It's easier to do it this way:

• Taking four classes (17 units) is rough. I'm losing sleep and I feel like I'm reading something every waking hour. My eyes hurt.
• I've been thinking a lot lately about Em. We haven't talked or said anything of substance to each other since mid-December, right after finals. We're both on campus daily. His office is right by the School of Education. I go to where he works a couple of times a week, but he's never there. I don't know what the hell happened, but I want my friend back. I saw his picture today in the Bruin, it was the first time I had "seen" him in a month. He was part of a panel or something. I almost cried.
• On Tuesday I attended a meeting of Chicana/o and Latina/o graduate students. I was thinking about joining the organization, but am now 99.9% sure that I don't want to be affiliated with them. The main reasons? I don't like the guys heading the organization. I'm not too fond of ching�n politics.
• While reading "The Coming of John" chapter in W.E.B. Du Bois' The Souls of Black Folk I felt like crying. Yeah, I'm in chillona mode these days. Still... there was so much in that chapter that I could identify with. The story of John is beautifully written. Du Bois' rural Georgian protagonist goes to college in the North. He gets educated and earns his degree. As a result of his education and newfound critical consciousness, he begins to question society, he becomes angry with Jim Crow laws and other overtly racist actions/policies. He returns home, but he doesn't fit in. He's labeled by the whites as a "dangerous Negro" not because he has guns, but because he's educated and wants to educate his community. He tells his sister that all the learning made him sad, but he is glad that he is knowledgeable. He goes to the judge asking for permission to teach at a rundown school. He's allowed to be the only teacher for the black youth in the community of Altamaha, but he has to promise to teach them to be subervient. Their education was not meant to be emancipatory, to help them move out of their social strata and work for the improvement of the community. Their education was supposed to reinforce the status quo of white supremacy.
• In a similar vein, I read four chapters of Keeping Track by Jea*nie O*kes, a professor in the UCLA school of education. I kept thinking back at my own experience with tracking and my older brother's experience with tracking. We were at opposite ends of the educational spectrum, and it has made such a huge difference. Within the same family, one kid got fucked over and the other one got the special treatment.
• I had lunch today with the Chicano education student I had a mini-crush on until I found out he was taken. We ate comida Oaxaque�a, he paid but I made him let me leave the tip. I felt like he was interviewing me with all the questions he was asking. I found out that a he got the nickname Little P while working on his master's at Harvard.
• As a result of leaving campus impulsively for lunch with Little P, I missed all of the job talk and most of the student meeting with the last candidate for the assistant professor job in higher education policy. I liked him most.
• El Oso has been writing a series on conservative minorities. Oso has a great blog, but what's even greater are the discussions his posts generate. The latest post has 50 comments thus far, a lot of them on affirmative action.

I need sleep now. Buenas noches.

Me siento: overwhelmed
Escuchando: la tele

M�s reciente:
Searches - 09.16.05
the big move - 07.29.05
mother and daughter: a comparative analysis - 07.28.05
jardineros y dom�sticas - 07.27.05
tough question - 07.25.05

antes // despu�s