Write, right?

I came across this article on Dylan's Google reader and it seemed particulary applicable to me! Here is the deal-as I am doing "academic" research I primarily think of myself as a collector of stories and a story teller myself, one who is telling how i see how all the other stories really make one larger narrative. So for all thos nerds out there: 

What’s the Story with Academic Writing? A Narratology of the Academic Essay

creative non/fiction.

did you know there is a genre of writing called creative nonfiction. I think if i were to dream about becoming a writer, which i do, i would dream of writing creative non fiction.

I have been toying with the idea of learning how to be a journalist. Then i can do research that people actually read-watch-listen instead writing things for dusty libraries or the endless labrynth that is the internet.

there is a trick to learning the right amount of time to spend with yourself in silence and how much you need to go out and move your feet and let your lips tell stories and your ears take in the absurdities that are our neighbors realities.

it is a a strange thing to wake up in the middle of winter, on a day when the weather is below freezing to a room beaming full of sunlight, literally hot like a solar powered oven. i am baking here in my sleep, hidden under blankets just to keep the mositure in. i want to wear shorts and see my knobby knees. I want spring and every morning is misleading.

i went to a contact improvisation class-this is a kind of contemporary dance for those of you who dont know. She taught in english for me and she asked if you call the the thing on the back of a snail a house. You do? Dont you? the floor is an unforgiving dance partener.

I have had a cough I havent been able to kick for weeks. for some reason the goo is sticking to the inside of my lungs. stubborn. i imagine the goo growing inside, multiplying. I dont believe that is actually what is happening, but I am not sure any longer how to get rid of it. If only i had a turkey baster maybe I could suck, slurp, it out of there. ew.

this is the parliment in Budapest. It sits on a very large river. 

well. it. time to try to do some work. 

A List.

Vodoinstalater

Lately I have been:

• Eating lots of fish. Today I had pasta with tuna. Yesterday some large fish and some little catfish, and salted tuna, with tomato paste on crusty bread. The day before that? Bakalar-traditionally eating in Dalmatia on Christmas eve. What is it? Fish stew-dried cod to be precise. In exchange I offered some Thin Mint girl scout cookies-compliments of my mom. 
• Speaking a lot of Croatian. Croatian families. Croatian tutors. Other people who are learning Croatian. Using the word "dobati" instead of "imati" when asking for things...because you say "can you give me that" and "can I have that"...
• Thinking about English grammar a lot. Do you know the rule for when you use that or which? I do. But I am not explaining it here. 
• Watching: I saw the movie the fighter-which was excellent but lead to an awkward event where quoting a scene from the movie at an inappropriate time led to lots of giggles and uncomfortable feelings.
• Listening to a poetry reading and straining my ears to catch even just the gist of a poem or two. 
• Watching: I went to an excellent contemporary dance/ballet about war and love with excellent live accompaniment and fluid movement-very much inspired by contact improvisation. The props were minalist and perfect. There was a little boy in the audience whose father was playing the upright base in the band-he looked over to his father sitting on the edge of his seat, his hands clasped in between his knees, always glancing over as if to ask "should i do something?" The dather kept playing, occasionally giving his son a thumbs up, or a scrappy pat on the sholder. 
• Watching: I saw Mare-the girl I speak English with play a guitar concert. She was awesome with her rendention of "Yesterday" by the Beatles. Also playing at her concert was a young women playing the Harmonika and it was the coolest thing I have seen. Her finger were like little nimble workers and the rest of herbody still had to sway and open and close and shrink and grow again to contort this instrument into making such lovely sounds. 

I really like that I am still learning exciting things about Croatia. Including fish. There is only one sandy island in Croatia-Did you know?! 

A few brief reading notes.

Gender Trouble-Judith Butler 


I am slowely making my way through Judith Butler's Gender Trouble. I say slowely, because rarely can I read more than a few pages at a time and I feel more compelled at this moment to read texts specifically regarding masculinity. However, I thought it would be nice to start a sort of "reading" diary on my blog where I can just post a few interesting quotes and thoughts pulled out the texts I have been mulling over the last few months... For now, I'll just start with some quotes and how they may inform or be related to my research. Please keep in mind I am treating this blog as a "work in progress", a place to share the messiness of unfinished work and the tangled nest of lost thoughts floating about my head. So, please share your thoughts but recgonize I am not trying to make flawless arguments. Hvala!


It is my impression that in Gender Trouble Butler is trying to challenge the reader to think about gender in a completely new way. When I first picked up Gender Trouble and made my way through the first twenty pages or so I found nothing earth-shattering. What I did find, however, was an attempt to write about a sensation I had always had. Perhaps it is because my academic growth happened in Women and Gender studies Post-Butler, suggesting that her ideas, theories, or writers has informed my education in a kind of osmoses kind of way. We never read Butler, but her presence in the field is obvious now that I am looking at her 'pivotal' text.


"There is no 'being' behind doing, effecting, becoming; 'the doer' is merely a ficion added to the deed--the deed is everything." -Nietzsche On the Genealogy of Mora
ls as qtd. in Gender Trouble (34)


Judith Butler, thus goes on to state in many ways her own thesis, "There is no gender identity behind the expressions of gender; that identity is performatively consistuted by the very "expressions" that are said to be its results." (34) Gender Trouble


"If it is possible to speak of a "man" with a maculine attribute and to understand that attribute as a happy but accidental feature of that man, then it is also possible to speak of a "man' with a femine attribute, whatever that is, but still to maintain the integrity of the gender." (33) Gender Trouble 


"to operate within the matrix of power is not the same as to replicate uncritically relations of domination" (42) Gender Trouble