(no subject)
It's International Blog Against Racism week, a.k.a.
ibarw, from August 4 through August 10.
If you'd like to participate, here's what to do:
For inspiration, here are the previous years' IBARW posts
and last year's POC in SF Carnival IBARW edition. You can also check out this post or delicioused recommended reading
for further resources.
For the moment, here's a link to a good piece (that seems relevant to the U.S. election rhetoric) by Tim Wise. I hope to come up with something of my own before the week is up.
Clearly I'm not doing the user icon, mostly 'cause I refuse to be so hardcore as to make my only icon one for IBARW and don't really have the time to set up multiple icons right now.
Today was the Open Apartments טיול (field trip). We went to Mini-Israel, where the kids were way more interested in the water slides than in seeing miniature versions of Israel's sites, and to the Soreq Stalactite Cave, where I think they might actually have learned something (and even if they didn't it was pretty darned cool). I have to say, though, that I think the highlight of the trip for me was seeing a mom* try to get her toddler to pee into a bottle on the bus** (ah, schadenfreude).
Late last night (seriously, in my final email-check before bed at nearly 1 in the morning) I got an email from the person I'd planned to live with next year (based on her asking, "Are you still interested with the rent at x" and talking about plans to find a third roommate) saying, "Actually, a couple people from my program have a spare room so I decided it'd be easier to do that instead of finding a third roommate" (I'm being snarky, it was more miscommunication than her being flat-out flaky). So anyway, searching for apartments last night wasn't a great option given that I needed to be at the community center to head out with the kids at 8:30 this morning, but after getting back I started searching. While still nervous, I'm not long "Ack, going to be homeless!" levels of freaked-out-ness 'cause it was at least somewhat successful - I'm going to visit one place tomorrow morning before heading up to Tel Aviv and called another place (well, called a bunch of places, but this one is still looking) and will visit there Wednesday.
In the meantime, my adviser wrote back this morning (I don't know whether to be scared or frightened by how on-the-ball he is...) asking me to send him a couple sentences summary of each of the sources I've read through thus far (basically that means going through my notes and pulling the main points). So I've done that for one of the fourteen, and I'd really like to do something on it tomorrow so am leaning strongly against going to Jerusalem after Tel Aviv. So while there's no guarantee that I'll have an apartment by the end of Wednesday, I think my goal is going to be to finish that.
Oh, right, and the university decided to charge me regular tuition for next year instead of "just doing a thesis" tuition, but did so in a bill that didn't identify itself. So given that I'm expecting the bill from the university for the second chunk of the year's electricity (and am a bum so haven't paid my bill for the first chunk of the year), I freaked out a bit wondering if we'd somehow used ten times as much electricity in the winter versus the fall. After realizing that it would have been impossible to wrack up a bill that big, I emailed my program and got a message this afternoon (left while I was in the cave) explaining what happened (I <3 my program's administrative assistant, who in addition to being awesome generally, figured out what happened and got back to me within twenty-four hours of my sending the email). Anyway, adding to my sense of running around like a headless chicken, I now need to at some point visit the accounts office, yell at them to change my bill, and pay my actual tuition for next year as well as my electricity bill (which together will be about 800 shekels as opposed to the 3700 on the original bill).
Then, having actually looked up the location of a movie rental place rather than asking around, Thursday I hope to actually do the "Israeli movie night" I've been thinking about doing for a few weeks, which'll should be a nice end to a hectic week (and clear my head to try for something coherent for IBARW :)). Whee?!
* Children under five are only allowed if they have a parent, and I guess this mom figured since she was sending her other two kids she might as well come with the baby, too. I think life would have been easier for everyone involved if she'd stayed home with him 'cause the older girls wound up being harder to manage because of her behavior, but it was alright overall (and the toddler is super cute).
** This was about ten minutes away from returning to Beer Sheva and only ten minutes after we'd pulled over to the side of the road and announced that it was be the last potty break. Of course, neither of those is particularly relevant for a toddler, but we were also on a highway so couldn't safely pull over, so handed his mom an empty water bottle.
ibarw, from August 4 through August 10.
If you'd like to participate, here's what to do:
- Announce the week in your blog.
- ETA: If you use a blogging system that allows post icons/pictures, switch your default icon to either an official IBARW icon, or one which you feel is appropriate. To get an official IBARW icon, you may modify one of yours yourself or ask someone to do so. Here's a round up of IBARW icons*.
- Post about race and/or racism: in media, in life, in the news, personal experiences, writing characters of color, portrayals of race in fiction, review a book on the subject, etc. (Linking back here is highly appreciated!) The optional theme this year is intersectionality.
For inspiration, here are the previous years' IBARW posts
and last year's POC in SF Carnival IBARW edition. You can also check out this post or delicioused recommended reading
for further resources.
For the moment, here's a link to a good piece (that seems relevant to the U.S. election rhetoric) by Tim Wise. I hope to come up with something of my own before the week is up.
Clearly I'm not doing the user icon, mostly 'cause I refuse to be so hardcore as to make my only icon one for IBARW and don't really have the time to set up multiple icons right now.
Today was the Open Apartments טיול (field trip). We went to Mini-Israel, where the kids were way more interested in the water slides than in seeing miniature versions of Israel's sites, and to the Soreq Stalactite Cave, where I think they might actually have learned something (and even if they didn't it was pretty darned cool). I have to say, though, that I think the highlight of the trip for me was seeing a mom* try to get her toddler to pee into a bottle on the bus** (ah, schadenfreude).
Late last night (seriously, in my final email-check before bed at nearly 1 in the morning) I got an email from the person I'd planned to live with next year (based on her asking, "Are you still interested with the rent at x" and talking about plans to find a third roommate) saying, "Actually, a couple people from my program have a spare room so I decided it'd be easier to do that instead of finding a third roommate" (I'm being snarky, it was more miscommunication than her being flat-out flaky). So anyway, searching for apartments last night wasn't a great option given that I needed to be at the community center to head out with the kids at 8:30 this morning, but after getting back I started searching. While still nervous, I'm not long "Ack, going to be homeless!" levels of freaked-out-ness 'cause it was at least somewhat successful - I'm going to visit one place tomorrow morning before heading up to Tel Aviv and called another place (well, called a bunch of places, but this one is still looking) and will visit there Wednesday.
In the meantime, my adviser wrote back this morning (I don't know whether to be scared or frightened by how on-the-ball he is...) asking me to send him a couple sentences summary of each of the sources I've read through thus far (basically that means going through my notes and pulling the main points). So I've done that for one of the fourteen, and I'd really like to do something on it tomorrow so am leaning strongly against going to Jerusalem after Tel Aviv. So while there's no guarantee that I'll have an apartment by the end of Wednesday, I think my goal is going to be to finish that.
Oh, right, and the university decided to charge me regular tuition for next year instead of "just doing a thesis" tuition, but did so in a bill that didn't identify itself. So given that I'm expecting the bill from the university for the second chunk of the year's electricity (and am a bum so haven't paid my bill for the first chunk of the year), I freaked out a bit wondering if we'd somehow used ten times as much electricity in the winter versus the fall. After realizing that it would have been impossible to wrack up a bill that big, I emailed my program and got a message this afternoon (left while I was in the cave) explaining what happened (I <3 my program's administrative assistant, who in addition to being awesome generally, figured out what happened and got back to me within twenty-four hours of my sending the email). Anyway, adding to my sense of running around like a headless chicken, I now need to at some point visit the accounts office, yell at them to change my bill, and pay my actual tuition for next year as well as my electricity bill (which together will be about 800 shekels as opposed to the 3700 on the original bill).
Then, having actually looked up the location of a movie rental place rather than asking around, Thursday I hope to actually do the "Israeli movie night" I've been thinking about doing for a few weeks, which'll should be a nice end to a hectic week (and clear my head to try for something coherent for IBARW :)). Whee?!
* Children under five are only allowed if they have a parent, and I guess this mom figured since she was sending her other two kids she might as well come with the baby, too. I think life would have been easier for everyone involved if she'd stayed home with him 'cause the older girls wound up being harder to manage because of her behavior, but it was alright overall (and the toddler is super cute).
** This was about ten minutes away from returning to Beer Sheva and only ten minutes after we'd pulled over to the side of the road and announced that it was be the last potty break. Of course, neither of those is particularly relevant for a toddler, but we were also on a highway so couldn't safely pull over, so handed his mom an empty water bottle.