On the subject of the preceding post, my mother shared the following joke:

– Mommy, did you have in iPad when you were a kid?

– No, they hadn’t been invented yet.

– Did you have an iPhone when you were a kid?

– No, they hadn’t been invented yet.

– Did you have Internet when you were a kid?

– No, it hadn’t been invented yet.

– Mommy, did you go out to play with dinosaurs when you were a kid?

On a positive note, a student laughed at me today when I asked him if his browser accepted cookies. So in some things, I’m still more advanced than the students.

This is the first year when I’m exactly twice as old as my Freshman students. Being in academia helps one connect with young people and remain younger for longer. Still, I’m afraid that a moment will come when I will lose touch and become irrelevant to my students.

I’ve been reading this recent mystery novel by my favorite Ruth Rendell. The writer is 82 years old and she still publishes 2 books a year, which is beyond admirable.

However, in her new novel The St. Zita Society, it has become obvious for the very first time that the writer has fallen behind the times. There is a scene in the novel where her 20 and 30-year-old characters all go out to get their favorite newspapers. As we all know, this makes no sense because people of these age groups do not read news on paper. If for whatever reason they do experience a need to keep themselves informed, they will read a paper on their Kindle and iPad, find an online version, or turn on the TV (even though this is the practice that is also dying out among the younger folks.)

The 24-year-old protagonist who is anxious to find if something that bothers her has been mentioned on the news never Googles the information. She waits for a newspaper to come out.

Whenever characters need a carpenter or a plumber, they look for a phone book.

Nobody does an online search or updates their Facebook status. Nobody reads or writes a blog. Nobody has a tablet of any sort. We are talking about characters who are, for the most part, quite young. Yet they don’t do the things that define the life of young people today.

I know I still have 46 years to go before I reach Rendell’s age, but I’m still kind of worried.

P.S. If you are Ruth Rendell’s  fan, I do not recommend this novel. It’s one of the most indifferent and boring pieces of writing this author has ever produced. And there is no mystery whatsoever, either.

. . . and I’m terrified. No matter how long one has been teaching, the first day of class is always scary as hell. Bathrooms are full of pasty-faced terror-stricken faculty members because stomachs freak out when faced with the pressure of the first day of classes.

Every time before entering the classroom on the first day, I fear that I will stand in front of the students, open my mouth, and the teaching mode will not switch on. The teaching mode is a very curious state of being. It’s similar to being somewhat drunk because you experience this floating sense of ease that is unlike anything else. It always switches on for me whenever I see students but I’m also always terrified that today will be the day when it doesn’t come.

To calm myself down, I’m making a list of everything to look forward to this semester:

1. My new course on Spanish culture that I designed and that I believe will be enormous fun.
2. Supervising independent research for the very first time ever. I have 9 students who will be writing their research essays with me. This will involve a crazy amount of work but it will be fun.
3. I’m going to a conference in November that I really look forward to.
4. I will finish my manuscript and be done with the topic of Bildungsroman for good. Overall, I have very intense research activities planned for this academic year, which makes me joyful.
5. My completely new research project will take off this semester, and I’m psyched about that.
6. I will continue developing my second career as a translator.
7. This will be my fourth year on the tenure track. This is a crucial year and also one of the most wonderful years in the life of any academic (more on that later.)

And now let the semester begin!

I wish my fellow academics and students a wonderful academic year.

I just found this interesting questionnaire that attempts to explain why many women end up with men who refuse to do their share of housework:

1. Before pairing up with your current ‘spouse,’ how did you attempt to filter your dates to eliminate ‘domestic non-helpers’ and attract men who were more domestically inclined?

2. Who was considered more socially dominant and/or higher on the social hierarchy when you first started going out? You, or him?

3. Who explicitly asked who out first? You, or him?

4. Who was making more money when you first started going out? You, or him?

5. Who explicitly initiated sex first? You, or him?

The OP’s author makes an interesting point:

Now, if your answers are “not really anything,” “him,” “him,” “him,” and “him,” and then I trust you can see the problem. But there are those who will read this that might be a little slower than you, so I’m going to spell it out. What you’re asking for is for your post-courtship relationship to be even-steven, even though before and during courtship you were perfectly happy to enjoy the benefits of a wildly imbalanced relationship where the man took on all the risks of overt rejection, and where your standards had nothing to do with finding a man with egalitarian values. Instead you chose one who embodied the dominant, high-on-the-social-hierarchy, patriarchal values that you now chafe against.

I think this makes a lot of sense.

My answers to the quiz are:

1. Only considered dating men who had been living alone for at least several years and gave them many opportunities to show off their domestic skills to me. In all of my long dating life and two marriages, I have not encountered a single man who’d expect me to be his servant and do more than half of housework. But, of course, I also always had and always will have separate budgets.

2. We were both grad students starting our 5th year at very good schools.

3. He did.

4. Again, grad students, same year, same kind of schools, the same $21K per year. 🙂

5. I did.

This looks like a relationship of complete equality, which makes it unsurprising that we now have an equal division of household chores. So the quiz works in my case. I now wonder whether this is a coincidence or whether there is something to it.

And now let me explain to you what really happened with Pussy Riot, and we can close this sad discussion for good.

Putin was unhappy about the wave of popular protests that started after the falsified elections to the Russian Parliament (Duma.) Putin’s support among the people of Russia is very high. However, the protests were becoming pretty massive and that made them somewhat threatening. Back in winter, Putin publicly announced his intentions to market the protest movement as a product of a small group of spoiled, perverted, weird and freaky bloggers. He needed the kind of proof that would be sensational enough to convince the majority – his base, his supporters, the people who are not sure what an blog even is – that the protest movement was completely alien to the interests and the mentality of regular Russians.

He succeeded brilliantly.

Most Russian people are not going to identify with women who stuff whole chickens into their vaginas for the purposes of self-promotion, have sex in museums while being in the last months of pregnancy, and use profanity while jumping in front of the altar in ugly clothes*. The entire protest movement now looks completely ridiculous. There was a moment when one could reasonably hope that the protest was going to spread from Moscow to the rest of the country. That moment is now gone.

Among all of the things people did to protest the falsified elections, Putin chose to give publicity to one that was going to condemn the entire protest movement in the eyes of the majority. As a special bonus, well-meaning but somewhat dense Western celebrities started offering opinions, allowing Putin to play his favorite card of “Yet again we are being interfered with by Westerners, now let’s all rally around me, the only leader who can defend Russia from these enemies.”

Now the Russian Orthodox Church is officially asking Putin to let the Pussy Riot go free. Soon, he’ll grant them clemency and will look good to everybody. The protest movement, in the meanwhile. . . well, there is no protest movement any longer.

KGB is immortal, people.

* Mind you, I don’t condemn any of these actions. People are entitled to place whatever they want in their genitalia and film this activity to their heart’s content. I don’t live in Russia, though. Even a much more liberal Ukraine proved too stifling for me.

Condescending to academics seems to be in vogue. Some people see the the word “PhD” and immediately adopt the tone people normally use to dismiss very small children they dislike. A perfect example of this attitude is an article recently published in The Chronicle of Higher Education and titled “Embrace Your Inner North Dakotan.” The article’s author addresses academics who are on the job market and who are facing the possibility of having to accept a job in a geographically undesirable area. Just observe the contempt that practically drips off the screen:

Take North Dakota: Why don’t you want to live someplace like that? Are you imposing class, regional, or political prejudices without investigation? Have you ever actually visited Fargo or just seen the movie (which was not set there, anyway)? Have you talked with someone there—like an assistant professor—for eyewitness testimony?

‘Cause, you know, a person who has dedicated his or her life to research is in need of being reminded to investigate things. Seriously, I wouldn’t talk to a kindergartner int his tone, so how is it acceptable to address academics in their own professional publication in this manner?

The article’s author proceeds to list all the reasons why people who dislike village life and prefer big cities might come to appreciate it. His arguments are based on the idea that such academics have somehow managed to reach the age of 30+ without knowing anything about themselves. As a typical big-city person who passionately dislikes the life of backwater villages where most universities are unfortunately located*, I find the myths this article spreads to be completely idiotic.

Take, for instance, this idea that life is cheaper in Podunk. For a person who is used to big cities, it is insanely expensive. Compensating for the sensory deprivation you suffer on a daily basis costs money. Buying good food one is used to is ruinous in a village where most people are happy gorging on junk. Culture, entertainment, fine dining and acceptable clothes require traveling far and paying a lot.

The most pernicious belief promoted in this article, however, is that life circumstances will somehow transform us into the opposite of what we are:

And, of course, life circumstances change. The small town that seems like a trap when you are single and 27 may begin to look like a comfortable, safe, affordable place to raise a family when you are 32, married, and expecting twins.

This idea didn’t work back in the USSR when it was drummed into us as the pinnacle of philosophical thought and it doesn’t work in North America today. I first came to live in a small town precisely when I was 27 and single. I hated everything about it: the boredom, the vile food, the horrible clothes, the nasty, peroxide-burned hair, the lack of intellectual stimulation, the quiet, the empty streets. Nine years later I’m 36, married, and a huge reason why I’m not expecting twins is precisely that I’m afraid it would be horribly unfair to inflict the boredom, the vile food, the horrible clothes, the nasty, peroxide-burned hair, the lack of intellectual stimulation, the quiet, and the empty streets on a child.

I’ve found a way to compensate for these drawbacks of small-town existence. However, the only reason why I can do that is not that I have changed profoundly and become the opposite of myself but simply that I can afford to invest money into counteracting them.

The article closes with the suggestion that we “look at our outlook.” I have a feeling that the author has spent way too much time at his Podunk U.

* If you dig living in such a place, good for you. You absolutely have a right to your preferences. And so do I.

I’ve been on a quest to find talented feminist bloggers and here is a post from one of them on whether secrecy is a valid  and productive response to the vicious strategies employed by woman-hating anti-choicers.

“Basic rule: we should not perform cosmetic genital surgery on infants. Ever. All genital surgery not directly necessary to preserve the child’s health should be delayed until the child is old enough to have an opinion on it. When possible, surgery should be delayed until the child is 18, to prevent the parents from having undue pressure on the children and so that a prepubescent or barely pubescent child won’t decide that looking normal is more important than the risk of never having an orgasm when they’ve never had an orgasm.”

Louisiana Governor Jindal is a disgrace: “Jindal’s wholesale attack on Louisiana teachers, higher education institutions, public school students and public hospitals would not be complete without his signature retirement-reform legislation. For the good of Louisiana, he began to lose interest in the legislative session after winning his big education “reform” battles.”

Hillary Clinton rules.

“This difficulty really goes to the heart of the matter in the dysfunction that is graduate training in the present time. It is so profoundly myopic, and graduate students are enabled and indeed encouraged by their advisors and committees to be so completely self-absorbed and self-indulgent in their single-minded focus on the minutiae of the dissertation, that the poor students have absolutely no idea what the actual requirements are of the tenure-track position.” A great post on how to craft a cover letter for an academic position. I only wish I’d read this before going on the job market.

Paul Ryan is not a follower of Ayn Rand: “That’s right, Paul Ryan, a Republican anti-abortion fanatic, has until very recently been publicly proclaiming his philosophical hero to be a woman who was a relentless champion of a woman’s right to choose. And Ryan’s pro-war stance in the Congress on every issue and every funding issue involving the Iraq War and the Afghanistan War would have disappointed Rand too. … Ayn Rand was a much clearer and much more consistent thinker than Paul Ryan could ever be. And she would have seen through Paul Ryan’s phony devotion to her long before Catholics United and vice presidential politics made him turn on her.”

Foreign languages and autism.

“A group of scholars looked at survival rates in over a hundred ship wrecks over the course of three centuries. The conclusion? “Women and children first” is a myth. The idea that the captain goes down with his ship is also a myth. They’re simply not true. The survival rates are highest for men and for the crew, and lowest for women and children.”

Donating to political campaign is stupid because you will never outspend these folks.

Who are the izikhothane? A fascinating post.

A brilliant response to people who see their choice not to have children as somehow morally superior.

And the post of the week: “By rejecting the Liberal Arts, we reject pleasure, critical thinking, diversity, LITERACY, beauty, and even, dare I say it, love.When I go to my meetings today, I will be prepared to argue this point. I am pretty sure I’ll be arguing this point for the rest of my career.“

I’m sorry, everybody, I’m trying to finish my translation projects before the semester begins, so I’m working on them day and night. I promise that I will:

– answer all emails,

– respond to comments,

– pick up the phone,

– blog what I promised I would blog about

on Monday.

Tomorrow there are three interesting posts coming up, so stay tuned.

In 2004-2005, Ukrainians finally had enough of Russia’s blatant intrusion into the affairs if their country. After Putin’s government tried to manipulate the Ukrainian presidential elections to ensure that a pro-Russian candidate became the leader of Ukraine, the country erupted in hundreds of peaceful, creative, and colorful protests.

This hopeful moment when the people of Ukraine rejected the 300+ years of Russia’s brutal colonial rule and the 13 years of constant intrusion of Russia into Ukraine’s business after Independence was called the Orange Revolution.

Finally, Ukrainians were ready to come together and put a stop to the endless interference into their country’s affairs on the part of a big and powerful neighbor. A decision was made to commemorate the millions of victims of the Communist regime brought to Ukraine by the Russians in 1921. A cross was erected in Kiev in memory of the fallen and as a sign of a national reconciliation. For a very long time, the myth of the Eastern and the Western parts of Ukraine which were supposed to be at war with each other had been promoted by the colonial powers. Now the Ukrainians were trying to come together in the opposition to Russian imperialism.

Yesterday, a Ukrainian pseudo-feminist organization FEMEN decided that the Ukrainian victims of Communist genocide matter less than a hooliganism trial taking place in Russia and destroyed the cross. This is a highly symbolic act that signals the readiness of certain representatives of the Ukrainian youth to forget the colonial past and go back to caring about Russia more than they ever cared about Ukraine.

As a Ukrainian, I can tell you that we were schooled to believe that everything Russian was better, more important and more prestigious than anything Ukrainian. When after the independence the TV companies started showing Ukrainian news programs instead of the Russian ones, many people were appalled. For them, the only news that mattered were the ones coming from Russia. The women of FEMEN are young, yet their mentality is still fully colonial. The centuries of colonial rule brought out in people this humiliating servility that leads them to destroy their own historic memory to show how well they lick the boot of their masters.

This is how secretaries are called nowadays, in case you snoozed and missed the news.

Now I just have to figure out how an “office support associate” is different from an “office support specialist.”