The Destructive Nature of Rumor Mills

From the Bible... "A perverse man stirs up dissension, and a gossip separates close friends." Proverbs 16:28. Apparently gossip has been around for many millennium.

The setting: Michael Emerson is leaving Notre Dame. The Notre Dame department hasn't announced it yet because they are trying to find a new director for his center; that way when they announce Michael is leaving, it will soften the blow by saying, "But it's not so bad, because we have Dr. X to be director of the center."
I've known about it for awhile; since there's no one else at Notre Dame who studies race, I've had to apply to transfer to another program for next year.

The situation: My friend Brandy emailed me a few weeks ago asking me to cat sit for the summer. I just avoided responding at all. I won't stay in the Bend for the summer if I'm not staying at Notre Dame, but I have tried to not straight out lie to anyone. Brandy tracked me down in my office the other day. I decided I had to tell her the truth.

Valerie: I have something to tell you Brandy.
Brandy: Okay...
Valerie: It's a secret.
Brandy: Are you leaving?
Valerie: Yes.
Brandy: Because Michael's leaving?
Valerie: How did you know that?
Brandy: I heard a rumor to that effect from Bill. [Bill is a professor in the dept].
Valerie: Yeah, it's true, but no one knows, it has to be kept quiet for now.

We have a little bit more conversation, whatever.

Next day, I'm sitting in class, and random other girl in our program is like, "Val, I heard a rumor that you and Michael are leaving. Is that true???" Cue Valerie flipping out.
"Where'd you hear that from?"
"Dan and Amanda. I assumed they heard it from you, so I told Rich [another professor] about it, and he got all upset that it couldn't be true."

What??

I directly go and tell Michael the situation, very apologetically. He already knew about it, because someone told someone told someone who told his poor sweet secretary whom he hadn't been able to tell yet. And given we know of at least these two long gossip chains, it seems pretty certain the rest of the department knows. Poor Michael still isn't officially allowed by Notre Dame to tell anyone, so he's having to lie or worm around it or just avoid people. I was so apologetic, but he was like, "No, this isn't your fault, I don't harbor any ill will towards you about this." Still, he is in a really tight/awkward spot.

Unfortunately, I do harbor ill will: towards Brandy. I emailed her about it, and her response was, "It was too good not to tell people." (So apparently she told pretty much anyone she saw.) I'm so mad! So many things were jeopardized by spreading a little gossip: my relationship with Michael, Michael's relationship with many people, reputations...

So, I don't know how to deal with Brandy. She's a friend, so I don't just want to write her off. But this is unacceptable. How do you address such deliberate thoughtlessness (since I told her it needs to be kept quiet) and what I see as selfishness? With a response like, "it's too good not to tell people," it doesn't seem like she's going to be too apologetic about it. Do I have to relegate Brandy to 'sort-of-friend-I-tell-nothing-to'?

Suggestions welcome.

Grocery store temperature

I am usually late to one of my statistics classes. It's across campus, so I'm usually power walking to get there within the first five minutes of class. As a result, once I'm at class (and thus have powerwalked about 10-15 mins), I'm pretty warm and about to break a sweat (powerwalking in sweaters and winter coats will do that, no matter how cold it is).

I've noticed that most of the girls in our class are usually cold. They're always wearing their jackets in class. Even my friend who is a die hard midwesterner "I wear a windbreaker for a jacket when it's 35 degrees outside" often resorts to putting her coat on. Today I commented on this to them, saying I noticed they all looked cold.

Girl 1: Yeah, it's always chilly in this room.
Girl 2: Yeah it is. I don't know how Brian can wear just a t-shirt. (Brian always is wearing only a t-shirt in class)
Brian [gets up and checks thermostat]: It's 68 degrees in here! That's regular room temperature!
Guy 2: No, 68 is more like grocery store temperature, Brian.

My take home exam

From: Michael Emerson

To: Valerie Lewis, Bob Brenneman, Maria Diaz, David Hartman, Carl Neblett, Jennifer Yonkowski, Anjun Ganguly, Roberto Rivera

Date: Wed, 16 Feb 2005 20:06:36 -0500 (EST)
Subject: Exam 1

Here it is:

Using the meterials from class, discuss the development of the concept "race" from its inception to now, finishing with the ideology of color blindness. In your essay, be sure to consider if and where prejudice is important in the development of race.

*It is cruel, yes, but you cannot exceed 5 typed, double-spaced pages in responding to this question. Use 1 in margins. Point size can be 11 or 12.

Due: Next Wednesday, unless leading the class



Equivalent question:


I can't decide what is worse when writing a paper.
1. Having too little to say (so having to use all the undergrad antics of changing margins to 1.2" and font to Courier New to stretch 12 pages out to 15), or
2. Having too much to say (like this ridiculously large question that must be shrunk into a ridiculously small number of pages)

Ah, and your deep thinking question for the day: which of those is worse in life?

Pathetic dreams

I have always had . . . well . . . interesting dreams. I say interesting because there isn't one adjective to describe all my dreams. I used to remember dreams several times a week. Recently I haven't been remembering hardly any dreams. Some dreams are strange, some are just random. I've had one or two dreams that I think were actually meaningful things my subconscious or God or whatever you believe creates dreams construed. I also had one SUPER crazy dream that came true, but I'd have to tell you about that one in person. (It's not really blog material).

Sometimes the subject matter of my dreams makes me wonder just how lame I really am. Last fall when I was applying to grad schools and Dr. Emerson was thinking about moving to Notre Dame, I had a dream about sociology. In the dream Dr. E was moving, and the old chair of the Rice sociology department (Dr. Chandler Davidson) was telling him he couldn't leave, because he had to finish his big research project. I told Dr. E about this dream, and he was like, "Why are you dreaming about stuff like this??"

A few months ago I submitted my first paper to a scholarly journal for review. I had two dreams in a period of about a week about finding out if the paper was getting published. Both were surprisingly positive dreams (well, one was neutral, but in the other my paper got accepted to the cheers of myself and two faculty members). I thought it was crazy I dreamed about that not only once, but TWICE.

A few nights ago my dreams hit possibly their all time low. I dreamed I posted a great new blog entry, and got a bunch of comments from people who never comment. Sadly, this dream had that really realistic feeling to it, so realistic that for awhile I thought it was actually a memory of something that happened. Eventually I realized that not only did I not have a new blog entry with several cool commenters, but I couldn't even remember the subject of the cool blog entry from my dream. Darn it!

When I realized I had just said "darn it!" because I couldn't remember the blog entry subject of my dream, I knew I had hit some kind of low point in my life. Is there seriously nothing better for me to be dreaming about? Give me an adventure, a battle, a mystery, a sexy romance . . . but dreaming about a blog entry getting comments?? Sure, I don't think the Bend is the most exciting place, but I am content in my life: I have shelter, food, a nice office, good roommates, friends, and I go out a lot. But this dream makes me wonder: Just how boring is my life?

***************************
The continued power of the blog....

Last night, going to bed right after I wrote this entry, I had two dreams. In the first dream I was in World War 2. I was helping out with war theory, then taking care of women in children in a bomb shelter, then out on a jeep trying to destroy an enemy truck. I woke up from this dream because it started to get too intense, we were about to enter into hand to hand knife fights with a guy from the other truck.

In the second dream I was stuck in a world where robots had destroyed most of humanity, and I was one of the few lucky remaining ones who was a slave but narrowly avoided getting killed. At the end we were about to be killed by the most powerful robot who ran the whole planet, and we realized that he was actually human. As we were being sucked up an elevator shaft, helpless to stop impending death, my (human) friend I was with said, "I believe anything can be turned into good . . . do it God!" We plowed out the top of the shaft and suddenly were back in a world that was green and happy, and thousands of people were cheering and clapping for us as we landed on the ground.

I'd say those were two dramatic/exciting dreams. Given the result of this posting, I have a new blog strategy.
How little money do I really have?
Where is my tall dark and handsome man?
When will I get to go on a cruise to the tropics?
How little world peace is there??

Go blog, work your magic!

Happy Valentine's Day

One friend of mine says that Valentine's Day should also be called "Singles Awareness Day". I think some other names for it could be
"Women's favorite, men's least favorite day of the year" or
"Revenge of the florists, Hallmark, and candy companies".

Anyways, here is a smattering of news articles I found relating to Valentine's Day. I found the smorgasbord of topics quite amusing.

Valentine's Day internet suicide plot - Australian News
A MAN who used an internet chatroom to try to set up a mass suicide on Valentine's Day had been trying for at least five years to persuade women to engage in sex acts with him and then kill themselves, it has been revealed.

In City of Excess, No Theatrics Are Too Grand for 'Marry Me' - New York Times
In New York City, the competition for the most unforgettable marriage proposal has become increasingly fierce.

Saudi crackdown hasn't killed Valentine's fetes - Philadelphia Inquirer
In a country where Valentine's Day is banned, ordinary Saudis find they must skirt the law to spoil their sweetheart.

Valentine's date for 'love birds' - BBC
Two swans who fell in love at a bird sanctuary are to be released back into the wild on Valentine's day.

Valentine's a day of love, lust and stress - Toronto Star
Though expressing some warm fuzzies may seem simple enough, Valentine's Day in the 21st century is complicated.

No Gondolas for Valentine's Day - BBC
Venetian gondoliers, enraged by a ban on boating at night, have gone on strike - spoiling many a couple's dream of a Valentine's Day boat trip.

Radio station offers free divorce for Valentine's Day - CNN.com
Cupid occasionally misses his mark, so a local radio station is running a Valentine's Day contest offering a free divorce.

India has fallen in love with Valentine's Day - New Kerala
If there is one Western 'day' that the Indian heart has adopted as its very own, it must be Cupid's favourite Valentine's Day.

Valentine's becomes a day for activists - San Francisco Chronicle / ABC News
Valentine's Becomes a Day for Activists Rallying on Abstinence, Gay Marriage

'Womanizer' beer for Valentine's - BBC
A West Midlands brewery has come up with a "romantic" Valentine's beer - named Womanizer.

Valentine's Chocolate May Have Small Handprints of West African Children - Voice of America
While many people are offering their loved ones chocolate for Saint Valentine's Day Monday, Ivory Coast, the world's leading cocoa producer is struggling to reduce forced child labor in its cocoa sector.

The Merits of Cleanliness

My roommate Julie and I about once a week spend half an hour or so cleaning up our kitchen. This isn't time spent doing the dishes. It's time we spend cleaning out our fridge, deciding if things have gone bad to toss them, cleaning our stove, bleaching our sink, and any other odds and ends tasks we have to do. It's a very liberating time for both of us, because we like having a clean kitchen.

We'd like to give some of our friends lessons in cleanliness. Today we tackled a disgusting task. A few weeks ago (we think about three) Bharti had a dinner party. She borrowed this deep pot (sort of wok looking) from a friend to deep fry some stuff. The pot (I call it "the oil vat") has been sitting on our stove ever since, with the oil used for deep frying in it. Not only is this nasty, but it's been sitting taking up 1.5 burners on our stove. She usually leaves 1-2 other pots or pans on the stove after she cooks, so at any given time we probably only have 1 (maybe 2) burners free if we need to cook.

The vat was disgusting. Julie set up a multiple layer plastic bag situation and I poured the oil out of the pan. It was a nasty brownish-black color. Then we had to clean the pot and its lid.

Some people might say, "Why don't you ask Bharti to do it? It's her problem." Well, we have asked her. Julie today got to the point where she just wanted a clean kitchen, and didn't want to wait it out any longer. Mess is one thing. Dirt is another. In our book, cleanliness trumped roommate self-righteousness (The typical, "It's not my job, so I'll wait for person X to do it.").

Kitchens are difficult things. I wonder across the board how many roommate disputes have to do with the kitchen. In a roomming situation with a naer end in sight, the kitchen isn't that big of a deal. But in an indefinite situation, the kitchen could cause some deep problems. The question of dishes, the trash, cleaning out rotting junk in the fridge . . . it could add up!

Some of my friends have a little white board on their fridge. The one roommate that always cleaned left a note on it last semester that said something to the effect of "Hey guys, I'm not the only one that lives here, so I shouldn't be the only one that cleans. Do your share." The funny thing is the note is still on the white board; it won't erase now because it was left there too long. Ironic?

So Julie and I would like to give some sanitary kitchen lessons. Our points are simple and straightforward. I'll put them here just for my own release of tension.
1 - After you cook, cover food (or put it in tupperware) and put it in the fridge. Otherwise, it goes bad! And, it makes your kitchen smell.
2 - Doing dishes promptly helps the apartment smell less.
3 - Throw away leftovers that you won't eat or haven't eaten.
4 - Don't leave oil vats on the stove to annoy your roommates for 3+ weeks.**

The merits of a clean kitchen? It smells good. It's relatively germ free. You are not embarassed when guests come over. You can fully utilize all your space and appliances. I highly recommend it.

**caveat: We love Bharti! Just not her lack of kitchen cleanliness habits.

South Bend's Target

The first week I was in the Bend I searched out the Target of the area, particularly because my lovely Ecclesia friends had given me a Target giftcard as a goodbye gift. It was both strangely nice and strangely disorienting going to the Bend's Target. Nice because it is set up almost exactly like the Target by Rice. Disorienting because by "almost exactly" I mean that it was exactly the same except flipped like a mirror image, so everything was backwards (like being in some parallel universe or something!)

The Target by Rice is noticeably in a big city. It is down the street from all the stadiums and arenas, and practically next door to Reliant Stadium, the huge and gorgeous new stadium that was finished just a year or two back. (I used to pass the stadium on my drive to school every day sophomore year when I lived off campus at Holly Hall). When you walk out of Houston's Target, you look up and see the stadium bright and looming in front of you, and around there all sorts of (somewhat seedy) stores and apartment complexes.

Walking out of the Bend's Target that first week, I looked up was confronted with a pitch black sky, and a horizon of trees. I was so used to the stadium and city surrounding my old Target, I had a moment of absolute shock when I saw such nothingness all around. I can't remember exactly, but I bet I almost teared up, since those first few weeks I missed Houston so very much.

I still miss the big city. It's less on my mind now, and it's not that I can't deal with living in a place like the Bend. Sure, I can deal with it. But I don't enjoy it or love it... in my heart I am still lusting after the big city. I can't exactly say why. There are a hundred things: the diversity, the constant activity, the endless number of things to do, always learning something new, always finding new fun places, having hundreds of restaurants to try, finding people of every race/country/persuasion/interest, exploring all kinds of neighborhoods... Oh, sweet city life, how I crave thee!

Coming out of the Closet: My Secret Life as a Trekkie

I guess it's hardly a secret life; it's really just a "don't ask, don't tell" kind of life. It started when I was little. I don't remember too much, except my parents liked Star Trek, so I grew up watching it. I watched my fair share of the original series, enough to be familiar with Spok and Captain Kirk, but mostly we watched The Next Generation (that is, the show starting Patrick Stewart as Jean Luc Picard), as that was the show running new episodes.

The Next Generation was really a sitcom. Each episode was mostly stand alone. While in the original series, Captain Kirk was pretty much did whatever the hell he wanted, in The Next Generation they were constantly talking about "The Prime Directive". The Prime Directive was the highest rule, stating that no one should interfere in the issues of an alien species. This came up again and again. My dad told me the show's creator, Gene Rodenberry, was strongly against the Vietnam War, and his new found 'non-interference' philosophy was showing up in the TV show.

Sometime in middle school, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine started (incidentally, after the death of Gene Rodenberry, the original founder of the show, indicating the "cult films" nature of the series). Deep Space Nine was set not on a starship, but on a space station. I didn't like this show at first, but it eventually became my favorite. Since the show was set in one place, rather than travelling around on a space ship, Deep Space Nine was able to deal with intricate and complicated situations (as opposed to single issue episodes) including a war that lasted multiple seasons, so many romantic relationships, and all kinds of political and social agendas.

Two more Star Trek series followed (Voyager and Enterprise), but I haven't gotten attached to either of these yet. (And nor are they in twice a day cable syndication yet, like the other shows are).

Through college no one knew I was a Star Trek fan. Even though Rice might be full of smart kids, luckily most people aren't weird-o nerds. So the Trek fans were actually few and far between. I was almost discovered my junior year when I went to see the new Star Trek movie, but luckily we managed to gather a gruop to go, so no one too much notice. I wasn't really discovered until my senior year, when I discovered The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine on Spike TV and started watching them rather faithfully.

My roommate and I today were discussing if I can be called a "Trekkie." On this point I must concede two things: in middle school, I had a Next Generation poster on my wall, purchased at a Star Trek convention that my parents took us to as a surprise. I also know two words in Klingon. However, I've never sought out a convention, or bought a uniform or crazy mask, or learned any of the languages in full, or studied the schematics of the fictional star ships.

Star Trek is certainly more than a bunch of aliens running around on TV. Like most science fiction, it makes statements and raises questions about our own society by presenting other societies. One of my friends from high school was also a closet trekkie, and we would discuss who each of the alien species represented. The United Federation of Planets (the characters of the show all belong to this) clearly represents the USA. There are species that represent businessmen, technology, supernatural beings, Sweden, and various other countries/societies. I mentioned to a sociology professor of mine last year that I'm a Star Trek fan, and she immediately admitted she was also. "It's very sociological! All the societies, with different norms and customs and laws, interacting, learning to deal with each other. It makes sense sociologists would like it." Ah, finally: a justification for my guilty pleasure!

Sadly, that is far from the reason I enjoy Star Trek. It's a combination of things: the combination of suspense and romance, the characters I have known and loved for so many years, the hilarious "scientific" words the show makes up...

Whew. It feels good to have finally come clean.