I got a friggin B!

I got a B on this stupid paper. I feel like I slighted myself somehow. The prof said it seems rushed. It was! Everyone of her stupid papers are rushed. I have to read two friggin books a week and then you want me to write on them. Imma have to tell her. I don't understand have the shit in those books. They're talking Foucault and Bauhaus, Marx and whoever else that is white. I'm just tired of it. I don't get it. The class discussions are damn near impossible for me to get a word in edgewise and whenever I do I sound like the other black girl in the class sounds to me. Like I'm making stuff up as I go along. I read, I actually read these books. I'm absorbing it and attempting to apply it somehow, but now I officially feel like a fraud. FAILURE. Yes, I know, it is a "B" but I am NOT a "B" student. I am exceptional. Bottom line. I have to be to compete with these kids because this is history. Not only is it a white world but it's a white man's world, history is, I mean. I'm going to re write the stupid paper and the one I just handed her. Goddammit.

Blue Days

At times I claim to have defeated my greatest enemy. Other times, it just feels so comforting, like an addict I suppose. I'm not blue at the moment, but the other day, I told myself if I would just give in for but a moment, I could pull myself right back out. I said it would make everything feel better. So I did. I told my Sun mommy didn't feel well and needed a nap and if he could just please play in the front and watch TV I would feel better in a moment. Three hours later, I did feel better, my Sun was happy to see me up. I noticed a stool had been pulled up next to the stove and the pan of muffins hubby had left on there before he went to work was empty. The kid had fended for himself. Thank god he hadn't found a need to attempt operation of the oven. I would have had to act on one of many thoughts I had as I drifted into my depression induced sleep had any catastrophe ensued for neglecting my Sun in order to baby my own emotion.

Two Teachers Fight Over a Man in Front of ATL Students

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Why Women have Sex

Fall thus far...

Just wanted to take a moment to get some of my thoughts done. Grad school is becoming potentially stressful for me. I say potentially because I am trying to remain cool about all this. Time management is extremely important. Like now, for instance. If I had a grip on my time, I most likely would adhere to a schedule and do something on that list rather than type in this blog. But I don't. Not that I won't but at the moment, I don't have a set schedule to do things. I have, hiding behind the screen of this open laptop, about 65 or so mid term papers to grade. I also have two abstracts to pull together in order to propose papers for upcoming conferences. I also have two entire books to read by Monday and I've only gotten through ten pages of one thus far. Oh yea. I am meeting with Dick Gregory on Friday morning. I have to prepare to interview him. Oh yea... I am also beginning to work on this photo-historical book my friend and I are "writing." We hope to have our University's press print it. On top of it all is my family consisting of a three year old who I am trying to raise plus my husband with whom I am in the venture of redefining our relationship on our own terms and not that of which society tells us. This is probably the biggest stressor of all because that societal programming is almost like a computer virus that NEVER goes completely away. So this is all that is going on with me. Oh, and, we are having to choose who we will TA with next semester and I have many professors pulling me in different directions. I keep changing my mind. SMH. So, how are you? For real, I care! leave a comment and tell me how you're fall is going thus far, maybe I'll send you something.... For now enjoy this:

Myesterious Things: The 11th Annual Graduate Symposium on Women’s and Gender History

"Mysterious Things”: The 11th Annual Graduate Symposium on Women’s and Gender History

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign / March 4-6, 2010

Submission Deadline: November 1, 2009

The Executive Committee of the Eleventh Annual Graduate Symposium on Women’s and Gender History at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is pleased to announce this call for papers. The Symposium, which is the capstone event of the History Department’s Women’s History month celebration, is scheduled for March 4-6, 2010. To celebrate and encourage further work in the field of women’s and gender history, we invite submissions from graduate students from any institution and discipline. The Symposium organizers welcome individual papers on any topic in the field of women’s and gender history; papers submitted as a panel will be judged individually. Preference will be given to scholars who did not present at last year’s Symposium.

The Symposium Executive Committee is interested in assembling a geographically, temporally, and topically diverse body of papers. This year’s theme, “Mysterious Things,” speaks to a variety of trends that are currently shaping the field of women’s and gender history. This is particularly the case as we march on through a world where things—be they ideas, objects, or some strange mix thereof—continue to delight, baffle, liberate, and ruin individuals, as well as global institutions. Successful proposals could directly explore and build upon the implications of the moment in Marx’s thought concerning commodities, wherein what should become inanimate matter actually assumes a mysterious, yet undeniable kind of life. Proposals could begin to chart out this life in a variety of fields—particularly gender and sexuality—and its
effects upon those with whom it comes into contact. Indeed, gender and sexuality are, themselves, mysterious things, and proposals could also include any work that seeks to expose and demystify their strange functions in the everyday life of people and institutions. We welcome all proposals that seek to examine and interrogate any of the nebulous, enigmatic areas included under the rubric of gender and women’s history. The choice of theme is purposefully broad but provocative, inviting
perspectives and reflections from a variety of temporal, geographical, and inter/disciplinary perspectives.

For this year, the Eleventh Annual Symposium, we are delighted to announce a keynote speaker who engages many of these themes in his work: Kevin Floyd, Associate Professor of English, Kent State University, author of The Reification of Desire: Toward a Queer Marxism (University of Minnesota Press, 2009).

The journal Gender & History will again sponsor a prize for the best graduate student paper presented at the Symposium. Conference presenters will also have the opportunity to publish their work in the on-line proceedings volume. We possess limited resources to subsidize travel expenses for presenters. Giving priority to presenters with limited conference experience, we will allocate these funds based on the quality of presenters’ proposals and the availability of funds.

To submit a paper or panel by email (preferred method); please send only one attachment in Word or PDF format containing a 250-word abstract and a one-page curriculum vitae for each paper presenter, commentator, or panel chair to gendersymp at gmail dot com. The subject line of the email must read "Attn: Programming Committee.” We cannot be responsible for submissions that do not meet these conditions.

To submit a paper or panel in a hard copy format, please send five (5) copies of all abstracts and curriculum vitae to: Programming Committee, Graduate Symposium on Women's and Gender History 309 Gregory Hall, MC 466, 810 S. Wright Street Urbana, Illinois 61801.

For more information, please contact Programming Committee Chair, T.J. Tallie at gendersymp at gmail dot com.