Sociology, Etcetera

Sociology and Your 'Research': A How-to Guide for Professionals

2007-06-21T09:38:00.000-07:00

I recently met a person from a faculty that shall remain nameless, although I will offer the 'clue' that it existed within the health research realm, and has only within the past few decades started to offer graduate level degrees based on research with 'human subjects' (their term, not mine). While working in the registrar's office as an undergrad, I discovered this faculty's penchant for graduating self-congratulatory, power-jockeying 'professionals' who tried to get in a fight with anyone who dared question their 'knowledge.' While conversing with this woman, I revealed that I was a graduate student in the department of sociology. She had the nerve to laugh at me, proclaiming "What could you possibly do with that?!" If this wasn't bad enough, she then went on to tell me about her 'thesis,' which was theoretically situated in the work of Goffman, completely unaware of the fact that he was a sociologist. Oh. My. God.

Upon reflection, I realized that a lot of people have this attitude towards our subject matter: it's a joke, it's easy, 201 was an guaranteed A so the rest of it must be, and it has no praxis. There's no clearly delineated career path associated with it, so it really can't be that important. I find that this attitude is especially prevalent amongst the professional groups in our society.

The irony is that when these said professionals take leaves of absence from their respective careers to pursue graduate level work, a large majority of them end up doing (often poorly done) research that's really just a spin off of sociology, but never seem to recognize and/or acknowledge this. As someone who has, in Latour's phrase, 'paid the full price' prior to even being allowed to do research (in the form of an undergraduate degree, an honours essay, a total of 4 methods courses, 3 statistics courses, and a year of graduate course-work), this really chaps my ass. So, because this online space is my personal soapbox, I'm about to be a totally polemic, non-gentleperson scholar, and answer the aforementioned question posed to me for all the 'professional' grad students out there. Here's exactly what you can do with sociology in your own research:

1. Completely rip off the nuance, depth and complexity of sociological theory and bastardize it into a rigid typology that 'completely' explains the phenomenon you're studying. Just remember: under no circumstances do you need to know anything about the disciplinary background of the theorist you're studying. It doesn't matter. The hundreds of years of social philosophy and subsequent social theory that preceded your entrance into grad school are totally irrelevant, and you don't need to know anything about them. Losers in the social sciences and humanities with no jobs can worry about that crap--you're a professional!

2. Read a qualitative undergrad soci methods textbook--while you're in grad school, or, more likely, in a graduate seminar--and learn a grab bag of methods, including ethnography, auto ethnography, phenomenology, narrative analysis and interviewing techniques. Do NOT try to delve into the philosophy of these techniques! Again, that is a concern for the jobless losers who wrote those books. You just need to know how to offer a cursory explanation of them to the children you TA, or the 'brilliant' powers-that-be who referee your professional journal. Any explanations of these techniques should not exceed a paragraph in journal articles, or one page in your dissertation.

3. Learn a couple of sociological terms, like 'informal social control' or 'master status,' and use them frequently in conversations with people who don't have post secondary education. It will make them think you're really smart and cool. Again, you don't have to know what these terms really mean, or who coined them. Just make sure you slip them into everyday conversation so as to convey your expert status.

4. When you meet a real social scientist at a social event, don't even respond to them when they tell you what they do, 'cause they probably don't really do anything except not make money. Remember, they really work for you: all of their theorizing, research, and publications merely exist so that you can put them in your lit review and then apply it to 'important' research. And, why would you bother entertaining a conversation with someone whose pay scales aren't available online on the CHR website? Without this key information, you'll never know whether or not to be nice to them, depending on whether or not they make more or less than you.

5. Take one course--just one--in statistics (descriptive should do) and learn how to write syntax in a software package. Then, tell everyone you know that you're a 'statistician,' which will make you look really cool and smart, especially to people who don't have degrees. Then, you can go and do cool techniques like data mining (fuck those sociologists who say that such practices run counter to the fundamental principles of confirmatory research; if you've never heard of confirmatory research in class, it can't be important).

On: Silence

2007-06-20T17:07:00.000-07:00

To begin, I must apologize for the extraordinarily long delay. The past few months have been....revealing, to say the least. An existential crisis forced me to examine issues I was probably unaware even existed within my life, which in turn, resulted in a period of narrative silence. Dorothy Smith was right: experience is pre-lingual, and the Heideggerian assertion, "Tradurre è tradire" (to translate is to betray) seemed to ring true in ways my 'productive' life as an academic never could have prepared me for; I couldn't even talk about them, let alone translate the messiness of my experiences into the tidiness of grammatical and lingual rules. However, I like to think I'm not completely un-optimistic, meaning that this period of enormous personal revelation (or, 'shedding my skin,' as qmass (qmass.wordpress.com) would term it) was not without the sociological lessons that I'm always trying to extract from life. In no particular order, and bearing absolutely zero logical coherence--and in my favourite 'listed' style--here is what I've learned/thought about during this time (and am finally ready to write about) :

1. Medical waiting rooms are a sociological goldmine. The 'holy trinity' of sociology I've come to reify--based on the primacy of race, class and gender for personhood and personal outcomes--are contested within these walls, and appear as arbitrary markers of division that are somehow transcended by people grappling with their own mortality. Their truly is a primacy to health, making it (arguably) the richest topic that any sociologist could ever tackle.

2. Psychology will never be able to tell the tale of illness experience, given the relational nature of getting one's medical 'work' done: these day to day activities never exist in a social vacuum. To even enunciate your experience involves entering into communicative relationships with peers, physicians, pharmacists, and others, who, depending on their standpoint, will either validate your very being, or, in Max Weber's astonishingly prolific terms, give you "a feeling of unprecedented inner loneliness of the single individual."

3. I think that Facebook is bullshit. I know many wonderful people who adore it, but I honestly believe that it will eventually lead to arrested development, given that it presupposes a trans-historical and trans-contextual 'self' capable of transcending personal development that can thereby keep us all immutably connected to the past. I also it really speaks to the loneliness of the human condition, which makes me feel sad.

4. The most brilliant movies I've watched within these past few months present characters who defy dichotomous categorizations of being either 'good' or 'evil,' but, alternatively, keep you nervously awaiting their 'true' character, who is never fully or satisfyingly revealed. This truly is art imitating life.

5. In that vein, dichotomies are simultaneously destructively tragic and totally necessary. Opposing forces of good and evil, qualitative and quantitative, left and right, feminine and masculine, straight and gay, etc, etc, etc simultaneously create conflict (destructively tragic), but also force us into dialectic relations that promote a Hegelian 'synthesis' of the thesis and the antithesis, which creates change; this really is the underlying rhythm of our social fabric.

6. If you're gonna live in Cowtown, live in West Hillhurst (or somewhere close by). If Calgary is in black and white, this area is in colour. The trees, the display of alternative sexualities, the giant mess of fabulously rich and direly poor, and the juxtaposition of the young and the old create a 'pulse' in this small corner of a city which otherwise seems to be DOA.

7. And last (brace yourselves for the cheesiness about to ensue), I want to thank those few beautiful people who gave me the space to not narrate, to not produce, to not be reliable, and to simply let me go through it: Ma and Pa, Kaitie, Julia, Nate, Pauline, AWF, Dr. B, and others I'm likely forgetting: I am forever grateful.

Sunshine Girl/Cloudy Womyn

2007-02-07T21:36:00.000-08:00

If any of you read the Calgary Sun and take it seriously, quit reading my blog. Or, keep reading my blog and the blogs of several of the posters, and get your sorry excuse for a self EDUCATED.

The greatest point of simultaneous tragedy and comedy in the Calgary Sun is the Sunshine Girl. She's tragic because she represents misogyny, patriarchy, the commodification of women's bodies, and the perpetual expectation that women should 'dumb down' as much as possible in an attempt to make men feel comfortable. Furthermore, she represents the rewards--albeit transient, unfulfilling, and intellectualy vacuous rewards--available via exploitation and the acceptance of such 'dumbing down.' And, if one needs to think about this in somewhat lighter--although still sociological--terms, the Sunshine Girl is pretty fucking comedic. Do I really need to expand on this? Do I?????

What if we had the antithesis of the Sunshine Girl featured daily? What would we call her? The darkness girl? The rainy-day bitch? The cloudy womyn? Whatever the title, I think such an effort is viable, and could potentially reveal the dangerous implications of this longstanding practice; if that's acheived, we'll have addressed the 'tragic' quality of the Sunshine Girl. If that's not achieved, it'll just be funny, 'cause then all 3 of us could read it and have a laugh.

So, I'm offering myself as a 'model' 'Cloudy Womyn' in this effort. Based on this week's Sunshine Girl coverage, I've composed some juxtapositions for the purposes of illustration:

"Sunshine Girl Dana....Our blue-eyed Pisces wants to be the next Oprah. As well as spending time with her friends and bengal cat Kadia, this 5-foot-6 fashion stylist enjoys playing beach volleyball and ultimate Frisbee, as well as collecting Trident wrappers and doing wardrobe makeovers."

Cloudy Womyn: Our brown-eyed Pisces wants to be the next Dorothy Smith, Amantine-Lucile-Aurore Dupin, or Bruno Latour. In addition to spending time with her unobediant and chronically-flactulating beagle, Bella, this 5-foot-7 sociologist enjoys studying the Hegelian dialectic and its connections to Marxist thought, as well as offering constant and unwanted advice on idealogical makeovers to the bougies she seems to constantly come in contact with. She thinks it's fucked up that anyone who isn't mentally ill collects Trident wrappers, and thus thinks Dana and her physician should consult the DSM (although it should be noted that Cloudy Womyn thinks the DSM is an incubator of dangerous and widespread social control).

"Sunshine Girl Jolene ... This 25-year-old sports fanatic says she has the perfect job -- working as the promotions co-ordinator at all-sports radio station The Fan 960 (although she does have to put up with morning show host Mike Richards serenading her with a certain Dolly Parton song). A beautiful girl who loves sports? No wonder she has a boyfriend and he's a lucky lad, indeed. "

Cloudy Womyn....This 23-year-old inequality-eradication fanatic says she has the perfect job--studying how oppressed social groups experience barriers to health care via a lack of cultural competence amongst health care professionals, particularly on the part of physicians (although she does have to put up with hack academics from non-social science backgrounds attempting to offer poor advice on how to structure her methodology). A postmodernist who also loves discussing the inappropriate bifurcation between theory and method? How the fuck did SHE get a boyfriend?! Is this a typo?

"Sunshine Girl Macy... Suffice it to say Macey is sizzling, especially when she's dancing to reggae and salsa music. A 24-year-old criminology student, she can handle herself, thanks to some karate lessons. After she graduates, she plans on getting a law degree and quitting her job at Hooters."

Cloudy Womyn....Suffice it to say Cloudy Womyn is bitchy, particularly when she's listening to people talk about their bank balances, and/or completing ethics applications. Formerly a criminology student--until she realized that traditional criminological approaches emulated grand theory to such an extent that the localized experiences of victims were silenced in the academic literature--she can handle herself, thanks to a bout of potentially serious illness. After she graduates (a contraversial subject, for she may not graduate....ever!!!), she plans on conducting research that critiques both lawyers and the practices of Hooters managment and employees, and in doing so hypothesizes that she'll locate deep and disturbing interconnections amongst all of her target study groups.

Beware the Perils of Calgary Driving.....

2007-02-04T22:16:00.000-08:00

This past week, Calgary was hit by a snow storm that, 3 days later, largely due to global warming and an accompanying chinook, is no longer particularly evident. As someone who hates driving anyway, I get completely pissed and overcome with anxiety whenever one of these hits, and normally take refuge in a convenient location until someone a little more snow-driving-savvy can pick my sorry ass up until the snow plows do their thing. And I think I've finally figured out why these events are so frustrating. I don't know if these 'snow day' phenomena are particular to Calgary, but they annoy they fuck out of me nonetheless. My observations are as follows:

1. The 'I'm such a cool driver syndrome.' Whenever the roads turn to ice and our bridges/overpasses/major intersections turn into hockey rinks, there's always 2 types of vehice-driver combinations that give the danger NO regard: the first are people driving cars so completely incapable of handling it. They're typically behind the wheel of a dodge colt/hyundai (spelling??) something or other/or 1983 honda civic, with tires that haven't been changed in 17 years that resemble those on my bicycle. The irony of this crowd is that, in their completely inappropriate for winter vehicles, they're always getting so far up on your ass, and/or you see them barrelling down a slippery hill at warp speed in your rearview, wagering war on the bumper of your precious transportation device (precious only because without it you'd have a 2 kilometer distance for efficiently socializing in Calgary, the city of 1 million people and 3 bus routes). What are they thinking?!!!??!?!!

The second is the people at the other end of the spectrum--those driving opulent and totally unecessary SUV's (generally in the Range Rover, Jeep, and Nissan family, and contributing to said global warming at an alarming rate). They get a look of vindication in their eyes when the snow falls and the roads turn to sheets of potential injury and death: "Hahaha! This is what I bought this thing for!!!! Hahahaha! I spend $3498530945 a year on gas, and this is why!! Hahahah! You suckers in your lame ass economy vehicles!! Hahahaha! I pay my rent with my line of credit 'cause the financing on this thing takes up half my paycheque, but this makes it all worth it!! Hahahaha! I'll show you what this 4x4 can DO, bitches!!!" What' s hilarious is that our neighbour is a police officer, and he verified my assertions by telling me that it's exactly theSe two groups who cause the vast, vast majority of accidents.

2. The 'You're so stupid/I'm so cool' tow-truck operator. I'm not only completely hateful of driving, I'm also really bad at maintaining my car. Thus, I require frequent visits from AMA, making my $80 a year membership arguably the greatest deal in human history. However, not only have I, but several other people I've chatted with, experienced the complete patronization of these people. They routinely make comments like "Well....you'll know next time not to lock those keys in the car;" "Ya know, you could have just plugged it in;" or, my personal favourite, "If you'd checked the air in your tires, I wouldn't be here right now." Well ya know what douchebag? If you weren't here, you wouldn't be getting paid! In fact, human stupidity on some level likely comprises about 90% of the bases of tow-truck drivers visits. With very few exceptions, accidents, engine freezing, flat tires, and lock outs are due to both enormous and small oversights by motorists. Ipso facto, if people actually THOUGHT about the consequences of their vehicular oversights, these tow-truckers (often self-employed) would have a pretty sporadic and un-profitable line of work. Lesson learned: don't bitch at your bread and butter, dickheads. I probably put your kids through college by neglecting to change my oil. And my failure to own a tire pressure gauge probably financed your summer home.

I'm applying to the University of California for a PhD.

GSA Health Services Warning

2007-01-31T22:03:00.000-08:00

It is hardly news that graduate students are often not the happiest of campers. Only recently, however, have scientists, psychologists, and discourse pathologists come to appreciate and diagnose the full range of maladies afflicting the graduate-student population. Now the publication of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Graduate Students (DSMGS-1), the first book ever dedicated specifically to disorders of those pursuing advanced degrees, promises relief to this long-suffering population. An excerpt follows:

1.Global Irony Syndrome (GIS)
Indications: GIS is an affective disorder most commonly characterized by the following symptoms: an erosion of belief in Enlightenment values; snideness toward the concepts of truth, objectivity, and universal ethical codes; cynicism about the two-party system and the wealth-leveling effects of global capitalism; an ironic stance toward all physical laws and reality itself. The onset of GIS is often signaled in the sufferer by the replacement of easygoing laughter with sarcastic smirks, and by the refusal to debate any issue except through indirection, punning, and sneering banter.
Prevalence: GIS has been largely concentrated in humanities departments, with occasional outbreaks in the "softer" social sciences, such as sociology, anthropology, government, and politics.
Treatment: Intensive viewing of It's a Wonderful Life has proved salutary. Failing that, a semester's leave spent in a hard-labor camp of a despotic regime is effective in more than 75 percent of reported cases.

2.Hyper-Theory Disorder (HTD)
Indications: HTD is a cognitive disorder distinguished by an increasingly abstract frame of mind. Sufferers gradually lose the ability to speak in a manner unmediated by poststructuralist theory. In extreme cases, sufferers come to view all aspects of popular culture (e.g., SpongeBob reruns, Oprah, the National Football League) through the filter of Heideggerian metaphysics or Lacanian psychoanalysis. HTD is often misdiagnosed as Tunnel Visionitis (TV), a similar, though etiologically distinct, malady marked by a gradually escalating inability to communicate with anyone -- including friends, family, spouses, and domestic pets -- who does not share all of one's theoretical presuppositions.
Prevalence: HTD is endemic to literature departments. TV, by contrast, is rampant throughout all disciplines, often hitting the natural sciences hardest.
Treatment: Complete abstinence from all French and German texts remains a controversial treatment for HTD. Until further therapeutic remedies have been discovered, a travel advisory for Continental Europe has been issued to all humanities students.

3.Sycophancy-Authority Malady (SAM)

Indications: SAM is considered a speech pathology increasingly common among advanced graduate students. It is marked by a tendency to speak in flattering, fawning, ingratiating, and even idolatrous terms to persons in positions of authority such as full professors, conference organizers, and powerful department secretaries. Oddly, sufferers of SAM, when conversing privately, tend to speak of these authorities in only the most derisive, disdainful, and even violent terms. (This syndrome is not to be confused with Manic Mentor Mimesis; see below.)

Prevalence: Cases of SAM have been reported in most graduate centers, though serious outbreaks tend to be concentrated in the lobbies, conference rooms, and bars of hotels hosting annual meetings of professional associations at which job interviewing is taking place.

Treatment: Tenure-track appointments were once considered effective in curing SAM, but recent studies challenge that conclusion. Those studies also suggest that tenure itself provides less relief than previously assumed. Researchers now believe that retirement constitutes the only fully effective treatment for this complex and poorly understood malady.

4.Manic Mentor Mimesis (MMM)

Indications: The disease, difficult to diagnose in its earliest stages, first manifests itself in the sufferer's subtle mimicry of an adviser's hand gestures. Gradually, the mimetic tendencies deepen and spread to include head movements and distinctive eye rolls of the adviser, as well as slouches, gaits, and even, if opportunity presents itself, dancing styles. As MMM becomes more systemic, tones of voice, sighs, vocal tics, and even idiosyncratic expectorations come to be included within the ambit of imitation. In its final and most humiliating stages, sufferers find themselves mimicking the dress of their advisers and adopting their hair styles. Typically, Acute Adornment Ataxia then sets in as the sufferer finds movement restricted by all the laser pens, cellphones, soda cans, backpacks, and assorted pedagogical props used by the adviser.

Prevalence: MMM is especially prevalent in departments, such as philosophy and mathematics, with high concentrations of eccentric faculty members. Treatment:

Extreme ridicule from peers outside academe, such as siblings and attractive baristas, has been known to abate the condition.

5.Terminal Graduate Paralysis (TGP)

Indications: This chronic, debilitating, and sometimes fatal condition represents the most serious and widespread of the many behavioral disorders facing the graduate-student population. Symptoms often appear in the fourth year of graduate study, though this can vary from discipline to discipline. Early signs are typically mild and therefore easily overlooked or ignored. These often include a subtle shift in media-consumption habits, from National Public Radio to South Park, and from professional journals to extreme-makeover television. More serious symptoms include compulsive retitling of the dissertation; a pathological overinvestment of time in TA-ing; a tendency to misplace routinely or otherwise lose or obliterate thousands of hours of work as a result of alleged computer failures (clinicians investigating these mishaps frequently find suspiciously mutilated hard drives). Advanced symptoms include substantially impaired performance on all cognitive tasks; hyperanxiety and night sweats; bibliophobia; comma-shifting mania; and a marked adviser-avoidance response. At its most extreme, sufferers display a deer-in-the-headlights appearance; epistemological aphasia (the conviction that one no longer knows anything); morbid feelings of lack of self-worth often accompanied by paranoiac delusions of victimization; a deepening of syntactic torpidity (the loss of the ability to write clearly, simply, and, ultimately, at all); a resurgence of teenage acne; even renewed thumb-sucking and bed-wetting. Failure to File (F2F) represents a particularly heartbreaking, and dimly understood, form of TGP, in which the sufferer mysteriously disappears on the eve of filing the completed dissertation, or otherwise inexplicably decides to "tighten" the argument.

Prevalence: Cases of TGP have been reported in every state and in every graduate department. The Morningside Heights district of Manhattan has produced rates suggesting a veritable epidemic that is matched only by certain areas in Berkeley, Calif.

Treatment: In its advanced stages, TGP is considered untreatable. For early-stage sufferers, long walks in open farmland accompanied by a complete termination of parental financial support has proved effective. Application to law school has also been known to offer relief.

(Authors: Lawrence Douglas and Alexander George).

The 'Gentleperson' Scholar

2007-01-23T21:07:00.000-08:00

Oh, Frank, I miss you. For those of you who haven't heard of Frank, he's the brilliant, brilliant, brilliant philosopher, composer, musician, filmaker, chef....ahh, the list could go on, that I knew well during my undergrad. Sadly for many of us, Frank left Calgary in the fear that he'd die of boredom remaining here (probably a good move) and moved on to greater artistic and academic pursuits. But, his lessons remain. And the one that I remember SOOOOOOOOO much right now that he constantly grappled with? The gentleman/woman scholar.

At first, I never knew what the hell he meant by this, but as I've gotten a little older, and a lot more chilled out and less egotistical than I was as an undergrad, I've come to both appreciate and understand it. Perhaps what's most seminal is that I understand now why Frank would have a pronounced need to grasp and implement this in his own life....but more on that later.

The gentleperson scholar is someone who, parsimoniously defined, doesn't shit all over everybody under the guise of being 'smart.' And don't we all know people who don't fit in this 'gentleperson' category? I seem to encounter them more and more often: the academics who are hell bent on demonstrating to everyone within earshot that they posess infinitely more expertise than the 'philistines' they encounter in the world both inside and outside academia. They love to tell you about their publication record, their GPA, and they revel in the opportunity to tell disinterested friends and family members about their knowledge in, of course, only the most esoteric terms possible.

I have discussed this with several talented people (particularly Paul), and I certainly understand that much of this emanates from the insecurities that the academic environment seems to generate. Moreover, I completely recognize and appreciate the loneliness that can emerge from having a deep sociological knowledge of the world; we tend to recognize consequences--often unintended, and generally negative--of behaviours and choices that others simply take for granted as 'normal.' However, once we recognize this, can't we get past it, at least in our outside lives? Or must we be so hell bent on coming off as the expert that we alienate everyone but our colleagues (and potentially even them)?

Alternatively, Frank advocated the 'gentleperson' role, in which the academic seeks to engage people from outside academia in its tenets, but does that using a method of dialogue versus monologue, and in that, strives to achieve the goal of empowering versus belittling. Given that he came from a very working-class family and community, I think that he saw this as a means of remaining connected to his history rather than giving it a wholesale rejection in light of the enormously different worldview he acquired while studying philosophy. In this, I see much more integrity than those I know who abandon their past in search of more 'appropriate' or 'fitting' future; this seems so paradoxical, given that the people who know nothing of sociology (or philosophy, for that matter), are probably the ones who need it the most. And to assume that they can't understand it seems so arrogant! Perhaps it just needs to be framed in terms that resonate with them, which is a difficult task, but not an impossible one. This is evidenced within my own department, where a brilliant professor constantly seeks to share his own knowledge of illness experience with many people outside of academia; in doing so, I know that he's touched many lives, which is evidenced by the fact that everytime I attend a colloquial social gathering, somebody seems to have picked up his work, or when I was in the hospital last year for treatments, I'd see obviously socioeconomically disadvantaged, ill individuals reading 'At the Will of the Body' while awaiting their own treatments.

Is this not how we can acheive the goal of 'infiltration' that I've discussed in previous posts? By stepping outside of the narrow box of academic egoism and attempting to give a fuck about anybody besides ourselves?

I know this must seem enormously idealistic, but the way I see it, idealism is the historical root of our very discipline. Furthermore, I'm in my early 20s, so if I'm ever going to embrace such idealism, now's the time!

I'll get off my soapbox now, and just hope that this means something to somebody other than me.

My Favourite Words

2007-01-23T20:55:00.000-08:00

Ah, yes....another list! Here are my favourite words to use in everyday language, and especially in my writing:

1. Predicate
2. Fresh
3. Receptive
4. Encompass
5. Extant
6. Prospect
7. Explicitly
8. Complexity
9. Parsimonious
10. Tangential
11. Emanating
12. Abstruse
13. Implement
14. Capacity
15. Concomitant

Don't you just love how words look? Although many of these aren't particularly sophisticated, they just sound so good!! Yaaay!

.....I'm officially a huge nerd.

Eat it, Caitlin Flanagan

2007-01-16T22:52:00.000-08:00

Often, I accidentally think that the women's movement, and the tenets of feminism that accompany it, have finally entered the popular vernacular, and that we can now revel in equality with our male counterparts. Aspects this could include would be equal pay, equal opportunity, and elevated self-expression unconstrained by deeply entrenched notions of gendered expectations. But then, I shut down Microsoft Word, close my laptop, leave my ninth floor office, and enter the sad, sad reality of the outside world. Case in point: Caitlin Flanagan. This woman infuriates me:

http://www.elle.com/article.asp?section_id=37&article_id=8556&page_number=1

And you wanna know what really pisses me off? That people read this shit in volumes that I'm sure outstrip any authentic research and commentary on the current state of women's issues in North American (or global, for that matter) society.

So what's the solution? Should we, as sociologists, start infiltrating the popular media? And, if we did, would people pay attention to anything we had to say? And, if we chose to strive for household name status, would we have to dumb it down to such a degree that our work lost all integrity? I'm so confused....

To make up for my discouragement, I made my usual move of turing on the television. I watched American Idol tonight. Although I hate this show with the fire of a thousand hells, I do thoroughly enjoy the annual 'intro' episode, where you get to see completely misguided misfits humiliate themselves on national television. I think the toppers tonight were:

1. The juggling Minnesota adolescent with braces who sobbed and sweared like a psychopath (and I use that term deliberately, not in the generalized way it's so often thrown around) following his rejection; and
2. The woman who screamed out Bowie and Queen's 'Under Pressure,' and then subsequently made the claim that she had a 'degree in vocal performance' upon her 'shocking' rejection.

I really wish they'd create an entire series on these people. They're so much funnier, sloppier, and conventionally less attractive than the douches who make it to the finals. While I'm no marketing expert, I do think you could find a real demographic of people who'd thoroughly enjoy, and religiously follow, the trainwreck-ishness and embarrasingly authentic excursions of this rejected crew. It'd be like Maury with bad, bad singing and a cheesy orchestra.

This Just In: Traveling to a Mexican Resort Will Not Change Your Life

2007-01-15T19:23:00.000-08:00

In a significant or powerful way, that is. I ran into a former co-worker today who informed me that her recent vaca to an exclusive Mexican all-inclusive resort 'changed her life' via 'immersing her in another culture,' even though she didn't leave the hotel compound. Hmmmmmmmmm....... After recently spending a fabulous, refreshing, and hilariously fun week in a similar place with a fantastic group of people (I miss you guys!), I'd have to disagree. And why? 'CAUSE YOU'RE NOT IN ANOTHER CULTURE IF YOU DON'T LEAVE YOUR RESORT!

Mexican resorts are predominantly comprised of either a) rich Canadians/Americans; and b) deeply in debt Canadians/Americans. So really, in traveling there, you're not meeting anyone who you wouldn't have had the opportunity to meet by driving a few hours (or.....minutes....). Moreover, I found myself--to my horror--frighteningly slipping into all too familiar conversations that I typically try to escape here in Canada with strangers on the beach ("what job do you have? Sociology? Is that like social work? What's grad school? Does it pay well? No? Then why are you in it?" Turn to my beach date: "Oh, you're a carpenter? Hahahaha, you should come to my house!! Hahahaha!! How much did you pay for your house? How much are the houses you build worth?" Blahblahblahblah).

Now, this is not to say that certain aspects of traveling in this nature won't change your 'life.' For example, you'll learn a lot about the people you're there with when you're thrown together 24 hours per day (which, in my case, was very positive), or you'll learn the value of chilling out with your family and friends at least once a year, because it IS very, very refreshing. And, if you do decide to quit being a bougie #$%@#, you can indeed venture out of the resort and experience some very interesting aspects of Mexican culture in the form of night life, food and scenery. However, in the case that you instead decide to park by the pool and sip fruity drinks (nothin' wrong with that!) will you learn mounds about global inequality, alternative cultural practices, and the nuances of a foreign language? NO! And, I'd like to point out that leaving your waiter 10 pesos does not, under any circumstances, make you some kind of humanitarian.

Oh, and on a brighter and less pensive note, and well in keeping with my aforementioned New Year resolutions, I've recently discovered the joys of 'Arrested Development' (Thanks Kaitie & Edmund! But...I have to disagree with the assertion that it's better than 'Curb.' Sorry guys, I think I just relate all too well to Larry). My favourite line so far? "I may have committed some light....treason."

Just Because it's Obscure Doesn't Mean it's Good

2007-01-11T19:41:00.000-08:00

A new radio station is currently piloting Calgary: 92.9. I'm sure many of you have heard it/of it already: essentially, it promotes and airs more 'alternative' rock. And it's actually not bad! I've heard Tool, Radiohead, The Shins, Beastie Boys, a lot of Jack Whyte material, and a number of other pretty decent artists you' d be hard pressed to find on shittier, CJay 92-type stations. Most people I talk to are going nuts over it.

However, the introduction of this station has made me reflect on broader issues that this station appears to represent. What I find interesting as a sociologist is the massive movement towards the 'alternative.' It's incredibly paradoxical that the music, art, film, and fashion that has traditionally been the domain of the cultural 'opposition' is now being appropriated by the majority.

So--my question is, if one wants to be 'counter-cultural', does s/he have to reappropriate elements of popular/mainstream culture?? Would it in fact now be 'alternative' to religously listen to Justin Timberlake, buy Ikea art, and buy all of my clothes at Jacob? Hmmmm....I smell a social experiment!

Seriously though, at the root of it all, I think it's unfortunate that people feel the need to categorize themselves so rigidly. Generally, the most creative and fantastic people I know aren't afraid to fluidly pass from 'alternative' to 'mainstream' without the fear of losing face. Something about them always seems a little more honest, or a little less scripted.

And by the way, I think Justin Timberlake is fucking rad.

And I'm Back........

2007-01-06T18:30:00.000-08:00

Sorry for the massive, massive delay folks! I'd actually be astonished if anyone was still reading following that gap. December was a stupidly busy month. In the span of 30 days, I had to:

1. Write a painful, painful final stats exam
2. Write a somewhat less painful, albeit just as annoying stats final paper
3. Complete the first draft of a paper that I'm presenting in Arizona on Feb. 15 (fucccccccccccck)
4. Complete the entire 58 page reference section for a book I assisted the editor with
5. Fight with an Alberta Police Force that shall remain nameless about access to their incriminating documents (fuckfaces)
5. Calculate the final grades for approximately 1100 sociology students
6. Buy Christmas presents
7. Go to the department Christmas party and humiliate myself in a druken stupor, which actually made me lose about 48 productive hours (which could have been employed to work on said stats paper)
8. Go to Mexico (okay, that I didn't mind)

All in all, it was pretty nuts, although I wasn't nearly as busy as some of my colleagues who had to do equivalent work plus additional courses. However, I'm happy to see the end of that semester. This next one should be interesting, what with my new job (more on that soon), and being able to really delve into my thesis research. I'm also happy to see the beginning of another year, for which I've made some resolutions:

1. Stop spending money on fridge magnets.
2. Check the air in my tires once every 2 weeks.
3. Seek intervention for my pathological obsession with Law & Order
4. Update the blog a little more often.
5. Stop saying 'fuck' in front of my mom.
6. Watch the first season of Arrested Development and hope that I get hooked (thereby potentially assisting with the pathology in listed in number 3).
7. Stop making so many lists.

Ambitious? No. Practical? Yes! I'm done with the usual resolutions that are waaaaaay too ambitious, i.e.: "This year, I'm going to go to the gym every morning at 6 am, eat less than 20 grams of fat per day, meditate once a week, call my aunts, uncles and cousins every Sunday, keep my house perfectly clean, volunteer at the nursing home every Tuesday, and get a 4.0." So, friends, please get on my ass if you see me failing........

Terrifying Television

2006-12-04T16:16:00.000-08:00

It only seems like a few posts ago I was stewing about my latest stats exam. Well, actually it was, and unfortunately, I have another one in a week's time. Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck. I actually think this one is going to make my bum hurt (although I suppose the others have as well). So, in my usual fashion, I spent the weekend 'studying' for it, which is code for reading a little while watching television. While doing this, I came across the most frightening, saddening, terrifying piece of media crap that I've seen since 'The Bachelor' and 'Bachelorette' series': LAGUNA BEACH.

Has anyone seen this?!!! Is it just me, or this the most AWFUL show ever produced? If it were fake, I'd think it was terrible, but the fact that this is REALITY television just depresses me. Honestly, who lives like this? Although I was a bit of a tool back in my high school days, I never acted like this! Nor did any of the bona fide tools that I attended high school with. It's funny, 'cause I always thought people like this were hollywood creations, but they're not! They exist! And watching them in all their glory made my eyes hurt and IQ drop about 79387293847 points.

So, I typed 'Laguna Beach sucks' into google, and I came across an online petition against it. Here's what one respondent wrote:

"Laguna Beach is the biggest pile of steaming elephant shit I have ever laid eyes upon. It is purely thirty minutes of ridiculously far fetched high school drama bull shit. Anyone entertained by this show deserves to be executed, and painfully. I support the mass murder of all those caughtwatching this filth. I hate you if you enjoy it."

Wow--and I thought I was cynical! So, in order to cleanse my media palette after partaking in this filth, I watched 'National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation.' Damn, I love this movie. My personal favourite part is when the SWAT team busts into Clark's house while 'Here Comes Santa Claus' plays in the background. Pure comedy genius!

Truth in Advertising

2006-12-01T12:25:00.001-08:00

Yes, it's finally happening. We're leaving the hell that is SW Calgary. I lasted 4 months here, although it felt more like 4 centuries. As I've lived here, I've found myself becoming an increasingly angry person, spending an average of 3 (yes, 3!) hours per day commuting, as well as an average of $250 per month on fuel for the Volvo-nator. But.........there's light at the end of the tunnel! We're leaving!

So, we had to compile a 'description' of our place for the 'Multiple Listing Service', or MLS, which will show up next week. In order to get a sense of what to write, I went on the site, and discovered that, like most products available for consumption, descriptions of the listed homes were basically a bunch of exaggerated bullshit.--i.e..: 'A handyman's dream' is code for 'a shit box that needs $34534539458 worth of work before you can have people over without being humiliated." Or, "a great revenue property" really means "if you're a rich asshole, you can buy this duplex and exploit poor people for ridiculous rent prices, and then evict them on a moment's notice when the market value goes up."

SO--here's a comparison of our 'MLS' description with the 'truth' that I really want to post:

MLS: "This 1300 square foot luxury townhome in S.W. Calgary boasts granite countertops, stainless steel appliances, spindles, crown mouldings, 3 large bedrooms (one with a walk-in closet and 4 piece ensuite!), and 2.5 bathrooms with high end appliances. It includes an attached double garage and a completly finished basement. Just minutes from Fish Creek Park and the Glenmore Resevoir, it's a dream for those that love to exercise, and is within 5 minutes of schools, shopping, and public transportation."

The truth that I really want to post: "This townhome would be nice if it weren't in the middle of butt-fuck nowhere. If you like 1.5 hour commutes to your downtown office, shit-for-brain neighbours who are all white and work in the oil patch, and a general sense of desperation regarding your place of residence, this is the home for you! The home is faux luxury really, 'cause one of the owner's is a sub-contracting carpenter who takes home scraps from job-sites (on which he builds similar homes for rich fucks), then pays his friends in the industry with weed to assemble his shit. Oh, and it has no yard, so get ready to freeze your ass off while picking up dog shit in the middle of the night if you're an animal lover. The couple who lives here can't wait to get the hell out, which is evidenced by the fact that they're buying a disgustingly overpriced flourescent blue bungalow in the middle of the city that will likely take years (and many thousands of dollars) to make the place look remotely nice. Oh, and they hate exercising. They'd rather sit on their couch and eat chips while watching 1980's television shows, so leaving the 'beauty' of the resevoir is no skin off their asses."

Proof Reading's For Losers

2006-11-30T23:00:00.000-08:00

Before I begin, I have to cite my source for the inspiration (and content) of this post: Kaitie. You're rad, Kaitie (CBIH). For those of you who hear me talk about her but haven't met her, you should; she's the best person you'll ever meet. And I know 'best' is thrown around way too much, but hang out with her for one night and you'll know what I mean. We're celebrating 20 years of friendship September 2007.

So---we were discussing our secret hidden snobbery: we're the grammar/language gestapo. So, because I so thoroughly enjoy compiling lists, here's a brief run-down of some of the most notoriously widespread misuses of the English language, be they in print or vocal form:

1. Seen. As in 'I seen her the other day.' No--you SAW her the other day. If you're saying this, my mental picture of you immediately transforms you into a Dr. Phil reifying Pilsner-drinker who thinks that calling someone from East Asia a 'Paki' is not politically incorrect, or that bragging that you 'Jewed them down' on your latest purchase is as unoffensive as saying 'I got a really good deal.' Philistines.

2. Your. This can only come up in a print format, such as emails or papers; ex: "Your such a nice person." No--YOU'RE such a nice person. This makes me think that you probably just don't pay attention to anything (a very, very dangerous quality on so many levels), and that you're (note the proper use) completely inconsiderate for making me sit through your poorly written emails/papers/etc. This becomes especially true when reading an email in which someone is insulting you, if any of you have ever recieved these (i.e.: your such a bitch for____________). Actually, I kind of like it when I get emails of this nature from people who clearly dislike me, 'cause it reminds me that I probably sensed their lack of awareness in the first place, and subsequently covertly tried to them dislike me so I didn't have to see them anymore.

3. Orientate; ie: 'we're being orientated this weekend;' 'I felt so disorientated.' What's hilarious is that I can't even count how many times I've heard very well educated people say this publically. I don't need to say more--it's obvious, isn't it?

4. To. As in 'this is to much for me to handle.' AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!! This one KILLS me. Besides generating the feelings outlines in number 3 (above), this makes me actually question the public education system, 'cause I can remember spending sooooo much elementary class time discussing this. Thus, it begs the question: who were your teachers?? If, however, they did teach this to you, then I have to again return to my note in number 3 about the complete lack of paying attention.

I Hate Celebrity

2006-11-20T08:05:00.000-08:00

While 'studying' for stats (aka: basically looking around online for anything remotely more entertaining--not exactly a difficult task) I found this disturbing bit of information: http://www.brethart.com/aladdin.asp

What the fuck? Why is it that people in the entertainment industry think that it's just a natural or logical move to move from one arena of entertainment to another? While I may not completely understand it, I do recognize that famous people tend to think, "I'm a model, so I should be an actor.....I'm an actor, so I should be a singer.....I'm a singer so I should be a model." But going from being a WRESTLER to a BROADWAY ACTOR???? Again, WTF?? This is a new one for me. Have we not learned anything from disasters such as "Get Rich or Die Tryin", anything Jessica Simpson's acted in, or anything that Lindsay Lohan produces (I'm not really sure about how to categorize her in the first place: terrible musician? terrible actor? terrible drunk? I think I'll just go with terrible). But the thing is, sometimes I wonder if I'm in a minority in thinking that these types of 'cross-over' moves are completely pathetic, 'cause I've heard that tickets to this shit show are actually selling.

Oh, and speaking of celebrities: I want to punch Tom Cruise in the face. His level of douchebaggery is quite stunning, really. I've officially stopped looking at newstand magazines, channels other than Showcase or HBO, or popular radio, 'cause it's sick that people are so psyched for his wedding to Katie Holmes. Why do people care? Do you KNOW him? Are you old friends? Are you preparing a speech for the happy couple and their child with the misgiuded name (hahahahaha--they thought it meant princess!)? Are you excited for the open bar and the opportunity to dance (badly) to Michael Jackson songs in a druken stupor? NO! You're not! 'Cause you won' t be there! Instead, you'll be sitting at home watching Brian Mulroney's son make a compelte fool out of himself on E Talk Canada or whatever it's called, breaking down the details of the ceremony in the most vague and obscure fashion possible.

The reason this fires me up so much is that I feel the culture of celebrity and entertainment is now paramount in the lives of most people. Seriously, when I was a TA last year, I could swear that my students thought they were living out storylines from the OC in their lives here in Calgreasy, Alberta. And I hear people say ridiculous things that I'm assuming they're appropriating from mysoginistic, shitty hip hop that bastardizes what fabulous acts ike PE, A Tribe Called Quest, and Grandmaster Flash tried to get going. For example, I bumped into a guy from high school, and he was telling me about breaking up with his girlfriend, and he said "I met her in Mavi's and I left her in Sevens." And why does everyone try to look like a celebrity? U of C is one of the biggest fashion shows I've ever seen! How are people affording this?! And how do they have time to look that good by 9 am in the midst of papers and exams? And last, I'm sooooooooooooooooo sick of this new 'I'm alternative and original' look that's being appropriated from celebrity culture: you know, the skinny jeans, a 'funky' t-shirt (probably purchased at the gap), unusual looking sneakers, a military inspired jacket, and an IPod on, probably blaring the college rock band crap that's popular this week. The reason this chaps my ass is that I've talked to some of these people, and they're the least original people I've ever come across.

Ahhh, that feels better. Back to stats...........

What I Hate About Academia: Part II

2006-11-15T15:56:00.000-08:00

Okay, so maybe this isn't so much about 'academia' as an aggregate, but it certainly does concern what I hate about one class I'm taking within the academic context: STATS. Fuck stats.

And no, I don't hate it for the typical undergraduate reason of 'it's soooooooo hard.' The thing is, it's actually not that hard! My problem with it is that it represents everything from my undergraduate experience that I thought I'd checked at the grad school door.

For example, when I left my BA, I thought I'd finished having to regurgitate 'black-boxed' knowledge (if you can call it that) on an exam. But alas, we now have to know "you use this for that, but don't worry about why. Just answer it." Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.....that'll really help me on the test, particularly when we're asked to explain why we're using it, 'cause no doubt we will be asked to if the first test was any indication. While this might be good enough for some, I simply don't have the ability to understand sociological concepts PARTIALLY; I need to know WHY I use them, and when I use them. Context counts, dammit! Why don't quantitative people realize this??!!?!??!?! Sociology is NOT about memorization, at least not in my books. Especially not at the M.A. or PhD. level.

And about those exams: Why the fuck do they have to have a multiple choice component? That's another thing I thought I left in the great land of 400 person geography and geology lectures. There's like 14 people in the class, so making us circle boxes is just fucking lazy. Further, I always fuck up on multiple choice, and I'll bet a survey of my class would tell you that the majority of classmates feel the same way about the first test: if they lost marks at all, that's probably where it happened. All m/c questions at this level do is test your ability to take a test.

Oh, and another thing about it: we're actually expected to complete labs on material we've never learned! Am I taking crazy pills, or is this just about the most ridiculous thing you've ever heard? Labs are supposed to be about PRACTICE, and in my many years of 'practice' experience (I did do 16 years of piano, after all), you PRACTICE WHAT YOU'VE ALREADY BEEN TAUGHT!!!! This is theoretically equivalent to telling my 4th grade piano students to go home and learn ARCT-level Chopin nocturnes with absolutely no knowledge of romantic music and related techniques, and then getting pissed when they don't 'try.' Needless to say, I wouldn't, 'cause I'd recognize that it's a complete waste of both my time and theirs. And this is exactly what the last 3 weeks has been, which is just fantastic, considering that the last three weeks comprise the basis of next Friday's test.

And perhaps most importantly: if it hasn't been done by about 109e0483045703485734875 other researchers in about 20934802875938475038457 other boring journals, you can't even DO stats, 'cause you wouldn't know about what "theoretically relevant variables to include." And of course you couldn't go and try to figure it out without extant literature, 'cause that would be the big statistical 'no no' of data mining.... So, any original, exciting, or current analysis is precluded from even being examined in this quantitative fashion, confirming what I've always thought: STATS ARE USELESS, unless of course your main goal as a sociologist is to replicate the tired old regression analyses that other sociologists have already been producing since the mid 70's.

My conclusion: when it comes to stats, it's all been done. So why can't we just be done with it?

On the Love of Nuance

2006-11-10T17:10:00.000-08:00

If I had to sum up my evolution as a sociologist over the course of my graduate degree in a single word, I think I would have to go with 'nuance.' I realized this today after posing a question to my stats teacher, asking him 'don't you lose some nuance when you ________(insert boring stats concept I don't want to go into here).' Although I asked it very innocently (i.e.: not trying to be a mouth piece about quantitative methods), it served as a catalyst in prompting me to reflect upon my experience over the past (almost) year and a half.

As a young, undergraduate sociologist, I was taken by the 'expert' knowledge and organized, tight little schemata presented in my textbooks; I loved that I could speak about human behaviour, particularly crime, in broad, authorative terms to friends and people at parties. I loved it that I could field questions from people uneducated in criminology, particularly about sensational crimes largely reported in the media, such as the Karla Homolka and Paul Bernardo case. I'm a little embarassed to admit this now, but it's true. I also found myself embracing the explanatory 'power' of criminal behaviour theories, particularly Cohen and Felson's 'routine activities theory', as it probably provided me some sense of 'control' over the dark circumstances I could potentially encounter as a woman.

But....then came Contemporary Social Theory (Soci 633), and my whole world view was (fortunately, miraculously, and gloriously) shattered. Under the direction of our spectacularly brilliant professor, I abandoned my ill-founded roots and stretched in a number of frightening, exciting, and passion-driven directions. And all of these were driven by the concept of 'nuance' in sociology.

Given that I beleive that you cannot 'check' your sociological epiphanies at the 9th floor exit, I have found that this concept has rapdily expanded into all facets of my life, particularly in my choice of cultural representations in the form of music and film. Specifically, I thought about what I posted on my blog profile as 'favourites.' For example, I fell in love with American Beauty at age 18, because it represented opposition to narrow-mindedness, the dog-eat-dog tactics of corporate America, and the monoculture of suburbia. However, upon re-watching it recently, I noted that it accomplished this is an incredibly obvious way; the sweeping music plays in the background as Lester Burnham reflects in a voice-over about his spectacular epiphanies and methods of social resistance, and dies in the end in the most dramatic of fashions, thus representing the great tragedy that is our North American misguidedness. Contrastingly, I recently watched the fantastic and totally under-celebrated 'I Heart Huckabees', which accomplishes all of these themes with exponentially higher nuance, subtlety, and humour. Excerpts that come to mind include: the comment by Naomi Watt's to her bourgoisie boyfriend, 'we don't have to have children; we can just be ourselves, jet skiing, or whatever' ; the conveying of narrow and tragic Christian attempts to convert members of other religions, evidenced by the dinner table conversation centering around a suburban family's Sudanese 'son' who repeatedly apologized to his 'parents' for, essentially, just being his African self ; and the hilarious presentation of Jason Schwartzman's public misfitedness due to his love for, and activism centered on environmental issues. So, while this movie doesn't TELL you, or DEMAND you, to adopt leftist sentiments, it stills presents them to you in layers of nuance, complexity, and laughability.

Another fantastically subtle moment in film was found for me in 'Vanilla Sky,' when the deformed and devestated Tom Cruise dances with his mask on to Underworld's 'Cowgirl.' I thought this was so spectacular, since the movie centres on insatiable greed, ethics, the interference of science in human existence, and the uncontrollable desire for another human's complete devotion and love, and the lyrics to 'Cowgirl' are 'everything, everything, everything' repeated continuously, along with 'I want to give you everything....this is my machine, this is my beautiful dream....I'm hurting no one.'

The same goes for music. I once loved the politically charged music of Rage Against the Machine, whose 'Bulls on Parade,' 'Killing in the Name,' or 'Know Your Enemy' could completely fire me up. While I still enjoy their stance and driving--albeit simple--composition, I alternatively find myself now continually drawn to the poly-rythtms of Tool, the transendental sound of Radiohead (particularly that found on 'Hail to the Theif'), the esoteric poetic lyrics of the former Soundgarden ('Fell on Black Days' is an excellent example) and the gloriously tortured complexity of Rachmaninoff's piano concertos (No. 3 is arguably the most incredible song ever composed for the piano).

Overall, perhaps what I love about these cultural pieces is the fact that they challenge you to THINK about their message, rather than just deliver it for you in a slick package. Much of this line of thought was sparked also by reading Paul's amazing 'The Annotated Everything' (see http://qmass.wordpress.com/), which asserted in a comment on the new 'Borat' film that this type of work is IMPORTANT; it's not delivered as being 'huge,' 'earth-shattering', or 'monumental' film-making, but it is nonetheless in what it presents to viewers, who, if they could only think about it, will recognize it's enormous significance.

What I Hate About Academia

2006-11-09T10:55:00.000-08:00

Lately, some things have really started to get me thinking about the internal hate-on I have for academia and what it does to people. You see, I never realized I had this deep-seated love/hate relationship with higher learning, so it's thrown me for a real loop.

On a re-run of 'Law & Order: SVU' last night, the 'case' centered around a perpetrator who was, at the beginning of the episode, killing prostitutes. Since this is my thesis topic, I tuned in pretty closely to see what good old Dick Wolf would have to say about this, just in time to watch the police appointed 'psychological profiler' pace back and forth, providing a succint and fascinating profile of this crzay killer for a captivated group of hard-nosed cops who were hanging on his every word. And it just pissed me off.

This got me soooooo angry about the general 'perception' of academia we see in TV, and that which is subsequently, or at least simultaneously, picked up by academics themselves. A lot of these issues I have with it I've discussed with fellow sociologists, in particular the fabulous and completely brilliant Ms. Catwomyn Jayde, so I owe a lot of my ideas to conversations the two of us have shared. So, in no particular order, here are the things I hate about sociological academia/academics:

1. The concept of 'expert knowledge.' Academics are desperate to be recognized as 'experts' by their students, colleagues, the general public (particularly the media) and their friends and family. This makes them feel sooooooo cool. Now, this doesn't mean that I don't think that some academics certainly do have expert knowledge, such as certain medical researchers or hard scientists. But this type of knowledge is completely inappropriate in social science generally, and sociology specifically. Why? Because expert knowledge is based entirely on the ability to predict an outcome before it happens, centering on a complete knowledge of the factors that produce such an outcome. So, while a chemist may accurately predict a chemical reaction based on the properties of a certain element, attempting to 'predict' human behaviour in the same fashion is just plain stupid.

As a result of this obsession with coming off as 'experts', sociology has rapidly devolved into a confused pile of statistics journals and actuarial typologies. The main problem with these is that such approaches lead researchers to go and out and find people who 'fit' their rigid little schemas, rather than attempt to understand the complexity and nuance of individual stories.

Now, this doesn't mean that I think sociologists have no knowledge base; they certainly do. Our knowledge can be vast, it can be critical, and it can be ever-evolving based on continual research. But can we really be 'experts' who can know the social world better than the people who live in it every day? Fuck no. What we can do better, however, is thoroughly, respectfully, and critically study it.

2. The obsession with 'productivity.' Academics measure the sum total of their lives and the experiences they have within those lives solely in terms of how productive it is. A 'how was your weekend?' inquiry will be met with 'Fantastic--I finished my article' or 'Horrible--I just hung out and didn't get anything done.' Horrible?! Spending time watching TV, a wicked movie, or hanging out with your best friends is 'horrible' ??? WTF??? It gets to the point with some people that all experiences that are not productive are considered a waste of time and are forfeited before the fact, because their social value cannot possibly compare to their potential gain in productivity. And when I think about it, the happiest times in my life have not necessarily been the most academically productive.

3. The EGOS. Do I really need to go further with this? If I was to make any comment, I would say that this ego makes people miss sight of the potential that social research holds to advance knowledge or alleviate issues of human suffering, because academics are too damn concerned about coming off as the 'best.' When people get obsessed with this, they display annoying behaviours, such as coming to conferences and responding to your presentation with a synthesis of their own research that has nothing to do with a fucking word you just said. Or, when you ask them about coursework, they say 'it's great, I've got all A's.' Yeah, but did you LEARN anything, tool? Or they love to tell you about how much funding they have from any number of sources. The funniest thing is that these people think that sociology's all about THEM, when what they should really recognize is that they're all about sociology.

Sorry for the rant, but that's what the blog's for.

You're Probably an Asshole if:

2006-11-08T18:05:00.000-08:00

1 You don't think my dog is cute
2. Cowboys is your favourite place to hang out
3. You think Stephen Harper is the best person to lead Canada
4. You have a membership at the Calgary Petroleum Club
5. Your mom and dad don't know anything about your personal life or values, but deposit $2000 into your bank account on the 1st of every month.
6. You love telling people about how you can get VIP at Calgary bars
7. You're rude to Jean or Ted Carter
8. You concentrate on, and worry about the people who treat you like shit more than the people who call you every day
9. You truly believe that private schools provide better education than public schools
10. Your conversations with your 'friends' center around your monthly income (unless of course it's to laugh about how teeny tiny it is), vacation properties, and new car lease
11. Tool and the Nine Inch Nails music makes you 'uncomfortable', but you own all of the Nickleback albums (I don't care if they're from Alberta-they're fucking terrible....and why would I like someone just 'cause they're from Alberta? Stephen Harper's from Alberta!)
12. You don't let people with children come over to your house
13. You don't 'believe' in homosexuality
14. You scoff at Sociology while simultaneously pursuing a 'duh'-gree in Economics
15. You have a job promoting 'Rev' drinks in Calgary liquor stores and bars, and drive around in the company hummer giving 'hot' guys/girls the 'winking gun' while blasting Nelly music.
16. You don't think Larry David is fucking fall-down hilarious.
17. You stand in the foyer of Science Theatres passing out Conservative Party pamphlets
18. You wear a suit to class and spend your day standing in front of the stock marker 'ticker' in Scurfield Hall, laughing and talking in the loudest possible tone so that the first-year girl sitting 10 seats away who works as a beer tub girl will think you're ultra-cool and sophisticated
19. Your favourite band changes weekly, 'cause it's the one featured on the O.C. while Ryan sits there and pouts about his latest tragedy, as Marissa sits in hear 'beach house' holding her knees in her hands.

And, perhaps the most important and/or telling measure of your asshole-ishness:

20. Nate won't return your phone calls.

If I Can't Successfully Google You, You Must Not Be Important

2006-11-06T15:08:00.000-08:00

I'm obsessed with google. Obsessed. I use it for absolutely everything--including my masters thesis research. I don't even use a dictionary anymore, 'cause if I don't know how to spell something, I type it into google and it corrects me if I'm wrong with the fabulous 'did you mean ___________?' feature. But of more import is its capacity as an incredible stalking device. Now, I know some of you are saying 'wow, you're a freak', but ADMIT IT! Anytime any of you have met someone that you think is interesting, you google them. I know I do. And when I say 'interesting', I don't mean that you're looking to bump uglies with them, perverts. Besides, I stopped googling potential dates when Nate came along (Nate the Great). 'Interesting' could just be a really cool prof, or a tool of a prof for that matter, or a person you met at a party who you're a little curious about. Or someone who you think is lying to you, and you wanna check the facts.

But now, I fear that google is becoming another one of those shitty measures in society that we stack ourselves up against and usually come out feeling bad because of, kinda like the clothing sizes at Club Monaco. You see, now that everyone knows about googling other people, we all think that we have to have several links that are really 'ours' if someone is to perform a google search on us; for, if we don't, then in no way can we be distinguished academically, or in our careers, or active, contributing members of society. In other words, we can't really be that 'important' if we can't be googled.

I can't tell you how many times people have said in either a desperate or defeated tone, 'I googled myself and nothing came up.' And what's worse is that you can't really get yourself on google--you actually do have to do some/be involved in pretty important shit for people to write about you online in any kind of authorative capacity.

Perhaps it's all a huge conspiracy concocted so as to get people into action, but I say fuck it! This is clearly a measure of informal social control that encourages people to do all sorts of 'stuff' just so they can have their egos stroked by seeing their name online; it's a twisted little bit of fame, really. And I used to buy into it, but I'm out. I'm going to continue to spend my days half-assedly writing my thesis while intermittently publishing on this site that nobody probably reads anyway, tossing that up with a little Law and Order: SVU, original Degrassi and after school specials that we now get on our massive 900 channel cable package, and the occassional phone call to my parents or Kaitie.

And you wanna know why? 'Cause nobody probably googles me, anyway.

A Shout-0ut to my Former 'Hood

2006-11-06T09:15:00.000-08:00

So, as most of you probably know, I now officially live in suburbia. 'Well of course you do!' is what you're probably all thinking; after all, this is Calgary, land of suburbia. But no, friends, it has not always been this way.......

Contrarily, I grew up the great land of Thorncliffe/Greenview/North Haven. You see, all of these neighbourhoods are sort of thrown together into a glorious pile of confusion, and they're a mere 15 minute bus ride or 10 minute car ride to the center of the city. And...this will make many jealous....a 6 minute drive to U of C if you do 100 on John Laurie! Ahhh, how I miss sleeping in 'til 8:30 and still parking, grabbing a coffee, and getting a good seat in a 9 am class.

Now that I'm immersed in bona fide S.W. Calgary suburbia, I feel like a martian here. After sorting through this, I've come up with some striking parallels between suburbia and my former neighbourhood, which I've lovingly dubbed the 'T-Cliff.'

1. S.W. Calgary is a mono culture of well-off white people who only speak English and eat meat and potatoes. Honestly, I have not met a single immigrant since living here, and everytime I see a person of colour I'm actually surprised, and I want to run over to them and make friends. And the vast majority of our neighbours are BORING!! They're incredibly predictable; on Saturdays, they get up at 8, put on their $400 mountain biking jackets from MEC, cruise around the Glenmore Resevoir for about an hour, and then go sit in the local Starbucks and talk about their renovations. Don't believe me? Head to Glenmore Landing (90th Ave SW) on a Saturday around noon.

And on the food: seriously, I cannot find a good Vietnamese, Thai or Indian restaurant to save my life here. What is available is miles of Earl's, Kelsey's and Steak Houses, though. Oh, everything also closes at about 9 pm, too. After a night of partying, Nate and I ended up having a $65 cab ride 'cause we spent so much time trying to find a place that was open for a druken snack--we didn't.

Alternatively, the T-Cliffe is a cultural mosaic: tonnes of new immigrants settle in this area that's relatively close to downtown, and people really keep their cultural connections and practices burning in this area. Put it this way: in my elementary and junior high schools, ESL classes were at capacity or more. Down in the SW, most schools don't even run ESL programs. And the white people that did live there were not a monolith: on our street alone, we had a retired farm couple who's wife used to drop the f-bomb on him from the front stoop, a Wiccan couple who home-schooled their three children who decided to become goths at about 12 years of age, a pot-smoking oil executive, an elderly couple who wore matching jogging suits and knew everything about everyone who lived on the street, an ultra-boring geologist couple and their ultra-boring children (they'll probably move to the SW), a crotechty old British woman who threw garden tools at my brother, a Polish Holocaust survivor who made his own shoes, painted his house orange, and built an illegal carport that practically touched my parent's roof (they didn't care), an Italian couple who would get so bombed that the husband would stumble over to the local Safeway and buy his neighbour's steaks if he saw them there, and a Thai couple who started a totally rad restaurant and had karaoke parties with transvestites at them. I'm honestly not making this up: ask Kaitie, who lived on the next street (which would be a whole other post). And, I know of two families who lived in T-Cliff who actually brought HORSES to their homes as pets--yes, HORSES (Kristina--you should tell this story on your blog!).

2. Nobody stays put in the SW. Seriously, EVERYONE who lives here talks about moving on to 'bigger and better.' In our particular spot, we've got plenty of the young and ambitious, who constantly stress about when they're going to get a bigger, fancier place and when. They visit showhomes constantly, and direct conversations around home improvement techniques designed to maximize sale profit, not their own enjoyment.

Alternatively, NOBODY leaves the T-Cliff. No matter how much money someone acquires, or if their occupation moves them to a different part of the city, they do not leave. They paint, renovate, whatever, but they don't go until it's time for a nursing home or they die. And, so many people who I went to school with can still be found there. Case in point: the pot-smoking oil exec wasn't always rich. But once he made the bucks, what did he do? Move to a giant walk-out in suburbia with a bonus room, five piece ensuite and oversize double garage? Fuck no! He stayed in a spot where he could smoke his morning blunt on the stoop in a peaceful, nonstigmatized setting, and he bought the orange house with the illegal carport (the owner moved to a nursing home) for his also pot-smoking and once arrested children, so they too could stay in the T-Cliff. He figured it was the best gift he could ever give them.

I think he was right.

Everything I Needed to Know About Life I Learned from Statistics........

2006-11-02T13:33:00.000-08:00

Well, maybe not everything, but a lot! As I plough through my grad stats course, I feel myself continually needing to connect the practical, concrete concepts I'm learning to broader, more abstract social phenomena. In thinking about this, I've concluded that there are many aspects of statistical analysis that may/can be considered analogous to social life:

1) Relationships are like Pearson's Correlation Coefficients: And I'm not just talking about romantic relationships. ALL relationships may be compared to this magical little statistical measure. You see, the Pearson's 'r' measures the degree of association between two variables, ranging in value from zero to negative or positive 1; a relationship of 1 indicates perfect association between two variables, and zero indicates that there is no assoication. Doesn't this remind you of people you know? There are those rare, beautiful ones that you seem to just connect with so well; you're postive about things that they're positive about, and negative about things that they are as well. If you have strong thoughts on a certain issue, you're almost certain that they'll feel the exact same way. Alternatively, there are those people that I like to personally term the 'Anti-Me.' You know who I'm talking about: those annoying philistines who are your moral juxtaposition, like people who listen to Kevin Federline music because they thinks it's good, not because it's funny. Like a Pearson's r value, your measure of association with these people is at a value of zero--the two of you really have no association. And, finally, there are those ambiguous in-between values that statisticians are still unsure about, asking themselves, "does this equate to a 'moderate' relationship? A weak one?" while continually scratching their heads. These are the people who you occasionally have a fabulous time with, yet they annoy the fuck out of you at the next event. So, the lesson is: Don't get mad about this lack of association. Instead, embrace your perfect 1's, and recognize that the only way you can transform a variable is in a strictly artifical sense that does not accurately reflect reality.

2) Perfect Models Don't Exist in Real Life: As a social scientist rather than a natural scientist, I study statistical data that is based on actual human experience, rather than abstract mathematical concepts. In this, we generate predicitive equations; these equations are the 'models' for our data, which offer the best predicitions of the dependent variable given our set of independent variables. However, our results NEVER perfectly match these models. Rather, they constantly deviate from the model we've predicted, thus making our model a nice idea, but not an actual reality. Thus, I've learned that 'model' anything is just that--a model. So, while we may point to individuals or groups, calling them the 'model family', 'model couple', 'model student' or 'fashion model', I like to take comfort in knowing that they, too, have error terms stamped all over their perfect little facades.

3) People are Like Data Sets: When you work with data sets, you're bound to come across two potential types of errors: random errors and systematic errors. Random errors can be produced by little human mistakes in data entry or question asking during a survey, and pose no serious threat to the end results of your analysis. Alternatively, systematic errors bias your entire analysis. Lesson learned: People are totally like data sets! Many, or probably ALL have random 'errors', or little annoying qualities to them that won't horribly impact the entire product of their life and/or relationships. However, we do come across the occasional douche-bag of a human being who's general stance towards everyone and everything will destroy all that is in her/his wake.

and last, but certainly not least:

4) You Can Only Get So Far With Quantitative Measures: There are some things happening in the social world that can simply not be accurately studied/analyzed using numbers, and thus, qualitative research methods have to be employed. Analogously, in life, we cannot measure our total experience using income, value of the home we live in, the vehicles (or, in the case of Calgary, SUV's) we drive, or any other tangible product that we can know the quantitative value of.

Calgary's Newest Night Life

2006-10-31T20:30:00.000-08:00

So, while having a major lapse of judgement, I decided to go to one of Calgary's 'fabulous' night clubs in order to celebrate Halloween last Friday. Big, big mistake............upon arriving at the door, my male companions were denied entry based on the fact that they were wearing sleeveless shirts and running shoes.....which were part of their HALLOWEEN COSTUMES. So, when we informed the bouncer of this--because I doubted he actually understood this notion implicitly--he tells us, "sorry guys, we simply can't accomodate sleeveless shirts and runners." Ummmm...wtf? Will your club self-destruct if someone touches it's floor with a running shoe, or will a deadly chemical reaction be produced if a man walks through the door without a collared shirt on?

While we eventually did earn entry after the 'manager' (and I use this term sarcastically, so as to convey my incredulousness of the import of his occupation) bestowed us with this incredible gift of entry, it didn't make me feel any better. It completely dawned on me that I live in an incubated little world of leftism, nonjudgement, and value for the most crucial things in life, while so many lived in this narcissistic and empty world of Calgary's club scence, and actually took it really seriously.

So---I've decided to start my own club. And, I will totally deny people entry at the door, but not based on things as arbitrary as clothing choices. Thus, I've laid out a pre-determined set of questions that my hired 'bouncers' will ask potential club-goers:

1. Do you vote? (If answer is no, entry is denied. If yes, proceed to question 2).
2. With what political party do you associate? (If they say conservative, they have to leave).
3. Name your two favourite musical artists (If they name Nelly, Good Charlotte, that dude Jessica Simpson was married to, or Hilary Duff, they cannot come in; alternatively, if they answer Radiohead or Tool, they can be permitted immediate entry).
4. Do you support the tenets of feminism? (If no, they must leave).
5. If you are a postsecondary student, are you attending the Haskayne School of Business at the University of Calgary, or any other program that will eventually lead to attendance there? (If yes, they must immediately leave, and preferably have their identification swiped so that they can be tagged in the future should they attempt to return).
6. Do you drive a Pontiac Grand Prix and think that it's a sports car instead of the family sedan with a spoiler on it that it really is? (I think the response should be clear by now).

If people can get through this brief but pointed mini-screening, they're welcome in my club........I think maybe 5 or so people I know will attend, 2 of which are my parents.

The Inaugural Post

2006-10-31T11:02:00.000-08:00

Hello friends and anonymous people from the internet who've wandered in here! This is my attempt to create an online presence and space, in which I can mouth off about my countless criticisms of the social world. I welcome your comments and discussions....unless of course I disagree with what you have to say.....in that case you can beat it! Just kidding!

-B.