Conservative Wanted for Friendly Conversation, Possibly Coffee

You know, I miss Republicans.

As Rich wrote about, Frank Luntz came to speak last week on campus. One of the things he exhorted us, as college students, to do was to seek out people who have different opinions than us. And he, several times, pointed out that we, as an audience, weren't representative of America.

I know this. And, sometimes, it hurts.

For instance, the typical political conversation in Madison with a typical Madisonian goes something like this:

Person A says something liberal. Person B agrees and something more liberal. Person A nods vigorously and says something even more liberal. One might even say radical. Person B makes wild conspiracy theory. Person A & Person B walk off arm in arm to grab a cool Wisconsin brew.

Ok, so this is slightly exaggerated. But sometimes my experience in the city feels like that. The first couple years I loved it. I grew up in a pretty Republican area (we elected Democrats occasionally, but they were usually pretty conservative Democrats). A lot of my friends from high school were (and still are) Republicans. So being let loose in a liberal town was fantastic.... at first.

But I miss the conversations I used to have with very intelligent, engaged conservatives who had respect for me, and for whom I had respect. There's really something to having your ideas challenged and your beliefs interrogated in a way that is vigorous, but still respectful.

Academic Aspirations

I’ve noticed an interesting change in my own language which may belie an even more interesting change in my hopes/dreams/aspirations/etc. It’s a simple change. Just one word.

“If” has been replaced more and more often by “when.”

What am I talking about? Well, let me back up a bit.

A couple years ago as I was finishing up my undergraduate degree at this fine university, I knew I wanted to go to graduate school. I knew I wasn’t quite done with my education, and a master’s degree at the very least was in my future. What came after that, though, was pretty hazy. I had visions of me working at an embassy or in an NGO. Doing applied work. Because who wants to be stuck in academia forever. I never really dismissed the thought entirely, though. It was always a possibility, sort of, well, lurking in the background.

Occasionally, I talked about “if I become a professor.” Occasionally.

Those occasions started to grow more frequent my first semester of graduate school. I was enjoying teaching. The little bit of research I was doing was exciting. So that “if” statement became pretty frequent.

Towards the end of the semester “if” would every once in a while become “when.” “When I become a professor…”

I noticed lately, though, that the “if” has disappeared almost entirely. That NGO job doesn’t seem so likely, but research and teaching and advising sounds really plausible…and, dare I say…attractive.

Hmm.

Awwwww, ain't that cute.

My tutee moved away. This is sad. Apparently, the prospect of me helping her with math was a little too scary. I understand. Fully.

I did get a new tutee, though, and we had our first session yesterday. We worked on the concepts of “less than” and “greater than” (hey, it’s tougher than you thought!) and counting by fives. My tutee was a math-star out in the hall when no one else was around. Try taking him into the classroom though with all the other kids and he couldn’t concentrate for a second. Really, now, this is starting to sound a lot like me.

In the “funny interactions with kids”-file, he asked me what grade I was in. I said

“I’ve been in school so long that they stopped counting grades.”

This impressed him.

I’m glad it impresses somebody.

The Dangers of Sociological Learning

"To maintain and transmit a value system, human beings are punched, bullied, sent to jail, thrown into concentration camps, cajoled, bribed, made into heroes, encouraged to read newspapers, stood up against a wall and shot, and sometimes even taught sociology" (Barrington Moore, Jr.)


My, my, my. What have I gotten myself into?

I only hope that learning sociology is more like being "encouraged to read newspapers" than being "stood up against a wall and shot."

Oh, that Molly Ringwald was *hot*

Rich & I saw Sixteen Candles last night. Despite both being children of the 80's (ok, so Rich was in Soviet Ukraine for most of the 80's, but anyway...), neither of us had seen the movie before.

Its a lovely little piece of retro fluff, complete with all the trappings of a teen movie -- 80's style. I think I like it better than Breakfast Club even. I particularly liked the presence of not just John, but also Joan Cusack. Man, they played good dorks. The whole cool kid telling the geek to take his girlfriend and have sex with her while she's too drunk to notice wasn't particularly cool. I mean, I know it was the 80's and all, but come on.

I was also puzzled by the repeated usage of the term 'bohunk,' generally preceded by 'greasy.' Rich and I took guesses as to what exactly was meant by that. I thought it was an ethnic slur. And I was right:

Bohunk
(U.S.) a person from east-central Europe, especially a laborer, compound of Bo(hemian) + Hung(arian). Term has been in use since the 1890s.

Thank goodness for Wikipedia!

Carly the Math Tutor?

Whoever thought I'd be a math tutor. I've always had an aversion to numbers. I was never terrible at math. I just never liked it much. I didn't see the point (I'm coming around now, actually. Finally. It only took something like 17 years of education).

But now I'm tutoring a little girl in math. At first I said "oh. math." (in a disappointed voice). But then I realized that this was first grade math. I think that involves, mostly, addition. I think I can handle addition.

Anyway, I was supposed to start today, but my tutee wasn't there. I was really disappointed. I was looking forward to tutoring.

So I came home for nothing.

Well, except The Meat Salad. If you want to know about The Meat Salad, please ask Rich or his slightly-insane carnivorous brother. It's a masculine superbowl thing.

But, actually, it tastes pretty good.

Just a thought...

Dear readers,

I present for you the following quote:

"The differences between quantitative and qualitative traditions are only stylistic and are methodologically and substantively unimportant. All good research can be understood -- and is indeed best understood -- to derive from the same underlying logic of inference" (King, Keohane & Verba 1994, p. 4)

Wo-hoo. Karaoke Tonight!

I like karaoke.*

*By the way, someone told me I had too many footnotes in yesterday's entry in my own blog. As punishment for daring to criticize my baby** I'm writing the bulk of this entry in a footnote. I even put footnotes in my footnotes. Sneaky, eh? Also, while we're on the subject of footnotes, I'm of the firm opinion that, unless someone is being punished, footnotes should take up no more than half the page. This rule was repeatedly violated in a book I just read. In fact, I think the footnotes, put together, were actually longer than the entire text of the book. At least it seemed that way. Occasionally, the footnotes took over more than 3/4 of the page*** I consider this unacceptable. And so I didn't read the footnotes. If you want me to read something, put it in the darn text. Of course, that means I don't want anybody to actually read this blog entry. Except the "I like karaoke" part. Which is true, by the way. I do like karaoke.

**As in, my blog. Not an actual baby. Rich has told you already, we don't have any babies

***Sort of like Rich has taken over this blog of late. Psh, three entries in a row.