May I say, for the record, that I am sick and tired of hearing people blame everyone except for themselves for certain problems of their own making. The recent housing crunch is due, in large part, to unethical practices it's true. There were lots of people who were given loans that they did not and should not have qualified for, or loans that were not designed for them. The fact that they could get such a raw deal is sad. Beyond that? Where's the personal responsibility? I'd love a house, sure, but I'm not ENTITLED to it. I'm not. I'm not ENTITLED to JACK SHIT, outside of the basic respect and human dignity accorded to every human being on this planet. Beyond that, I make my own way. It's the American myth-- the American dream is not simply that you will have plenty. It is that you can make that plenty yourself.

Why are you owed anything? Why do you think you are entitled to whatever car you want, and whatever house you want, and the designer clothes that you want, and all your petty WANTS? The fact of the matter is that you ARN'T. We are entitled to a right to live-- to live with the ability to chose, the ability to live with the choices we make. We are entitled to all that it means to be human. And guess what? That doesn't mean a mansion, a hummer, designer clothes. We ARE a nation of whiners, folks. For every upstanding, upright strong person there are four people who sit on their asses and BITCH about how they've been given a raw deal. For every person like me, who puts up with shit at work and shit at school and shit at home all in the name of the hope and prayer of a better life, there are the rest of my classmates, who go into debt not because they have to but because they want something shiny. I am the ONLY person who is going into debt for my grad school education out of necessity among my classmates. Every one else is going into more debt then me because they want cars and laptops and new clothes and everything else that they've been told that they absolutely have to have.

Quite frankly, neither candidate supports me. Neither candidate gives a rat's ass about a poor white girl who's got some brains who wants to get somewhere with her life. A lot of Republicans go "Do it yourself, and we won't help you." Democrats go "Sucks to be you, but you're white therefore you must have means therefore we will push you out of the few things that you have to give it to other people." And frankly? I have a shit job, and I barely got my college degree because I'm a poor girl. And you wonder why I hate the ideological politics of today. Because you can blind the many, but the people that you screw will NEVER forgive you. I cannot forgive ANY of the politicians from either side of the aisle that decided that I was not worth it. And quite frankly? It's all of you. The forgotten Americans are few I suppose, but we're still here. We're still your constituency. And we get ignored because we don't matter for your damn schema. I felt like throwing up during the Democratic National Convention. The same will be true of the Republican Convention. For God's sake, why is it so adversarial? If you're not with us you're against us. Sure, great, fine, wonderful, but did you ever think that there are people who are being abandoned to pick up the scraps that fall and you're ignoring them because they arn't vocal enough for your liking?

If I thought I had a public to dissapoint, I would apologize for the long lapses between blog entries. However, I'm fairly certain I don't, so I don't feel the need. Sorry ^_^

Library school kicked off officially this week. I was ready: I had my notebooks, my textbooks, my loose leaf paper, my pens and pencils, and my mind was fairly itching for something more stimulating than the debate over how much ice should really go into a frappucino. And what I got was... underwhelming. Perhaps it's four years of the 'hit the ground running' mentality of Thomas More (The first 200 pages of Dostoyevsky's the Possessed: go) but I find "read the syllabus and post a hello message on the discussion board" to be a waste of an entire week. We only have 14 of them after all.

Outside of all that? The few things that I really truly want to explore I haven't been able to. However, I might be getting a kick start on those, one I don't mind sharing. Since most of you are aware of my Junior Project on James Wilson, I'll spare long winded explanations. Simply put, there are only 2 books that have been written about him. Ever. In the 200+ year history of this country. There are more books about Gouverneur Morris and exactly how well is he known? Not that he doesn't deserve the attention. If you've ever marveled at the simple poetic natrue of the Constitutional Preamble, you can thank Morris for it. My point being, Wilson is largely seen as the author of the Executive and the Electoral College, the second most powerful man at the Constitutional Convention behind Madison, was one of the original Supreme Court justices, spurred the 11th amendment on with a single judicial decision, compiled the first comprehensive overview of American Law, and was the 2nd law professor in the whole COUNTRY. And no one knows who he is. So it has been suggested to me that I write a book about this poor man who's theory was so important and who has been forgotten by history because of the unforgivable sin of wanting to be rememberd and falling into debt through land speculation. It'll take at least 5 years because I'm so piecemeal, but I think I'm going to do it. Nifty, huh?

The things they don't tell you about in school...

Another title for this entry could be "Why Hegemony Matters." If you look up hegemony in the dictionary, you'll like find that it comes from the Greek for leadership, and that it's generally used in terms of parties or countries that are trying to exert power. It's a decent definition, but one that doesn't quite encompass the whole meaning, as I was taught.

Hegemony is much more than leadership. Most of the time, it carries with it a racial connotation, though that's not a "must have." It involves a people who feel they have a right to certain lands, or that certain peoples are in fact part of their people. It's a difficult concept for American's to get their heads around-- small wonder, when our society is so scattered that the idea of not having an overarching identity is heralded as a landmark and the "strength of the nation." Europe has a similar loathing of self, but it's in constant conflict with the very ancientness of the land-- the French, the Germans, the English are all people who have existed in their spots of land for a very, very long time. Those of you who have some familiarity with the time between World War I and World War II will have hint of what I aim for. Many of Hitler's earlier conquests, including the Rhineland and Austria, were achieved because of this idea. Both lands were seen as inherently German-- people, land, culture, language.

However, of all the nations in all the world, perhaps none have such strong ideas of self and hegemony as China and Russia. China I'm leaving out of this particular entry, because it seems that people have finally realized that the Chinese are very much self-determined: they are Chinese, and with that comes race, religion, culture, language and history that directly affects the Chinese psyche of past, present, and future. Hopefully the Olympics will showcase some of the lighter, more awe inspiring moments of Chinese history, and the beauty that still remains in the culture.

Russia, on the other hand, is another story. By now, many of you will have heard that Russia has entered the sovereign territory of the Republic of Georgia, on the night of the Olympic opening ceremonies. This was in response to rebel forces which were attempting to reclaim Georgian territory which they feel is theirs, while maintaining that they are not Georgian. The whole thing is a bit of a mess, but there's one thing that people keep missing. The simple fact of the matter is that NOT everyone thinks like an American. In fact, only Americans think like Americans. We have enough in common with Western Europe that there are usually few problems, but beyond that? Russia is a great country-- they've had culture longer than most, they have their own identity which is totally different than ours. That's not to say it's good or bad, it simply IS. Yet most of the world is going into the situation trying to deal with it like it's just another western country that got a little power hungry. That's not it at all-- it's a matter of culture, and place, and language, a yes a touch of race. It is something that we can't ever really understand. I've studied English culture and law and myth. That doesn't mean I understand it like someone who was raised in it, who has indisputable blood ties to the very core of understanding that exists within it.

As an analogue that more of my audience is likely to understand, I offer you... the cowboy. Who outside of America understands the American symbol of the cowboy loping over the hills, the "up by your bootstraps" mentality? To them it's John Wayne-- realistically, John Wayne just did it best for film. That idea, that lone wolf help others mentality is old, as old as the country itself. And you don't have to be a genius to figure out that the rest of the world doesn't get it. They have no reason to. That's why it's the "American myth" not the "Human myth." Does it participate in the human myth? Sure. The same is true of Russia. Almost more than you'd think-- 3rd Rome is part of both of our psyches. Along with that goes a whole lot more that is inherently Russian.

I have pride in my country, I do. Despite the fact that I'm taught I must loathe it, despite the fact that there is a lot worth loathing, I have affection and pride for my country. Russia was told by the world to loathe the USSR. Loathe it I'm sure they did. But the USSR wasn't Russia, not really. So how exactly does one deal with a people who have a wholly unique psychic understanding of themselves? It isn't by appealing to the things that the West holds dear. Russia is neither west nor east-- they are Russia. It's just the way it is.

The end is just the beginning...

So they say at least. As of 2pm today, I'm done with the face to face portion of IRLS 504, "Librarian Boot Camp." Most of my graduating classmates are winding down summer, or working. Summer has been over for me since before it began. I spent the early part of my summer fighting to get into grad school, then working to make enough money to go to grad school. And my grad school started in July. It's both good and bad. My prgram requires twice as many credits as the average Master's program. So you can see that I'm feeling a little...overaught, especially when reminded of the great summers had by all the people I know. I'm trying to overcome that, but it's just not working.

On the other hand, I haven't got time to feel sorry for myself, or really thinkg about anything above the basic automoton level. It's a rough way to say goodbye to your youth: running from undergraduate level stuff to a professional graduate program full of people who lived it up when they were your age. Granted that's why they're there at their age and not my age. Still...but no.

504 was fun, packed as all get out, but fun. I'm glad that I'm done with it, because the whole thing was sort of like 3/4 of the JP semester crammed into one week. However, I now know that there is such a thing as metadata, that cataloging is NOT the career of choice these days if you want to actually be in a library, that public librarianship is big but you can only really catch a break if you enter as a children's librarian (and really, how many of those do you need in one branch?), that I have an odd ability to be a smartass and therefore show up people twice my age (whoopsy), and that this program is more disorganzied then almost anything TMC attempted.

Notes from the trenches...

So I have 10 minutes until the afternoon lectures commence, and it's the first chance in two weeks that I've had a moment to blog.

I have found a new restaurant in Tucson that is worth the trip down here all by itself. It's an English pub called Frog and Firken and it's amazing. Google it.

Music libraries? Have no standard of cataloging and classification. The section that's not accounted for in the schemes? Recordings. Yes, you heard me, there's no room for recorded music in the music classification scheme.

I'm doing my issues paper on filtering, rather then my chosen topic, which apparently was too forward thinking. Look for my old topic to appear often in this space in the future.

I'm amazed that no one in class this morning could/wanted to define what the purpose of a catalog is. Oy.

I'm done on Thursday!!!! Back to Phoenix I go, armed with some new knowledge, but mainly the experience of a 'real live university.'