JPS- the Michigan years

World Cup update

JPS- the Michigan years
So I've had no time to make regular entries, what with football everyday and work too, but I figured I had to make a quickie. Trinidad & Tobago have been true red-white-and-black Soca Warriors, playing better than I think they ever have, shutting out Sweden, as well as England (until the latter scored in the 82nd minute and again in stoppage time). Despite the fact that we got visibly tired towards the end of the England match, history was still made, given that our little old former-colony self was on the same pitch as England, and refusing every shot on goal for almost the entire match!!!!!!
The overall experience of the World Cup though, despite today's loss, has been good: a steady diet of piss-water for beer, at least a game a day (still working boss!), and hanging out with either the German crew or Trini crew at various Ann Arbor spots has been good. You can truly feel the world coming together to enjoy competition, with life itself being played out through the fans and the players on the field. Politics (whenever Iran plays, Germany vs. Poland etc.) gets included in the commentary and emotions run high even if your own country isn't on the screen. I'm keeping all this stuff in mind for wherever I am in the next 4 years (it'll be in another city since I would have graduated - knock on wood) and I hope that the experience is as good as the one I'm having now in little ol' Ann Arbor. Maybe more Trinis next time, ja??!!

A World Cup of Characters

I'm always excited by even the smallest mention of Trinidad & Tobago in any forum that could potentially reach millions of people around the world. Check out the link to today's Fox Soccer Channel article on some of the "People to look out for" in World Cup 2006, which starts this Friday. Our own Marvin Andrews is at the top of the list baby!!!! The Soca Warriors are also mentioned in either the May or June ESPN magazine. The next month is sure to thrill any one who can appreciate any sort of joy in people coming together just to have fun...Joga Bonito.

Joga Bonito!!

I advise anyone who loves football (which should include everyone in the world) to check out the Joga Bonita clips on www.nikefootball.com. The phrase means "Play Beautiful" in Portuguese, and that's what football is all about. Here's the first one. The controversial and at-times vitriolic Frenchman Eric Cantona is our guide towards re-discovering the joys of the sport, while himself sporting long hair and a beard (he's best known for starting the upturned collar movement- take that prepsters!).

www.nikefootball.com

I also wanted to add a list of interesting blogs that I've encountered. Some are friends (Paul's and Colin's) while others are thought-provoking or otherwise entertaining.

Colin's World
PureTippy
Hugo Schwyzer
Blogging the Bible (Slate.com's deputy editor, David Plotz is reading the entire Book)
The World Cup by the NY Times
TTMYGHmmm

Outing myself on MySpace...I tried...I really did

As you can see by all these entries on one Saturday afternoon, I've got a lot of shit that's been pent up cuz of prelims, which are now over. In the past month or so I've taken to using MySpace a lot more, adding more friends and talking to people- fun, right? Well there's also the added angst about one's "Orientation", that people are expected to categorize themselves with, along with "School", "Religion" and "Ethnicity". At first i didn't even have an "Orientation"- according to my MySpace profile I was either asexual or possibly a hermaphrodite who happened to be bisexual (apologies for any offence). Anywho, I decided to change all of that, and let the MySpace world know I was "Gay"...whatever that might mean. I was actually quite happy to do so, inspired by friends who were also "Gay". So that's what i did. I outed myself on MySpace.

Well who told me to go and do that?? The next day, even before I logged in I was bombarded with "He's the one for you" and "You know you want him" blaring at me from ads with scantily clad young men lounging in tangled sheets. Now I am normally very appreciative of this, but I don't go to MySpace for sexual gratification- I have a problem when the worlds of porn and networking sites collide. Anyway, after logging in and being directed to the homepage, pictures of young "men seeking men" greeted me, and continued to do so in banner ads as I navigated throughout the entire site. First of all, I think MySpace's homepage is pretty lame, and while I'm thrilled by the prospect of technology that will customize our entire lives for us on the Internet, I really don't need the lurid gaze of wanton men following me during my otherwise pure and innocent networking experience. The prospect of ultra-customization is also a little off-putting- what if I want to buy mandals instead of another suit on bananarepublic.com, but my browser gets stuck, and I never get to the mandals...perish the thought. Anyway, I got tired of the gay.com ads, and all the other ads for hooking up with young, muscular, tanned and available young men. I'm happy with what I've got and don't need any other sort of "networking" going on. So I decided to return my "Orientation" status to "Blank". I've been happy thus far and can now go on about my business without wondering "What's going on between those sheets...?"

Music theory

Singing in the UMS Choral Union has exposed this island boi to some great classical music. On my mind lately, after hearing how composers (all men..not sure why ladies), real people like me and you, except for being geniuses, created works of art in times of great difficulty. Shostakovich used to wait out on the balcony of his apartment every night, so if that night he was arrested by the Russion Gestapo, at least his family would not have to be disturbed. Beethoven was deaf when he was composing his 9th Symphony (right?). Aside from these crazy circumstances, how do these composers know to have the 2nd and 3rd violinists pluck just so, and the basses come in when the harps have completed their 4th "twing"??? How could they create, in such fine and beautiful detail a composition that would speak to millions across time and space?? In my estimation, it takes a mind suited for that purpose as well as full of persistence and heed towards the task at hand. Indeed, the task would not be a "task"...it is a craft. When we start to speak of craft and art, we enter the realm where work and the man become one. Art is expression and representation. Representation is not just saying something, but also being that something.

This is also the case with theory and academe (at least as far as my limited experience has allowed me to see). Theorists compose, except their works of art are not media to be experienced physically. Yet, like all art, their products are felt, and represent some aspect of the human experience. The rigors of academia demand that we as scholars not only do our best to represent and explain the world in the present, but do so making reference to those who have come before us and what their work tells us about the world. We are challenged to pull together in a sort of bricolage the ideas and findings of those who have spent the time, energy and care to think, create and test- it is the purposeful bending of the will to this effort that defines us as scholars. Like musical composers we care about what goes into our products and what comes out- is it elegant? does it explain what it says it explains? is it general enough to explain several variations of the particular? finally, do people get it??? Yes, I think the best scholars, like the best composers, care if people "get it" (hence my apologies for my crazy "Civil War" posting- it was somewhat disrespectful of the sensibilities of the reader). I've realised I enjoy the composing, but struggle to return to the product, agonizing over whether its train of thought is actually logical and if the poor reader unfortunate enough to come upon my writing can come away with some insight they did not have before. Bold as it may sound, I do hope that our work evokes some sense of wonder or excitement...write now I'm just shooting for general interest and mild bemusement.

I feel "qualified"...I think...

It's 4:00 PM on a Saturday and I just woke up an hour and a half ago- and no I wasn't out partying (which should be the ONLY reason you get up at this hour on a Saturday). Instead, I was working on my prelims/qualifiers/candidacy thingamajiggas that doctoral students have to go through when they complete their coursework inthe first 2 -3 years of their program. Let's call it a trial by fire. Or maybe more a "baptism". I kinda see it as the make or break part of the doctoral program: you've complete the amount of research and classes necessary for a Master's degree. Now do you want to take the money and run or go further?? Of course, the audience in your life is screaming "Go on, you can win more money!!!!", where in my case the "money" is just another one of those degrees Kanye was talking about (that's sure gonna keep me warm during those cold winter nights). And this is not to knock Master's degree students: most of us in graduate programs of all levels know what we want to do with our lives and are doing what we need to do to get to the point where we are qualified to do good work. Ha! You almost bought that one right?? A lot of us don't know what the hell we're doing and the Master's students are smart enough to get out while it's good...just kidding...sort of. Either way, prelims are a way to see who wants to put in the time, effort, sweat, blood (when your finger tips run ragged from typing) and tears (when you design a study and realise that you can't compare subject 1 to subject 2 because one's a human and the other's a monkey- but this is the entire premise of your research) that defines a career in research (and some teaching...gotta show the kids some love). It's about demonstrating that you are knowledgeable about your field, but it's just as much, if not more, about perseverance and believing that you have it in you. Or it's about deciding if this is right for you or not. At the risk of didactism, I'll use Bem's self-perception theory as my "explanatory lens" (you like that one, don't you?). Bem suggests that we see determine what we like and don't like, who we are and what we aren't AFTER we act. We do, then tell ourselves that we because we just did that, we must be like that, or like to do that (did I get that right folks ??). So after completing these exams, I am VERY much hopeful that I've done well, and that I don't look like a loser who doesn't know his stuff. I actually care about what people think of the work I hurriedly produced over a few days. Looks like I'm in this for the long haul...(revised editions of that statement sure to follow).

GOOOOOOOOAAAAAAALLLLLLLLLL

YouTube - Luis Martinez scores vs Poland

But look at goal boy!!!!!! Let the games begin....OUR World, OUR Life, OUR game...
But check how Luis Martinez (Colombian goalkeeper) as confused as Tomasz Kuszczak (Polish goalkeeper) about how he managed to score that goal from 100m....

Civil War? Or just plain confusion....

I just got up from a dream. I have lots of dreams, truly vivid ones, like imagining one of my friends found out I was gay and didn't like it (wait...that's just a recurring thought, rather than a dream). However, this one was about civil war between people of East Indian descent and people of African descent in Trinidad. I think. The thing is that it was set in Baltimore (having lived there for 4 years and just watched a John Waters film, who can blame my subconscious?), but involved Trinidadians (of which there are many in B'more). It starts off actually with me attempting to cross the corner of Glen and Ann Sts. (both of which are in Ann Arbor...I think it both amazing and hateful at the same time how dreams pull things out of the mind's ass and puts it all together). Anyway, Glen St. was moving...like a moving walkway at the airport...ever so slightly. I just stood at the sidewalk, watching the road itself progress from left to right. Cars on it seemed to be zooming past faster than ever. I stepped out onto it and stood on it for a while, enjoying the fact that I was trying to go forward yet moving to the right simultaneously. As I stepped out onto the other side of Glen (the corner by the new Biomedical Research Building), the asphalt turned into a raging black river, causing people to scream and cars to slam into each other. Then I was at a friend's apartment...

]]> I honestly don't recall how I got to this friend's place from the river-road. And now this friend's place was in Baltimore. And it was a bunch of people- from high school, from college. Just living in one big room. Isn't it funny that even though I can only recall one person's face and name, in my dreams I can still sense familiarity with people, although their faces never fully materialize? So there were a bunch of these "friend" figures. I think I stayed for a while and then had to rush out with all my belongings. Or did we go have dinner somewhere? We definitely had a fun, positive length of time together, away from the crazy river road. But then I had to leave, and went out into the streets of Baltimore, namely the Harford Rd. area (it seemed) near to Morgan State. And things were crazy there too! The road had turned into liquid asphalt here as well and people were screaming, there was fire etc. I remember just running, dropping some of my possessions (I always have my keys, wallet, phone and usually my pen with me- I think my phone fell and I had to go find it in the pouring rain). Anyway, I ended up back at my friends' place and then knew I had to be back at my own place, defending my home from whatever was to come. I said my goodbyes, and there was this one little girl who I seemed to care for so much- I felt like she was one of my friends' kids, so we all sort of felt paternally towards her. I felt awful leaving her behind. But then I ran back out into the rain and quickly felt lost.
Notice I said "felt" lost, rather than actually being lost. All the streets and buildings were familiar to me, but I just had no idea where to turn. An old lady walked by and I asked her the way to Harford Rd. She pointed me in the direction and off I went. I ended up at someone else's house. I wasn't sure whose. As I tried to leave (so confused- I'm sure you all are by now as well), an Indian man was coming in. He, too, seemed familiar. But he had a weapon of some sorts, and when I asked him what it was for he said it was to defend himself from the enemy- and, being of African descent, that enemy would include me. I backed into the house, where suddenly there were one or two other men of African descent (quelle surprise!). But then the Indian man and myself (he slowly started to look mixed with white and Indian) started talking, and I asked him what was the point of this war, when in Trinidad so many people are mixed, and families are all connected in some way or the other. I think at this point he had put down the weapon and was talking calmly (always calm he was) with me, but he was still very angry. The two men of African descent were setting the dinner table (for them? for all of us?) and became upset at our discussion. They felt that it was disrupting the relaxed atmosphere of the house/room/evening, which was amazing, considering the storm outside and the black rivers catching afire where roads used to be. So they shouted at us to shut the hell up and when we wouldn't, they proceeded to turn up really loud one of those old transistor radios, which was all speaker and two knobs at the bottom. I think the Indian man left and then all of a sudden I was at Mass. A bunch of people (of all sorts of races and ethnicity) were suddenly in the house, and started praying. I, however, kept wanting to talk to Jeff. So I excused myself and tried my phone, which kept asking for my approval card, rather than allowing me service. I think it was Queen Latifah's voice on the other end. I was so dismayed that I couldn't talk to Jeff and that he might be worried because he couldn't reach me. So I left.
Now this part may or may not have happened before- it's a long dream, broken up by two awakenings, so forgive me. I was at a college cafeteria- ostensibly Howard University's (just a very strong feeling, although I've never been there). And a bunch of my college friends (I think) were there, even though none of us went to Howard. All of us were eating except myself and another guy, who was white, and listening to his iPod after politely declining food. He was a friend too, but I forget which friend he was (I think he was an Ann Arbor friend). I wanted food, but felt like I couldn't get it because I didn't have money or a meal plan (I didn't go to school there, remember?). I asked one of the girls how come they got food and they gave me some really complicated answer about how they had some sort of card or they skipped the line or something. In the end I didn't bother. I wasn't that hungry, but felt bad for myself because I was surrounded by everyone else (mostly) eating! That's all I can remember from my strange, rambling dream- which was more random than most. Usually I'll have stuff mixed in from lots of areas in my life, but it'll retain a common theme. This, on the other hand, was less intense somewhat and more confusing. Oh well...time to wake up
Epilogue:
I think I was so strongly reminded of Trinidad, not just by my friends in the dream, but also by the roads turning into liquid asphalt. Trinidad is the land of the Pitch Lake, where there is liquefied asphalt coming out of the ground. There were strong themes about undergraduate life and Baltimore in general. I don't keep up with news from back home, except my general perception is that things are crazy. Usually I can figure out to some degree what triggered a particular dream, but this one is all over the place. I was always trying to get in contact with Jeff too, missing him a lot. While there are some good parts, I hope that most of it isn't true- that my country is falling apart socially, politically and economically, or that I will be apart from Jeff. We'll see where we take real life...

Onward...

The past academic year, especially the part that just ended in this calendar year has brought me to a unique developmental stage in my life. My paragons of excellence are now old, white men. One could easily argue that this is just the fallout of studying for 6 years in a majority white country, where segregation, racial injustice and discrimination along several bases are the norm in propping up white, male hegemony. Of course I'd end up worshipping the white man!! But back it up sistas...Not only am I not glorifying white male status in the second sentence of my entry, but I am putting those characteristics out there because they sum up some of the people I have been called to follow. I see myself as...

]]> ...a 24 year old young man of color, a non-citizen in a strange land, who wants to look good, feel good, sleep in, enjoy the fruits of non-labour in my tropical island home and not face the explicit questioning of all human experience that is part and parcel of what we do as theorists, researchers and writers. On the other hand, I know that if I were to lay still on the beach at night, I'd still hear those same questions begging to be answered, banging against the walls of my heart. In desiring to be more and answer those questions, I turn to those who have done more and have made it their life's work to seek out answers. There are many who ask, but few who are capable of the rigors and possess the fervor required to pursue the answers- or at least the range of possible answers.
So when I say old white men, I am referring to people like Karl Weick, Don Campbell, Don DeLillo and John Kenneth Galbraith. DeLillo I've never read, but was struck by his reclusivity, as mentioned in this month's Details (sorry for the 2nd-tier magazne reference). All these men were like that- their time to write was sacrosanct, and it was a few holy hours attended to each day of their lives. They were "ruthless" with their time, as Lloyd Sandelands would put it (feel free to look all these names up). JKG was a famous economist that I learnt about at around 15 years of age. He died three days ago. He too set aside times and locations for his writing, which one dared not disturb. Karl Weick and Donald T. Campbell are two of the greatest scholars of modern time, and I was privileged to have learned about Don through Karl's class. All the theorizing, research designing, and drive to pursue and complete a research project may not matter much to the world if one cannot write about it. If we cannot share our knowledge then how is the world to learn about itself? If since the dawn of time humanity could not tell stories about the world and about itself, then where would our consciousness and our conscience be?
While these men may be the reference points around which I'm exhorted to model myself, there are others- not white and not male- who provide simple and elegant examples of what it means to work hard on and about an idea and then work even harder to express it. Josefina Baez was an artist-in-residence here at the Department of Romance Languages. She is a Dominican performer. There is no one thing she does or doesn't do. But she does identify herself as a writer. That is what she does-she writes. She gets up and writes everyday. This is who she is, no matter if nothing comes for a long time and she only produces five minutes of "good" writing. She says that she has to write. Her identity is in and of her writing. Is that consumption by writing (which sounds scary) or is it a symbiosis between the doing and the being of word and person? I guess, like in other relationships, even if things are going well and reciprocity is occurring, it is still a little frightening to enter into the world where you and the person become more and more united in heart, mind and spirit. In taking on a new identity, a self-defining elationship, one must drop one's old identity, and loss and detachment from the familiar is not an easy thing to experience, even when it is for the best. So I face the loss of parts of me that I claimed for myself- inexperience that could be blamed on youth, being a student rather than a colleague, being granted structure and direction, rather than creating it for myself. Picking up the potential and the new me could involve saying "No" more- to myself, my friends and my family. It will involve being by myself, and liking it. It will bring with it frustration and consternation. It will involve me using less words like "consternation". I will have to dedicate myself to an idea (or two; can I do two?), take up a voice (my own) and speak out. And as I have noted in Karl's class, speaking out makes you identifiable. Having your name attached to some words makes you vulnerable for attack. But it also allows you to do good work and share it with others. It allows you to change the world, and who knows...a few of those words may make sense to someone.

I originally put a question mark after this entry's title. But I removed it.

We run this...

oh oh oh!!!! So classes are done...for me that means classes for my graduate career are over- which means official classes in the rest of my adult life are done with...for now. It's funny how being overwhelmed makes you lose sight of what you have to do and the fact that you're capable of getting it done. I have prelims exams in the next few weeks and am trying to study, but am chafing at this cuz I just WANT A BREAK!!! But coming from the boy-who'd-like-some-cheese-with-that...I know that that's highly doable, not a problem and just not what I'd be complaining about- if I were the complaining type, of course. This was the hardest I think I have ever worked- even more than teachng (2 classes!) and being a student (2 whole classes- lol) last Fall. So reading more articles of things that don't interest me, in order to answer questions that don't apply to what interests me is far down on my list of Things I Wanna Do Right Now. (That last line was very American...maybe reading too much GQ? That's their journalistic style you know....)
Anyway...I was able to retreat into my own little world, called Naptime. But the thing is Naptime was being constantly invaded by pesky marauders called Screaming Kids From The Playground Across The Street. I think I managed to clear my head somewhere in-between attacks #123 and #1009876. Either way, I eventually rolled out of bed and thought to myself Wow, these kids (dem chirren in Trinispeak) have so much energy! Where d ass did all my energy go?" What I like about academia (at least here at Michigan) is that they make it a point to tell us to do what interests us- to always seek out what is passionate to us and then break it into a million little pieces in order to study it! I'm kidding- slightly. Luckily, I am around great people who would disagree and are always trying to gauge whether what I am talking about is my real passion or not. In the same way I can tell what I really excites me- it doesn't enervate the hell out of me, draining my soul and my physical energy. I love working on my dissertation ideas, the stuff that I am really interested in. I don't like the reading- but I guess I should do it. Those kids across the street are doing what they love- banging on stuff, throwing each other around, screaming at the top of their lungs, kicking the adults in the balls- they are happy mofos. While I look at kicking others in the balls as distasteful (what if they wanted to do it to me too?), I got lots of stuff to keep me going and wound up- I just need to stick to it, and build on it. For those of you who say that this blog entry is too touchy feely and you don't need this, then please leave. The playground is right on the corner of Ingalls St. and Cornwell Pl. Go throw each other around...

More on Ray Fong

Check out this other blog entry for a slightly more nuanced view of the Adidas shoe story...

Happy Easter

To all my friends, family, and those who might not love me back....Peace unto you all.

Oh great....

Walking back home after midnight in this (very) early spring, with the moonlight on my face, I was wondering to myself what does it take to be recognized as great. When do people start putting together that the message matters so much more than the messenger, and what the messenger looks like, sounds like and comes from? I then realised that truly great people don't care about whether their message is shouted from the highest mountain and if their names are on everyone's lips. Great people speak, and quietly so. Their message is spoken and lived on the lowest streets and back-alleys, rather than on the mountaintops where no one else can actually hear their words. How do we pick out what is true to us amidst all the noise and idle chatter of the world? Is there someone great right next to us whose message is too understated, too simple and too truthful for us to hear? Sometimes I need to shut up and listen some more...

Boys beware!!!!

This was probably the greates contributor to the nostalgic notion of the 50's being those "halcyon days of yore"....right? Good grief...

ADIDAS Chinee shoe

These people have lost their damn minds....Click the title to see what I'm tawkin bout...