As I mentioned before, I’m reading Ilan Pappe’s The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine and it’s fascinating how the choice of words betrays the author’s political engagements. To give an example, Pappe describes the struggle for independence from the British colonialism as “Jewish terrorist attacks.” Of course, any anti-colonialist struggle can be described in such terms. Or it could be described very differently.

Take people who worked on the Underground Railroad, for example. You could say that they helped deprive owners of their property. Or you could call them heroes.

As the old saying goes, when he is on our side, he is an intelligence officer. When he is on the opposing side, he is a spy.

I was just being interviewed about my blog and the interviewer asked me the following very unexpected question:

“Do you sometimes worry that, through your blog,  people from different parts of your life will gain access to the information about you that is not aimed at them? Your colleagues might find out things about your personal life, old boyfriends will read about your current life, your relatives will read stories about your dating experiences, etc.?”

“Erm. . . no,” I said. “Do other people worry about it?”

“Yes,” the interviewer said. “This is what we refer to as “context collapse.” Many bloggers worry that different compartments of their life will comingle.”

“Huh. Not me,” was all I could respond.

It has never even occurred to me that people can see their lives in this way. I’m not being in any way critical, mind you. I’m just very surprised. This must totally be an autistic thing, don’t you think? I never considered that different contexts might call for different behaviors or a different way of relating to others. It doesn’t bother me that I never thought about it because I’m doing fine just the way I am (and even getting interviewed about my blog for the third week in a row).

It seems quite a strain to maintain all those personas for all those different contexts, don’t you think? I’m kind of glad I’m not doing it.

People never cease to surprise me.

I read the following extremely cryptic phrase on Inside Higher Ed and couldn’t figure out what it was supposed to mean:

In today’s Academic Minute, Monmouth University’s Katherine Parkin examines a fading American custom that made it acceptable for a woman to propose marriage.

This has an eerie feel of a dystopian novel about the future where Fundamentalists have won, women are back to being chattel, and a sad academic of the future wistfully discusses the good old times when – as impossible that is to believe – women didn’t just sit there patiently, waiting to be proposed to.

Soon, we will read about “the fading American custom that made it acceptable for a woman to want nothing to do with marriage altogether.”

And here I thought people in the UK were supposed to have a sense of humor. I guess I was mistaken, and the Victorian prissiness is alive and well. The following ad has been now banned after nine years of regular use:

Group dynamics is a powerful thing, people. We are watching the same movie (Nine Queens, and if you haven’t watched it, you are wasting your life) in two sections of my Spanish Beginners II course. The course is the same, the material is the same, the classes meet on the same days and in the same building.

Yet, the group dynamics is very different. The two groups of students laugh in different places of the movie. They have a completely different collective reaction to it.

This is something that I observe all the time. I prepare an original activity, bring it to class, and the students love it. The activity works brilliantly, the students are very enthusiastic, and we achieve great progress in class. Two hours later, I bring the same activity to another section of this course. Students are bored and indifferent and the activity bombs.

A group is so much more than the individuals making it. It has a life of its own.

I’m reading Ilan Pappe’s fascinating book The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine. It has been recommended to me by a reader of this blog, and I’m very glad I listened to his recommendation.

The review of the book is coming soon. I know there will be many people who will want to read it.

I think I’ve just created some real suspense here. 🙂