Today was lame. I didn't teach because I woke up feeling really nauseous; initially I thought this was perhaps food poisoning, but I've since concluded dehydration/heatstroke may have been more what was going on. Really annoying in any case since I had to cancel both class and my office hours, which means having to rework what would have amounted to a week's worth of class in Fall/Winter semester (Spring/Summer being compressed) and needing to go in tomorrow to make up for not being available for assignment consultations today. I decided to give my entire class 1 day extra for their assignments to make up for the latter issue though.

At least there is no class Wednesday anyway due to 'reading break.' Hopefully I can get some extra work done with a few days off, although today I did nothing except finish reading The Stand since I was too dazed/spaced-out/etc. to write or do other such things. (We don't start talking about The Stand until next week anyway, but it still crossed my mind that having to cancel a class in which I was supposed to discuss The Stand, because I was sick, would be slightly ironic. )

In any case, I felt somewhat better later in the day after I drank lots of water and slept some more (hence thinking it was dehydration in the end that was the real problem) but I've still been feeling kind of dizzy and out-of-it, which is frustrating considering how much I 'could be' doing. Hopefully it will be gone by tomorrow, or at least better enough for me not to have the hesitations about driving that I was feeling today.

In other news, but still in connection with the 'for fucksakes' category:

Chimera is the last Thursday of the month. That means look at the bottom of the calendar and find the closest Thursday to it. Y'know, like the term 'last' sort of implies??

i.e. the 31st of July, as I said both on the Chimera website and on my myspace status, not the 24th as I've been told a few people seem to think. When it first switched to Thursdays, fair enough re: confusion once in awhile, but at this point? Come on people, let's not make this more difficult than it really is.

I wrote a rant last night because I was grumpy, but I got distracted before I could post it, and I figure that may be just as well because some of it was phrased in a manner likely to cause misunderstanding.

That said, a few basic points of it should perhaps still be communicated - more diplomatically and clearly than when I was in the midst of my stress outburst last night - so here's that:

I got a message last night from Soda asking me to DJ tonight. The phrasing of this message, combined with some peoples' myspace status updates and other things I saw/heard yesterday, implied to me that other people had been expected to pass this along to me and figure things out. Now that may or may not be a misunderstanding with Soda's staff. In any case though, the first I'd heard of anything was from D late last night, so I'd been pretty puzzled by people saying on myspace that there was "Datalink at Chimera on Saturday" or some such thing - nonsensical-sounding due to my lack of info - earlier in the day when I was under no such impression.

The problem here is that since nobody had talked to me prior to D's having done so, I cannot, given my current academic pursuits, suddenly drop everything I was expecting to get done this weekend and DJ. Especially since the short notice part of it (one day???) gives no time for promoting the event, plus makes it hard to get door people, plus would mean it's enough of a rush job that I wouldn't want to charge higher weekend cover; if there were no door people, that might even mean a limited capacity to charge cover (and thus get paid) at all. And since I have less money right now than I've probably had in the whole rest of my life, on top of academic stress, there isn't a lot of incentive there to add to my stress further.

One little rant I will permit myself here: I can see this getting twisted around by some people into "Jinx is too full of herself to DJ for free." Y'know what? Given everything I said above - i.e. I am stressed-out and financially-strapped - that is true. If you don't like it, fuck you. I'm not going to apologize for being a 'mercenary,' as if there is some sort of picture of the magnamious subcultural DJ that I am 'failing' to live up to. Lots of DJs won't DJ unless it's for money. Lots of DJs also don't have guest DJs at their events. And lots of DJs do the other X things that I do that certain people disapprove of. I am not obligated to act like other DJs. I do what works for me. Deal with it. Especially since I haven't seen the more judgmental people on these topics supporting the event much anyway, so why would I let what they think affect what I do?

Second little rant: I'd appreciate if people confirmed with me - either contacted me or looked at the Chimera website, which I have always kept updated since setting it up - that I am in fact DJing before throwing the name 'Chimera' around at all. I would have thought, my being the organizer, that this was common sense. Granted, I don't have all the info here, and maybe the 'rumor' is far more limited than I'd worried. Still though, seems like a point worth making from some of what I've seen/heard.

And on that note, third little rant: I will be specifically communicating with one of the facebook admins in the future - the one whom has the least drama and enemies associated with them - to further ensure that events that do happen are communicated and events that are fictional are not. Such is my solution for the problem without getting on facebook myself, which I have many often-repeated reasons for not doing.

I am pointing this out because there are a small minority of people who seem to think that their entitlement to having everyone they know on facebook so that they have more things to click on and feel special, even though they don't talk much to said friends in real life anyway, somehow outweighs my dozen-odd reasons for not wanting to be on there, and therefore are liable to respond to anything I say on this topic with "you should just get on facebook yourself, everyone else is, even ____ is on there now." Equally annoying to me is "Oh but if you turn off x y and z feature, you can avoid ___." Look, if I have to turn off practically everything for it not to annoy me, why shouldn't I just not be on it to begin with?

I feel that facebook is one of those subjects - not unlike say, having babies or zombie-anything - that I've expressed my dislike for often and at length enough that I shouldn't have to put up with people who know my stance still badgering me about it, as if the thing in question is so great to them that they are going to consistently ignore my reasons in their enthusiasm to 'share the joy' with me. If this is closed-minded to you, then go sulk in your little corner about it, because I'm short enough on time of late that I'd rather do other things with what time I have than pretend to indulge you when you are just annoying me. If you think about it, this is probably for the best anyway since then you don't have to waste your own time talking to me about it either.

Teaching has continued to go well. A few highlights and random things worth noting for myself:

• I'm increasingly not caring about occasional awkward moments in front of crowds. I'm aware that, like many introverted professors, I have various 'lecture mannerisms,' e.g. drinking from my water bottle whenever I periodically run out of things to say or lose my train of thought. Whatever though, so do most profs. This particular week I was feeling a bit worse on this front because I find that at 'that time of the month' I have more problems with getting tongue-tied and the like, but I've already decided not to care, so I know it's sure to bother me even less over time.


• I was going to show The Rapture (1991) yesterday, but since Casablanca Video has been selling off their VHS tapes, it turned out they didn't have it any more. So I went to my back-up plan, which was to switch from the topic of "left behind by the Rapture" to "left behind after the end of civilization" more generally, and thus made the class watch a movie I definitely could get ahold of: The Road Warrior. Yay 90 minute car chase! It's surprising how much apocalyptic/academic analysis that movie can bear though, so I may make this a regular part of my course, although I do still want to use The Rapture movie if I can get ahold of my own copy at some point too.


• I find that when I'm teaching, I feel as if being in front of a crowd with everyone paying attention to me, while energizing in some ways, is pretty draining in others. For whatever reason, I've been finding lately that this has detracted from my urges to go clubbing. Between that and the sheer workload of the class, this is why I haven't been at Datalink lately, and may not be so for awhile at that; if I need to prioritize my social time, I'd rather save it for settings in which it's easier to have lengthier conversations with fewer people, as the dance+be-social-butterfly thing just hasn't appealed of late.


• Next up in class, we are reading Stephen King's The Stand. I had thought the extended version was under 200 pages longer than the original, in which case might as well read it, but it turns out actually it is like 400 pages extra. So next time around, we are not reading the extended one. * kicks self for not having checked into this more carefully before. *


• Also re: The Stand: not the best book in the world to be reading while you're waiting around for your doctor appointment and surrounded by coughing people.

All in all then, teaching the course continues to go pretty well. I'm increasingly aware of not getting much of anything done on my research, but I'm hoping that if I really bunker down and get the rest of the course in order ASAP, I'll be able to find more time for that before long. Might help if I socialized slightly less, but hey, I need my decompression time like anyone, so whatever.

Did anyone see the aurora around 2 am tonight? It was probably the most impressive one I've ever seen in Calgary, especially for summer; I have only ever seen the green ones in Saskatchewan in the past, never here before.

A few highlights from the Stampede yesterday:

• I was happy that I found the same folks selling awesome beef jerky in the agriculture building again that we stumbled upon last year.
• I bought a pair of goggles in the Round-Up Centre. Still debating about how I may want to 'decorate' them. Also bought sunglasses that are sturdier than the usual Shoppers' Drugmart / gas station pieces of crap that keep falling apart on me. Thus, as usual I have fulfilled my yearly habit of "find something of surprising subcultural relevance while shopping at the Stampede."
• I was briefly annoyed that our ride on the big ferris wheel was so short, but given how quickly the weather changed after that, it was really just as well.
• I think yesterday is the only time I've been outside and seen, in person, people start running and screaming due to the sudden onset of natural phenomena. Then again, those were some pretty big hailstones, and the sheer amount of sudden rain was nothing to sneeze at either. I have to admit I laughed out loud though at how little time passed between the crowd packing into the closest shelter (Lammle's in our case) and the descent of rain poncho venders.

All in all, had a great time with canticle and hindmost.

canticle and I will be going to the Stampede tomorrow (i.e. Thursday afternoon) around 1, and will probably be on the grounds until around dinner time. Give me a shout if you're interested in joining us.

The plan is for me to also be at tea later as usual.

After spending all of yesterday shut in working on my lecture for today, I was overjoyed that class went as well as it did.

I realized afterward too that a few long-abandoned dreams of my misspent Mansonite youth came true today: I have no doubt the person I was then would have been pretty thrilled to know that now ten years later, here I am teaching classes about the Antichrist in popular culture, thereby giving me the opportunity to browbeat students with shock rock and death metal and so forth.

In other news, I went for my MRI tonight. It was only 15 minutes, of which I'm glad because due to what's wrong with my spine, it is pretty hard for me to lie flat even that long without my one leg becoming super uncomfortable. I didn't find the claustrophobia side of things too bad though; as per what a few people had suggested to me, closing one's eyes helps, but I also found that the sheer fact that there was a breeze through the machine vs. stagnant air was massively helpful.

One thing I found somewhat amusing about the MRI:

Someone had told me that they found the machine noises soothing.

I was thus rather surprised to be handed earphones and warned about loud-and-abrasive noises by the technician.

But then I remembered who the 'someones' were, so it made sense.

There's a particular person I'd meant to send this link to, but then I thought "well, for how much this has benefited me, why not just share it with everyone"?

I've been doing Falun Gong exercises since January. I think over time it has contributed to a massive improvement in my state of mind.

The exercises are pretty easy, and don't take long at all to do (10-15 minutes). I learned them just by watching the videos on this site.

Sure, some of the background philosophy stuff may sound a bit fluffy/new-agey at times, but I've found that the effects of the exercises themselves are every bit as solid as something like Tai Chi or yoga in terms of producing real improvements in the degree of clarity and peacefulness I feel these days. Not doing too bad at all physically either if I do say so myself.

Hope this is of use to some of you. If you want to try it out and/or talk more to those who have tried it, either myself or dave tend to be good choices, and we are at tea most weeks.

Class went pretty well today. I probably have the usual grad student problem of talking too fast when it's something I'm knowledgeable about, but I already get the impression that even those students who were potentially the most lost were motivated to ask questions and to generally stay on top of things. i.e. enthusiasm is good, so no doubt things will only improve as the year goes on.

I'm also amused that I have one Chimera patron in my class. i.e. "Once a month you get to see your professor at her other job wearing 1/3 of what she wears when she teaches." Awesome.

In other news, I misread my MRI date and it's actually next week. Whatever, not like I was 'looking forward' to it.

And last but not least: given the stress I've been under preparing for the course, I'm thinking I'm taking tonight and most of tomorrow off to clear my head prior to re-establishing some saner balance between class work and thesis work.

Some things that have been going on in my life lately:

1. I start teaching my class on apocalypticism in popular culture on Wednesday, July 2. I thought this class was going to have 12-20 people in it, and instead it is full at 35. I'm glad to see such enthusiasm for the topic, but I'm now re-evaulating what I want to do assignment-wise so that the marking isn't too onerous. In any case: the room is probably going to be overflowing as is, so unless it thins out later in the semester, I really can't have anyone extra sitting in.


2. On that same day, I'm going for an MRI. I'm a bit intrigued by the warnings about claustrophobic issues that appear on my info form for it. Anyone had an MRI before want to comment on this? I'm not 'worried' per se, as I'm more agoraphobic than claustrophobic, but just curious. In any case, I hope this will yield info that will help with my spinal issues, as I am getting frustrated with the slow progress of the current physiotherapy + anti-inflammatories combination.


3. My parents are selling their house and moving to the same retirement complex as my grandma and aunt (who moved in together after my grandfather passed away). This is kind of weird for me in that that specific house has been 'home' for the majority of my life. It's not that big a deal in the grand scheme of things since it's not like I live there now, but I still can't help but feel the foundations shaken a little bit over it.

And as for today, earlier I hung out with some of the other grad students at a professor's home in Cochrane.

Every time I go to a professor's home and see that it is full of cool stuff - e.g. unusual-but-nice furniture, paintings, ornamental religious objects from around the world, and the like, which has been the case with every religious studies professor whom I've visited - it makes me happy, since this demonstrates to me that a home full of cool stuff is still possible on a professor's (i.e. my future) salary.