The good:

1. I now have a Wii, WiiFit, Super Smash Brothers, and Wii Sports (I love me that baseball).

The bad:

1. I have made no progress this summer on revising my thesis for publication and the journal submission date is 08/01.
2. I also haven't started packing for the move that we'll be making next month.

The ugly:

1. I was diagnosed with insulin resistance, on top of my polycystic ovaries. Joy.
2. My sister-in-law died earlier this week.

It's been a good week.

In other news: 20 Best (And Worst) Pets in Science Fiction

Today is the last day of the intercession course I'm TA'ing for: Men and Women in Contemporary Society (i.e., sociology of gender). As you can imagine, shoving 40-50 freshmen and sophomore college students into a classroom for two hours a day, five days a week, when trying to teach about concepts graduate students in sociology have trouble with (such as social constructionism) is a challenge, to say the least. I actually really enjoy it, despite the mind-numbing.

But teaching a course in either gender or 'Race and Ethnic Relations in the U.S.' also exposes some incredible things drilled into their brains. Such as this year:

1. "Abortion is still legal?" -- from a woman
2. "I don't think we look at the world by gender. I don't see 'men' or 'women,' I just see people." -- from a man
3. "Technology and gender have nothing to do with each other!" -- from a man

I was actually pleasantly surprised by how few 'omgwtf!!!' comments came up this year. Last year there were at least ten.

While this year's comments only reached about a third of last year's, I find the ideologies behind them troubling.

First, yes, I have trouble believing it too, but there was a young woman in the class who honestly didn't know that abortion was still legal in the U.S. And despite my disbelief, I can actually sort of see where she's coming from. Abortion is still legal, sure, but our rights to access abortion providers are getting slimmer and slimmer. That's if a woman isn't too scared of the protesters that might be lurking around, shoving signs in her face, calling her terrible names, or even killing the doctors that provide the service. So it frightens me a little that young women honestly may not know that they even have the legal right to an abortion anymore.

Second, well, this one's a hard one. It's the myth of the modern age: that we've moved past racial and gender prejudice, that we've evolved beyond discrimination, that we live in a meritocracy where physical appearance no longer matters. This is not true. This is so not true I don't even know where to start debunking with students, if only because a world where people were judged on ability or merit or anything but race/gender/class/etc. would be place we want to live in. But the truth is that stratification exists and to deny that is to deny not only reality, but the very real and very painful experiences of a number of people.

And third, how can technology and gender have nothing to do with each other! Technology is both marketed in stereotypically gendered ways (pink phones, laptops, ipods) and used as an excuse to discriminate and segregate women and people of color! (Oh, women/poc don't go into scientific/tech fields because they're bad at science/math! There's nothing wrong with our school systems! Nothing at all!)

Whatever.

On the other hand, teaching means getting to show them Lars and the Real Girl the last day of class and get a good laugh out of their expressions and commentary.

BioWare, you just -- I hate you. I really really do.

Hurry up with Mass Effect 2 and The Old Republic and we'll be good again, promise.

Speaking of games, I finally sat down this weekend and started playing Persona 4. I'm about to start the video game dungeon, which I find hilarious. On the other hand, the level grinding necessary is annoying and having 5 stats to level instead of 3 is troublesome, especially since there's not good consistent "cheats" to do that like praying at the shrine or the meals/karaoke/etc. in P3. The mystery is a little less compelling too, but I like the characters so I'm sticking it out.

Anyone got any good gendered tech? I'm lecturing on gender and technology on Friday. So there's internet mail-order brides, sexting, cyberstalking, USB vibrators, the dystopian/utopian views of the internet, real dolls. What else might be good to cover? (For the record, I've got two hours.)

Tonight I'm watching a documentary about the Lady Juliana. Highly recommended.

So, you could probably assume from my subject line that I just got home from seeing Terminator Salvation. The future is here and apparently it isn't pretty. (Don't worry, I'll cut when I actually get to spoilers. Promise.)

First, I need to talk a little about my relationship with the Terminator franchise as a whole. Terminator was the story of a man sent back in time to save a woman from evil machines out to kill her for the baby she will eventually be having. There's a lot going on here: a) the prince to the rescue, b) images of woman as baby factory, and even c) pregnancy = DEATH (see also Aliens, ironically also done by James Cameron and starring Michael Biehn as the male lead). So, you could definitely argue some latent misogyny going on here.

Then Cameron and Gale Anne Hurd (who wrote Terminator) gave us something completely unusual in what should have been a basic flashbang blow shit up scifi flick: they gave us Sarah Connor.

In the beginning of the movie, Sarah's all of 22. She works as a waitress, goes nightclubbing with her roommate at night. She's worried about finding a boyfriend, not about the fate of the world. Not exactly someone you'd expect to grow up to be a threat to the machines (yes, I use "grow up" deliberately). But we can see her maturing even through the course of the movie. Where, in the beginning, she has to rely on Kyle Reese (one of my all time favorite male characters) to survive, she learns from him and doesn't actually need to be rescued. She uses her brain and survives without Reese's help, killing the Terminator for good on her own.

And, of course, losing the man she'd come to love (and coincidentally fathered her baby, whoops! Forgot the condom!).

In Terminator 2: Judgment Day, we see Sarah has evolved even more since 1984. She's tough, she's badass, she's learned how to survive and, more importantly, how to fight. She knows what's coming now and does what needs to be done to prepared both herself and John for the future. They have the skills they need.

If I had to name two of the strongest movie women of all time, I'd say Ellen Ripley and Sarah Connor.

In Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, Sarah is dead of cancer and we have a new female lead to watch: Kate Brewster. Kate's evolution follows that of Sarah's, I think, in that Kate starts out concerned with her domestic situation (i.e., getting married). By the end of the movie, she's practically dragging John around behind her as they try to escape from the TX and stop Judgment Day from ever happening (they fail, if you were curious).

Which brings us to:

( Terminator Salvation, where it's totally bros before hoes. )

Overall, I thought this was a popcorn movie. It was fun while it lasted, but I won't be buying the DVD, I won't be seeing it again in the theater, and I probably won't be remembering the plot when I wake up tomorrow. What shallow and hole-filled plot there was. Definitely a 2 out of 5 on my scale, and that's really only because I thought Anton Yelchin was adorable. Also, explosions pretty.

Now I'm more sad that Sarah Connor Chronicles was canceled. I hate to think Terminator Salvation is what a generation of kids are going to grow up with to represent one of the franchises that practically got me started in science fiction.

Props to Sherman Alexie (and Crazy Horse) for that quote.

Day four of intercession class is today. Got to tell you I'm looking forward to Monday as a day off.

I also have a new office, with only one office mate (instead of five others).

No, I'm not dead. I also have actual thoughts about the Star Trek reboot. In the meantime, until I have spare time, uh, tomorrow? I present Carol Burnett does Star Trek:

Power is up, no internets, except for on campus. Woe is me.

Oh well, plenty of time to catch up on my gaming!

(Late) posts about Dollhouse, SPN, and other stuff that aired over the last two weeks that I'm probably going to be watching over the weekend coming soon.

God, it feels good to be able to charge electronics. saeva and I have been without power since the "inland hurricane" hit southern Illinois. We live in one of the hardest hit counties, so we've been dark since Friday afternoon and will probably be dark for a while yet. They haven't even cleared the debris off our street, let alone set an Ameren truck our way. I figure even when we get power, it'll be a week after that before the cable is up and running (and thus either TV or internet).

The SIUC campus, on the other hand, has power, so I'm making use of my time here to charge my laptop, cell phone, DS, and ipod while I finish up grading.

I'll check in again later. With pictures, even! You can see the devastation around our house first hand! Also, possibly, deer!

Not that this should surprise anyone, but they gave Bones all the best one liners.

( Click here for full spoilery review of the Star Trek reboot )

Oh, man, my graduation is in twelve hours. I should go to bed.

Heading up to Springfield today for education lobby day. If you're in the area, you should descend on the capital too and support the Illinois government actually funding our ailing educational system. Shocking concept, I know.

My students' take home final is also due today, so tomorrow will be grading and cleaning. Or cleaning and grading. I don't entirely know which one yet. And depending on the timing, a showing of Star Trek. I'm scheduled to have dinner with my grandparents tomorrow night, so!

Friday morning is graduation, Friday afternoon after my relatives leave may be more cleaning. Or the Star Trek showing.

Saturday and Sunday! Cleaning!

...I like to clean in spurts. It all gets done, of course, but I do a bit at a time, take a break, do a bit more.

Apparently, there's something of a brouhaha over the copyright of comments of lj posts and DW's giving users the ability to import both posts and comments. This seems, I don't know, I don't want to say silly? Maybe specious? I suppose I see the argument as a non-starter because blogging software (particularly webhosted software like Movable Type or Wordpress) has been offering this sort of thing for ten years now. I get the privacy and control concerns, if only because the commenter could potentially lose a chance to control by editing or deleting their words. Something that has, hey, happened on the internet for years as well. Anytime you post something on someone else's space, whether that's webspace, blogging software, archive, and so forth, you potentially lose control over that content because you are implicitly giving control to the other person. I shudder to think of all the stuff I posted way back when I was first getting on the internet in the early 1990s that had my real name linked with it. Not just my first name, the way I do now, but my full name. Some of that stuff still comes up when you google my name, to my horror, since potential employers will do just that. Worse is that several of those sites that were started in 1994-1996-ish are still on the web, but are defunct. No one updates, the email links are all broken.

I'm not trying to minimize the concerns of people who don't like the idea of their comments being imported (see metafandom for links and comment on those posts directly, if you want, because I don't want to force them to "use" DW for comments if that's their objection). As much as I think blogs/LJs/etc. are a collaborative process, in the end, the content is majorly controlled by the site owner/original poster. So in some ways, I see this as attempting to lock the barn door after the horse ran away years ago. The only way to really control the content you post on the internet is by never posting anywhere but on your own space, and even then people can still cut, paste and reprint.

As a side note, if comment migration is an issue, how do people feel about research quoting from online communities and blogs? Identification as a researcher is necessary, from most IRBs, but beyond that anything is carte blanche? The researcher should attempt to contact every person they take quotes from for permission (just like researchers publish after getting permission to quote from other researchers - not!)? Never quote from a "dead journal," because that person could presumably never give permission? What are the ethical standards you all would set?

Today on the way to the train station, I saw 3 stormtroopers, Darth Vader, Greedo, and Iron Man walking down the street. They were being filmed by what I think was Grand Moff Tarkin. They were across the street and we were late to drop someone off, so I didn't get a chance to stop and ask.

On break from my meeting. Then back to the train station to wait for the 6:15PM train.