actualizing a dream

i'm glad that this year allowed me the pleasure of realizing my dream of hand-binding my senior project. i can't tell you how fulfilling it is to look back on the original idea and see that i followed through with my original intentions.

it was the perfect way to wrap up my years as an undergraduate, building a bookpress from raw materials, enlisting the help of my friends in getting the copies made, printed, and assembled, then spending my last few days in oxford, sitting on the floor of my friend's house, binding books to gift to everyone i've met since my freshman year that has had any help in making my project a reality.

so, as a close to this chapter in my life (haha, a book analogy!), i have pictures of the book-binding process, AND, a promise to never talk about senior project again!

hahahaha, i'm done, friends! I AM DONE!

over and out,
stef

loose copies:

the binding station (that's my home-made press!):

the class book (you can see my personal note to my thesis and class mentor):

actualization! hand-bound copy of my thesis (you can see the note written on the inside cover):


for those not lucky enough to receive a hand-bound copy of the original edition of 25, my senior thesis is available in digital copies, to read and annotate, via Ohiolink.

read this book

(a note to Self:)

read this book: 

The Suppression of Dissent: How the State and Mass Media Squelch USAmerican Social Movements 

by Jules Boykoff

it uses "squelch" in the title! (my descriptor of choice!)

-stephanie now

post-thought: also these books...

STUDENT DISSENT IN THE SCHOOLS (eds. Irving G. Hendrick and Reginald L. Jones)

COMMUNITY AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN AMERICA (Thomas Bender)

in case my computer dies again...

i don't want to lose these scans of blue book insides and outsides

and this scan of a page from my Cultural Studies notebook (a lecture ostensibly entitled "Power")

vivacious life

to prove that i am, despite convictions to the otherwise, in the living, i am posting some delicious pictures from last week's Western Senior Dinner.

i don't think i've ever looked so good after having been so haggard and dirty and sleep/food-deprived in my life, if i do say so myself. wow, what a difference a shower makes!

enjoy your weekends, i will be continuing to write and edit and build and not sleep.

-stephanie

hostage situation

help! stephanie has been taken hostage by her project!

(this is my best attempt at a "hostage situation" photograph. that's tuesday's copy of the student paper! and that's my little cave-dwelling-as-of-late, the Tappan computer lab!)

even though i finished writing it on monday, i keep forcing myself to make more edits, to write more sections, to continue stressing. i'm still trapped in the dark cave-like confines of the Tappan computer lab (my near-permanent residence since my computer crashed last week).

i hope to be freed soon. tomorrow, i work more on the concluding chapters, (there are some chapter titles i'm playing with), and then i am meeting up with an elusive english dept. faculty member to make a book press! (i am way excited!)

send ransom money and kittens to my comment box!
-stephanie

she lives!

(that's me with the "proof" of my finished senior project! alt. title reads: "Idiots and Jackasses: How American Public Education Fails to Meet Its Democratic Ideals." you like?)

hello everyone!

yes, this is stephanie, returning to you from the edge of death and emotional/psychological/existential despair, to say that

1) I AM DONE!
i finished the project after much duress, at noon on Monday, April 14th, 2008. i had to haul a lot of ass to get there, and it was certainly not the easiest thing i've ever done (i slept 10 minutes on Sunday night, 2 hours on Saturday, 3 hours on Friday, ate maybe 4 meals in that expanse of time), nor the easiest to understand (i wrote 25 pages in one night!), nor the most believable (i wrote 25 pages! in one night! with only 10 minutes of sleep!). but i did it! I AM SET TO GRADUATE! (*fist pump and hip thrust!* *yeah!* let's have a party now, pls?)

2) there's still so much to do...
i am presenting my thesis at the undergraduate research forum in 4 hours, and i have nothing in the way of visual aids or even mental preparation. i hope to just show up and be able to garble something remotely intelligible.
the "dress rehearsal" for my big thesis defense in May is coming up on Thursday, which is also a little too early for my taste. i don't think i can whip up a powerpoint and a formal presentation in one night, especially since i still haven't slept more than 5 hours since i finished.
(my body is def taking a toll from all this. on Monday, when i wrapped up writing, my face looked like i'd been chainsmoking 2 packs a day since i was 14. i was so haggard, i couldn't believe i was still alive. and sadly, i still haven't gotten a chance to completely rest up, i've been editing and formatting the project, and working on SFS stuff again, and bouncing around meetings. i can't wait until next week, when i will hopefully be able to sleep and eat to my heart's content and maybe even read a good book again!)
AND, there's still another chapter i want to write, because it just doesn't feel done yet, but i don't know if i have the patience/time/energy/will-power to do it. i'm telling you, i have a disease! i need to just put it aside, let it wait for the dissertation!

3) THANK YOU!
thru all of the trials and tribulations, this blog has really been a huge source of relief for me. it's been a place to informally write what i'm thinking, and a nice opportunity to step away from the project, remember that i can write, i just need to be less editorial about it and let it flow.

and, to know that there are ppl who read it, who enjoy it (don't you?) and who care, well, it really puts the sunshine in my (as of late) dark and dismal existence. (i can't tell you how glad it made me, as sick as this sounds, to know that ppl were worried and wondering if i had died. i'm so glad you care that i live! shucks, yo... thanks!)

and, i wanted to thank the blog itself, as odd as that sounds, because it literally saved me. when i lost all the data on my computer (all my writing from college, all my photos), i didn't know how the fuck i was going to finish my thesis. there were diagrams, little nuggets that i'd written in little .rtf files, little things that i couldn't possibly think to recover. some were screen shots of websites long lost and forgotten. some were passing thoughts that i couldn't reconstruct or re-place.

but then i remembered that i had posted most, if not all, of these things on the blog! and sure enough, there they all were, neatly labeled and organized, even showing me which dates i'd created them, so i could make accurate notations in my citations list! hahaha, what a beautiful thing!

anyway, i should really get back to work. i'm running around to meetings and presentations and interviews all day, and then i'm teaching class until 10 pm (which i really need to prepare for), and then i gotta find time to put a powerpoint together for tomorrow... oh geez, it's looking like another all-nighter week...

when everything is said and done, i hope there will be copious imbibing and heavy snuggling.

until then, yours in life and virtual death,
stephanie

THE FUCK?!!!

48 hours before senior project is due: i'm sitting at my desk, listening to music and working on my paper. i have 10 documents open at once, maybe 3 applications. i'm pressing F9, which on a mac, lets you zoom out and look at everything at once, so you can find your bearings.

i zoomed out and it wouldn't zoom back.

i heard gears spinning, the clicking of some hardwear trying to find its place, a fan doing its best to keep the system from overheating.

3 hours later and my harddrive would be pronounced dead on arrival. when the guy at the apple store plugged it in to try some diagnostic tests, he said he couldn't even detect a harddrive on there.

now i have a useless piece of empty computer, which will cost close to $2K to recover the data from. and i don't know if my external harddrive got fried in the process too. i'm just hoping i made it away from this with just a small piece of my music collection still intact on that external...

i feel like the Universe's bitch right now. what did i do???!! i keep wondering why my karma is so for shit these days. maybe i hit a squirrel with my car and didn't know, in which case i'd like to formally issue my apology: i'm very sorry, it was nuthin personal, i actually love squirrels very much, if i could, i'd adopt the dead squirrel's family and let them live in my home.

just pleeeeaaaase, stop it with the bad karma!

less than 24 hours to go, and i am in some deep shit.

-stephanie

where is my mind?

i can't do it... i can't do anything. i can't write because i can't think, i can't think because i haven't slept, i can't sleep because i can't stop thinking, can't sleep because i can't stop writing...

there are miles to go before i sleep...

i know the end but i don't know how to get there.

this is what it must have felt like when Zeus's head split open and out came Athena. 

my senior project presentation

THURSDAY, MAY 1, 2008

5:15 - 6:50 PM in Leonard Theatre on the Western College Campus

Stephanie Lee will be defending her undergraduate thesis entitled "Actualizing the Democratic Promise of American Public Education."

----

Come if you care. Don't come if you don't.

-stephanie

a beginner's guide to domination and suppression

how to kill activism, reassert the market's dominance of everyday life, and ruin democracy:

1) authority + passivity

(teach 'em not to think for themselves)

2) empty promises

(keep em running. employ 'carrot and stick')

3) divide & conquer

(kill their communities, take away their friends - better yet, have them do it to themselves)

4) the illusion of choice

(make them think they want/need these things and that they're being taken care of)

you'll have a totalitarian state in no time!

(disclaimer: i, of course, don't agree with any of these things. it was just that while i was writing my thesis today i made a list like this to clarify the points i was going to be making in this particular section of my paper and i thought it was interesting enough to share.)

p.s. it should be noted that all these were, and are, being practiced everyday, in the media industry, and especially the school.

this year

I AM GOING TO MAKE IT THRU THIS YEAR

IF IT KILLS ME.

[mp3] "This Year" by The Mountain Goats.

ONE WEEK LEFT.

it's do or die!

(pls not die...)

-stephanie

at wit's end

an email sent to my Senior Project advisors this evening:

Hi Bill and Bill,

I am facing a huge dilemma. I am nearing 40 pages on my senior project now, and the pages I have are pretty well-researched and -written, in my opinion.

However, the project I had planned to write at the beginning of this year is far from done. I could easily write another 80 or 100 more pages, there is just so much I have in mind to discuss and examine in the project.

However, I also know that in the time I have available, this is impossible. But, I don't feel good about turning the project in. It doesn't feel complete, even though I've technically written all the pages I need to write.

What should I do? I can't afford to stay this summer and finish the project, and really, I don't think 2 or 3 more months will really allow me to finish the project I had in mind. The scope of the project demands a book, and I don't have time to write one, in a week or in a summer.

If I reduce the project to just the first two chapters, I feel that my individual voice and perspective on the topic will be left out. But, if I try to write the chapters I have left, they will likely be under-researched and poorly written.

Please advise me, I am at wit's end.
-Stephanie

racing to the finish line

ok, so calm down...

i'm doing better now. i just had to freak out a bit and get it out of my system. i now have 26 (up from 20) solid (as opposed to lumpy) pages of extremely well-researched critique of free market capitalism (yipee!) and ideas for another 5 pages (at least) of more.

and the delightful thing is that i'm really enjoying putting these various theorists in conversation with each other (Adam Smith, James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, Aristotle, John Dewey, Horace Mann, and a few radical voices thrown in for fun's sake). the use of Smith's own words to tear apart free market capitalist individualism is particularly exciting, in my opinion.

from here, i move on to a discussion of civic virtue, the role of schooling in developing a civic tradition, and then a critique of the Restoration policies of the 1970s and '80s. then a discussion of the culture of schooling, a rant against grades and incentivized education, and then some discussion of student movements and protest culture (if i have time...)

racing to the finish line (my deadline is April 1st!!!)

-stef

first meltdown of the year

i can't go on like this...

i feel so stupid. so many ppl go thru much worse than this. ppl go to war, ppl get cancer, ppl lose loved ones, ppl die. and i can't just sit my ass down for 3 hours and write my thesis, something i've wanted to do since i entered college and the only thing i have to do to make sure i graduate.

what is wrong with me?!

that's what i keep asking myself. i used to be so good at writing papers, i could sit down for hours and just write endlessly until i was done. i was so clear-headed, so facile with words, concise and cogent. i wouldn't outline or anything, i would just organize the paper in my head, sit down and it would come flowing out of me. it was like magic. i didn't even have to take notes on my reading, i could remember exactly where on the page i read it, could remember what page, and if i didn't, it would be no problem for me to flip back through the book and find it.

i don't know how time has shifted things in the opposite direction. now, i sit amidst piles of books, can't keep them apart, can't find a simple quote or even remember which book it was in, let alone which chapter or page it was on. i feel i am losing my mind.

i've watched winter become spring become winter become spring again. while nature was wantonly blasting thru the seasons, i've been watching her work at my window(s) and feeling older and lazier and more and more incompetent. i'm an old woman now, i can' t do this...

i feel horrible, not just because of these things, but because this thesis really is something i care a lot about. that's maybe why it's hard to do this "right." my friend Brandon described it once as feeling like he wasn't "good enough" to write his thesis. like, the topic required such care, such delicate treatment, that somehow he felt unworthy of handling it. like he wouldn't be careful enough, didn't possess the mental dexterity, didn't have the proper amount of time. and i feel all these things too, but also i'm feeling a little beat up in the process.

it's kinda like making love. i mean, what is this, if not an act of love? i wouldn't have picked something this impossible to condense into an 80-page undergraduate thesis if i didn't love it (right?...) you can't make love with someone(/thing) if you don't feel it loves you back. or at least that there's some chance of mutual connection. you ought to feel like you're doing things because you genuinely care about them, and that the things you do will matter. but really i just feel bullied and used. i am giving so much time and care to it, and it's always fighting me back. and then i'm struggling to be faithful to the task. i'm distracted by the weather, by film projects, by all the fun new literature i could be reading instead... this is an abusive relationship. i feel battered, my esteem is suffering, i feel ugly and inept, and lo, i'm suffering performance anxiety.

well, it's all intellectual masturbation anyway...
-stephanie

is this what democracy looks like?

i was writing my senior project and was trying to find the source of a great quote ("the private citizen is a fool") i remember reading but don't remember from where (really wishing i had that life search right about now...), when, in my searching, i went to Wikipedia and was slightly amused to find this:


a picture of a ballot box and the caption "Voting is an important part of the democratic process!"

this is a gift! i took a screen shot and plan on using it in my appendices. i love the potential for circular critique this presents: a democratic medium (more importantly, one touted for being unreliable/clouded because of its dependence on popular opinion) pointing to voting (what many political critics - myself included! - would argue is one of the most basic forms of political participation) as an exemplar of democratic practice.

it's wonderful. i'm done! (no need to write this, the image says it all!)

[ha! if only theses could be writ this easily...
and i still don't have the source for that quote...]

-stephanie

great research tool!

yes, i am writing this at 4:54 in the morning. no, i haven't slept yet.

this is because even though i pledged to stay away from computers, i couldn't help the fact that the next 25 pages of my senior project are due in a week and i JUST started seriously devoting time to it again. i finally cleaned up my desk and found a way to set up my laptop so that i'm not constantly hunched over it and cramping my neck and wrists (tho the new set up seems like more of a strain on the eyes, even though i would've suspected distance from the screen would be a better practice. *shrug*)


so i started reading today. and making reading lists. and stacking the books on my reading lists on my desk and surrounding shelf and floor, so that my reading lists have literally manifested themselves into piles of work to do. it's kinda nice having them in discrete piles and knowing i have to work thru them one by one. seeing the piles shift in size makes me feel like i'm spending my time in some productive way.


with an endless soundtrack of pleasant, unobtrusive music (tonight it's been a mix of Joseph Arthur, Sandro Perri, Asobi Seksu, Ben Folds/Five, and now Beach House, which is GREAT for winding down and sinking in) and a stack of post-its, i've been making some headway.

AND, i found this great research tool for my Firefox browser that might've just saved me tons of time and saved my day:

hello friends and scholars -
i wanted to share this computer tool with you. i've found it useful for organizing my research because i've been accumulating so many resources and articles, that i was having a hard time keeping track of how everything connected. i used to keep dozens of .rtf files with url's and article annotations in them, but those became impossible to search and ended up just confusing me!

zotero is great b/c it's like del.icio.us (another links/tags manager) but has more layers for organization and helps you generate citations. and it's more user

friendly than RefWorks (and you can keep using it after you leave Miami). i've found the folders function to be the most useful, since i can bundle online articles

in .doc or .pdf formats and sort them according to which chapter of my thesis i'm writing.

anyway, check it out: http://www.zotero.org/


i hope it helps you with your various projects and saves you some stress.

happy researching,
stephanie

oh yeaaaah...

making good on my promise to make 2008 the best year EVER, i finished writing chapter one of my thesis today, at 10:33 pm. and at 22 pages - plus notes for chapter two, an appendix, works cited page (containing no less than 24 sources) and a table of contents - i have to say, i'm actually quite happy with it.

what's more, i find that i really enjoy grappling with all the complex connections between democracy, education, and market ideology. especially fun was the section on democratic philosophy, in which i got to teach myself about classical and liberal republicanism, having never taken a poli sci class in my life!

anyway, it's done. and i'm half relieved, half scared, because now the brutal waiting begins. will Bill like it? only time will tell... i really hope he does, i slaved away at it, hunched over at my little ottoman desk, my books in piles around me. my back hasn't been the same in weeks!

now i'm stretching out for the first time in days, and taking a real deep breath. i'm cleaning up my space and trying to remember what it feels like to have a life again. weird, really.

let's hope all my effort wasn't in vain,
stephanie

p.s. and what's more, all those creative juices flowing and i finally got a title for my thesis!
"ACTUALIZING THE DEMOCRATIC PROMISE OF AMERICAN PUBLIC EDUCATION." bam, baby!

new year's tidings!

readers,

I'M JUMPING UP AND DOWN ON A POGO STICK AND SHOUTING THIS IN A SING-SONG VOICE!!

WHY? BECAAAUUUUUUSE... I HAVE 15 PAGES WRITTEN AND I HAVE THE NEXT FEW PAGES MAPPED OUT AND THEY ARE GONNA ROCK SO HARD THE BOAT IS GONNA SINK, MAN!!!!

IT'S 2008 NOW - YEAH!! - AND IT'S GONNA BE THE BEST YEAR EVAH!

also, i've been reading my thesis in a thick Texan accent, just on occasion to lighten the mood - something i suggest trying when you're bored.

WOO-HOO YEAH ALRIGHT!
-STEPHANIE

"i shall name one Marvin, and i will train him to go directly for the testicles!"

that piece of carrot is really the remainder of a disembodied finger...
but where's the body? HE ATE IT.

wtf? you ask. intrigued? that is a quote from a conversation with my dear friend Brandon (read on...)

you see, senior project does some horrible things to people. mostly, there's a feeling of disempowerment, overwhelming depression, occasional health problems and feelings of self-unworth. there are also, in extreme cases, feelings of surprising hatred and violence. as Brandon put it, senior project "makes me want to commit heinous acts!" (you're not alone, B. you're not alone...)

the salve for such tough times? flesh-hungry hamsters. that's right. rodents with the insatiable taste for mammal blood.

Brandon: [sr proj] makes me want to commit heinous acts. and that is all i have to say about that!

me: INDEED

11:59 AM did u finally turn in sr proj?

Brandon: yeah, and bill apparently wrote back within three hours. i made the stupid mistake of just opening it and reading what he had to say

me: oh no

Brandon: which was basically 'get rid of your first 25 pages and then we'll talk'

me: how is it he read the whole thing in 3 hours?

WTF?

12:00 PM

what's wrong with yr first 25 pages??

he can't just say that, wtf

Brandon: sooooo i dont even know

im going to try not to dwell on it though. i was quite pleased with my paper, actually. something i wasnt expecting

12:01 PM me: well that's good, as long as you like it

did he send back comments?

Brandon: yeah

i could actually hear him yelling them as he was typing them. they weren't just little fixes and whatever. they were things that you could easily tell were being yelled in all their glory

12:02 PM me: oh geez, that's how his comments to my first 30 were...

yep, he's a yeller...

12:03 PM he should be put down ... like Old Yeller

take him out back to the shed...

12:04 PM Brandon: there is one part where he actually sounds kind of dumb though...in my intro at the end when im talking about what's going to be in each chapter, i didn't really go into detail on the chapters i hadn't started yet, i just wrote sentences that were place holders like "in this chapter i'm going to talk about blah blah and blah' and he wrote this really nasty comment about how paragraphs can't be one sentence long as if i didnt already know that

we should feed him to a bear

12:06 PM me: i hate those stupid comments he makes

like, he really thinks we're children

12:07 PM that we haven't learned that paragraphs aren't one sentence long, or that we don't know how to use spell check (something he actually accused me of)

i mean, we're college students, give us a LITTLE credit

12:08 PM he inspires violent urges in me

12:09 PM Brandon: seriously. one of my favorites is there is something grammatically that i was doing wrong, and it happened like 3 or 4 times in my paper. the first time he just pointed it out and im like okay, i'll fix that but then for the other times it happens he gets like more and more violent with his responses, as if i heard him while he made his first comment and was too stupid to do anything about them at the time

me: HA

yeah, definitely seen that before

12:10 PM

i want to unleash flesh-hungry hamsters on him

12:11 PM Brandon: flesh hungry hamsters would be QUITE delightful!

me: maybe i'll do that instead of writing my paper then... it seems a more worthy use of time

12:12 PM

if i got some hamsters now, and gave them a taste for mammal blood, they'd be raring to go by the time school started again

Brandon: this is a good point you make

12:15 PM me:

12:16 PM i'll spend some time making harnesses for them too, so i can unleash them en masse

swarming, like a flesh-hungry twitching rodent blanket

doesn't that sound delightful??

Brandon: yes. a living blanket of flesh eating fuzz

12:17 PM with eyes only for Bill

me: wow, suddenly i'm much more excited about the school year beginning again

12:18 PM Brandon: ahhh!! and then bill has the audacity to end his email with 'good luck' ooooooh go fuck yourself bill

[15 minutes later...]

me: alas, back to the project...

enjoy boston

glad to see u made it safely

Brandon: thank you! and good luck with all the shit

me: it was a pleasure dreaming of flesh-hungry hamsters with you!

Brandon: inDEED!

i look forward to the day

me: mmhmm

12:26 PM i shall name one marvin, and i will train him to go directly for the testicles!

Brandon: yes please!!

me: oh, poor marvin...

Brandon: it's a worthy sacrifice

me: indeed

12:27 PM tho it may be too late, as i believe the seed of his loins has already been sewn

Brandon: really?

me: how, you ask? MAGIC

Brandon: thats not something i want to be picturing

me: i don't believe it's human, it can't be

it's at least half EVIL

Brandon: probbaly at least 3/4 evil

12:28 PM because bill just has that much to give

fragments of existence

sorry for the dreary lack of posts lately. i've not been doing well, december 2007 is becoming my least favorite month, i think. thank the Egyptians it's almost over.

for lack of anything more interesting, here's a glimpse into my recent holy daze: since i've been home, i haven't done anything but eat, sleep, freak out about senior project, sleep, get sick*, or freak out. (well ok, i've played a lot of piano too, but that's kinda a foil to the freaking out...)

*funny story about my health: i went into the doctor's office last wednesday to, supposedly, wrap up my hepatitis immunizations. since i got one in the summer before i went to Mongolia, my dad said if i had another within a year, i would be immune for life. and with me already running the gamut of vaccinations (this makes my 5th shot this year! hep 1, HPV shots 1 and 2, flu, and now hep 2) i thought, 'what's another shot?'

well, apparently i was too trusting of my local health care professionals. i should have known something was wrong the moment they failed to find my immunizations record. i had to insist that i got a hepatitis shot over the summer before i went abroad. after that, they told me that i'm supposed to get the second shot in the series within a month of the first one (which, do the math, already sounds like a bad idea, if i got the first in MAY). but after phoning to the ppl in the hospital basement, the nurse finally said OK and decided to go ahead with it.

turns out, because of my apparently missing record, the shot they gave me on Wednesday was for hepatitis B, not A like i was supposed to get. which explains a lot. the hep A shots are just 2 shots within a year of each other. the hep B shots are a series of 3. furthermore, i've ALREADY gotten the series, i've been immune since i was a kid!

so, let's recap, shall we? i'm STILL not immunized for hep A. AND, i've gotten shot 2 in a series of 3, without having had shot 1 and without plans to get shot 3. and all this having ALREADY been covered for hep B anyway. now i'm showing signs of jaundice, a symptom of hepatitis B. let's hope those childhood shots can at least keep me from developing hepatitis in my later life after having it reintroduced into my bloodstream by a syringe-happy nurse. yay for happy endings!

oh, and a senior project update: Bill hated my "first" 30 pages, despite both Gracie and Nick loving it. he threatens to not graduate me and to not give me my degree, AGAIN (this is #3, if anyone is keeping count), and he's given me an incomplete in the class, dropping my GPA to the absolute lowest i've ever seen it in my life, a 2.27, which might cause my scholarships to be taken away, and now he's set a Jan 1 deadline for the "new" 30 pages, which i am frantically trying to start writing but feeling ever more depressed each day i try to write it.

if it's any indication as to the kind of duress i'm facing, my gmail chat statuses from the last 24 hours:

FUCK! when did i run out of time??!!!

when did my major become something i detested so much?

all i want for Christmas and my birthday is to be done with senior project and well on my way to graduating in May...

♫ it's snowing in Lexington after 60 degree weather, and i FINALLY started on my project... this day is MAGIC.

♫ pls someone just shoot me. or better yet, shoot [name of oppressor].


tiny fists of rage!!!
-stephanie