeling bad about my productivity (and motivated to change) not bad about my reception (and motivated to whine). But the writer's guilt machinery melted down sometime around when I left college. XD;; Best course of action is probably to pick something short and easy and just knock it out without thinking about it too much.

In the meantime I'm gonna take the lazy person's way out and post something ancient. Fanfic WIPs are all on the old (dead) laptop harddrive but here's an academic paper you guys might enjoy:

( Praise Song Analysis )

Pretty fun paper to write as I recall. The prof did a lot of the analysis in class and Choge's song by itself is very funny.

Here's the book with the translation in it: this came with a CD which I might still have.

Keith Olberman mentioned on Countdown tonight that while our soon-to-be-Attorney General and his detractors argue about whether or not there's enough public evidence in the present day to classify waterboarding as "torture," more than 100 years ago US soldiers were court-marshaled for using "the water torture" during the Spanish-American and Philippine-American Wars.

...I wrote that! In a letter a letter to Senator Kennedy on Friday. ^^; Well, I'm sure I wasn't the only one. In case you're curious, here are some excerpts from the testimony of Grover Flint during the Hearings into Affairs in the Philippine Islands (April-May 1902, 57th US Congress, 1st Session):

( Read more... )

I used to have an electronic copy of this but I've lost it, sorry. The most telling thing is that during the entire examination, over and over again the Senators all refer to the water cure "or water torture" as torture straight-up, and are mainly concerned with whether it was effective or not and whether commissioned US officers oversaw the proceedings or not. The investigation into atrocities committed in the Philippines actually got a fair amount of press coverage during the summer or 1902; and then, apparently, it was forgotten. This (=Senate Doc. 331, Vol 3) was assigned reading for two classes.

And now back to frivolities.

I finished a paper today!! And then I got an email saying that I was too late ;_;. But at least I'll get credit for the class, which was really all I was after. :D And honestly, it felt so good to finish that even when the email came in, it didn't really dent the sparkle. ^_^ (Well...mostly. -_-)

( Whys and Wherefores )

What this is all leading up to is, I worked fairly hard on this paper and I didn't get any credit on it. THEREFORE (the reasoning goes), I should post it to livejournal. But the paper would be overkill also I never want to look at it ever again, so instead, I'll just post the outline.

Just humor me okay Without further ado:

Lessons of the Davao Mutiny

I reviewed the personal correspondence of Harry Hill Bandholtz from January 1909, when he and his wife returned to their house in Manila after an extended vacation and Bandholtz resumed his post as director of the Philippine Constabulary, through July 1909, when Bandholtz outlined his vision for the Constabulary based on what he saw as its major strengths and weaknesses, informed by the "lessons" he learned from the mutiny of eleven Constabulary recruits in Davao, Mindanao, on June 6, 1909.

( Questionable spelling and grammar ahead )

On the balance...I learned a lot? Ahaha. Ha. This was an easy class, meaning we hardly did any reading for it, meaning the research I did for this paper WAS my course. It felt a bit like being thrown in the river during monsoon season, actually. Without a lifejacket (background in the region/skills honed over multiple semesters as a social science major).

NEVER AGAIN.

Wait wait, I don't have to worry about this anymore! I'm free! (I still can't believe it.) Today an undergrad, tomorrow a BA! (Some part of me feels that this should be automatic: of course you have a college degree. But then tonight, I went out to dinner with my uncle, and he was SO impressed, because of course, on that side of the family, only my father has more than a high school education. That made me feel a bit better. Actually, it made me remember high school: graduation was a huge deal then too (Franklin High has a 65% graduation rate). And then I started feeling like I had double vision, because those facts barely touch me. ^^; The fact is, my parents are educated, intelligent, and they make a ton of money; I have the worst entitlement/privilege complex of anyone I know. Consider this entry: it's nothing but excuses, everything from bad study habits to possible mental disorders. (And now background! *strikes a pose*) The real lesson here probably is, WHINING LESS MEANS DOING MORE. Probably. And on that note...)

Bed! Bed!

So apparently...the fifth case was an extra added to DS version of Phoenix Wright? So much for social commentary. ORZ In the future I'll keep the judgmentalism confined to my own country.

Bookblogging!

Robertson Davies, The Manticore
Sequel to Fifth Business. I liked Fifth Business but Manticore is extremely forgettable. In fact I picked it up today thinking I'd finish it, having forgotten that I already had. XD; Re-tells the events of Fifth Business from a different perspective. I think I forgot it because although Percy's son idolizes his father -- the villain in the first book -- the author invites you to read between the lines, and the picture of Percy you get is the exactly same picture of a successful-but-shallow, morally bankrupt industrialist. Also the same: the thing were Davies replaces religion with psychology. -_-; there's nothing new going on. On the other hand I did like the son a lot. Together with the first book, The Manticore seems to prove that all good, right-thinking people are self-loathing, though, which is a bit of a drag.

Abe Ignacio, The Forbidden Book
For school. Noniction. This is a collection of political cartoons from the first few years of the Philippine-American War (1898-1902). It's a very pretty book, nice typesetting, very well-designed, and the pictures are gorgeous even when they're really, really racist. -_-; What's funny is that the really right-wing magazines end up printing pictures that almost seem to be against the cause, because they aren't trying to convince the readership that US imperial goals in the Philippines are justified, it's assumed. And some of the most racist pictures are from Life, which apparently used to be this extremely liberal humor magazine started by veterans of the Harvard Lampoon. Anyway, great book, recommended to anyone who likes political cartoons.

Currently reading:
Benevolent Assimilation, Arthur Miller (nonfiction, for school)
All Shook Up, Glenn Altshuler (nonfiction, for school)
The Dew Breaker, Edwidge Danicat (poetic and heartbreaking short stories about Haitian immigrants in the US)
To Say Nothing of the Dog, Connie Willis (time-traveling Victorians!)

50bookchallenge:
2006 Retrospect
2007 #01-05.
2007 #06-10

Happy New Year! As promised months and months ago, here are the electronic readings from U.S. Interventions in Latin America (summary of non-electronic reading here):

http://www.4shared.com/dir/864644/f5dc0c72/US_Interventions_in_Latin_America.html

Sorry for the free service. Don't want to get telophase in trouble by putting copyrighted material on her webspace. This will not be the complete commentary I wanted it to be, but here are the highlights.

Stern - Remembering Pinochet's Chile
Okay, this is not actually a must-read, I just felt like copying out parts of my paper on it. ^^; Generally I dislike books like this, which do not allow the reader to form independent conclusions.( Read more... )

Marti - A Letter to Gonzalo Quesada
Jose Marti is like, really smart. ^^ reading through the articles on Puerto Rico, one of the things you wonder is how come no one on that island had the foresight to see that even when the U.S. says and/or believes it is doing good, the government acts in its own best interest -- which is not necessarily your best interest. Anyway I suppose I should refrain from fangirling Marti too much, but it's really hard, because he is so awesome.

Franqui - Diary of the Cuban Revolution
A collection of Castro's letters from when he was imprisoned. He talks about all the great books he's reading, classes he's running, uprisings he's organizing; you get the impression that being thrown in jail was the best thing that ever happened to him. ^^; There's also a section about working for the country even if all your family and four-fifths of your acquaintances disown you that I found pretty...telling. Ahaha.

Also this was the week I was supposed to present on the reading but because we were behind on last week's reading and also there was a movie (can't remember the title, but it was pretty good) to watch, I did not get to showcase even one of my awesome, carefully-thought out questions. ^^; therefore I am spamming this journal with the discussion-openers I prepared. (Hey, they double as commentary!) ( Spaaaaaaam )

Renda - Taking Haiti
Discussion of the psychology of individual marines in Haiti, as seen through letters. Attempt to understand institutional racism at an individual level.

Burnett - Foreign in a Domestic Senes
About the weird mental contortions the US engages in where Puerto Rico is concerned.

Klein - Baghdad Year Zero
From Harper's. One thing most of the other articles we read for this section failed to do was provide a reason beyond a vague dream of regional conquest for the White House's decision to invade Iraq -- generally the articles were concerned with the U.N., or with the spiraling effect of policy on intelligence, or with American under-planning, or with the Iraqi's natural urge to revolt against an occupying force. Naomi Klein takes a different route, and focuses on the economic realities of Iraq after the invasion.( Read more... )

***

In cases where there's a country for which I haven't given a favorite article, the electronic reading was probably optional, meaning I didn't do it. Exception: Philippines -_- I uh, had to much on my plate that week to really get into the reading. Mostly I skimmed it. To the Filipinos reading this, I'm sorry! To make up for it I am in a class this semester titled U.S. Occupation of the Philippines. ^^; Which actually, I wasn't going to mention at all because it is so incredibly embarrassing.

However I am saying it anyway because I figure the time has come to admit that livejournal has changed me in ways that go way beyond fandom. It's changed my interests, my opinions, my habits (IN WAYS THAT ARE TOO HORRIBLE TO CONTEMPLATE) and probably even my future. Though livejournal did not create, for instance, my tendency to be a spaz, I seriously believe that it has deepened problems that were already there. ^^; Also, my grades suffered a lot.

Overall, however, I do think that I am happier. More miserable too, at times, but I figure that this is part and parcel of having an actual emotional life. It's hard for me to overstate just how much of my life was lived through books before I found livejournal. Now, of course, significant portions of my life are lived through computers -- but with the internet, at least, there are actual people on the other end.

Wow, was that sappy or what?

Resolutions: Calisthenics twice a day. Aerobic exercise three hours a week. No all-nighters with nothing to show for it. And NO LATE PAPERS.