Six Digits

As of today, 116k + views of my Google + page.  Which in the real world, doesn't quite add up to anything. Google + by all measures has proven to be a bust, and Blogs have now been relegated to shelf space somewhere above a News Forum, but far beneath a 6-second Vine.

I am OK with this development given how this has always served for me, an avenue that resembles more like a Journal entry than a public space for mass consumption.  Might I have been more prolific and written more entries that documented my life these past few years? Sure, but writing for the sake of writing hasn't been as compelling as it used to be.

Nevertheless, here we are, close to a year since my last post... which serves more as a reminder of the seemingly meteoric speed of time passing than anything else.

What's on my mind?

A vacation.

A couple of friends commented on how lucky I was to be able to travel. Strangely, I felt it necessary to correct them. "Luck? It's not luck. I worked hard, saved money, and am traveling. "Still, you're lucky to get to travel." "Why? I purposely picked a career that allows me to take time off..."

They weren't convinced.

So what is luck?

To answer this question, I went to Google. Which naturally led me to Wikipedia where I found this:

"The definition of luck (or chance) varies by philosophical, religious, mystical, or emotional context of the one interpreting it; according to the classic Noah Webster's dictionary, luck is "a purposeless, unpredictable and uncontrollable force that shapes events favorably or unfavorably for an individual, group or cause".^[1] Yet the author Max Gunther defines it as "events that influence one's life and are seemingly beyond one's control.""

Accordingly, or rather, denotatively, I am correct in my initial reaction. A vacation is not a product of uncontrollable forces... but that of appropriate planning.

Which now has me thinking... what are we really saying when we comment on someone else's seemingly stroke of luck?

You get to do something that I don't get to do. Something is happening to you that doesn't happen to me. 

In a sense, calling someone lucky is to remove their agency. That what happened was not of their doing. Which brings us back to the original question... so what IS luck?

Luck is happening upon a dollar bill. Unless you put yourself at a certain location where you know people lose their change. 

Luck is turning your head and spotting a friendly face in an unexpected place.  Unless you've secretly been stalking someone and you HOPE they turned up at this location. 

... then I remembered reading in different places where people described luck as "preparation meeting opportunity."

And so back to Google I went, and found this.

Leave it to Harvard Business Review to give me a run for my money... 

In Retrospect

The lady looked at us and said, "let's pause for a moment and open  up the discussion, if any one of you would like to say something about how you feel about this issue, I'd invite you to so!"

I paused, thought of what I wanted to share, and raised my hand.

I opened my mouth. Stuttered, tears spilled over and I became so choked up no other words came out except for "Oh I'm so sorry... please excuse me a minute..."

The room grew deadly quiet as the moderator tried to comfort me, everyone stared. It was not how I had imagined it in my head.

~~~

So on a whim, and looking to make some extra cash, I spotted an ad on Craigslist for an Asian-American Focus Group that required two hours of time on a Saturday, paid $50 and food would be provided. Never one to turn down food, I called the listed number. The woman over the phone asked me questions to make sure I matched the profile, and then asked a series of questions that provided clues to the nature of the focus group, without explicitly telling me what it was. She wanted to find out where I stood on social issues, and whether I'd be open-minded about hearing from those who stood on the other side. "Of course!" I said, "I would LOVE to hear their argument."

That Saturday came, and I found my way to a nondescript building in Pasadena, and met others who'd responded to the ad. There were only 7 of us, all Asian-American women and between the age range of 21-early 30's. Most were still in school, with the oldest being an attorney.The moderator, a kind-looking woman in her 40's handed each of us a stack of papers, I quickly flipped through the pages and enjoyed an inner chuckle and a swell of confidence. It appeared we were going to be discussing marriage equality today.

Now marriage equality, those words hadn't meant too much to me 5 years ago. I'd no real ties to the LGBT community, but 5 years ago I attended my first rehearsal with Vox Femina Los Angeles, an all-women choral ensemble whose focus was on giving women of all backgrounds, sexual orientation, voice. Following the two and a half hours long rehearsal, a friend of mine who'd joined the group with me that season, she and I walked to the parking lot, and in hushed tones, put our heads together and giggled, "sooo... who do you think was a lesbian?"

Looking back, and knowing what I know now, the way we looked at our now-friends then almost resembled how one would imagine an exotic species of animal. It was our first encounter with a group of grown women, some of whom were lesbians, and there was a very human reaction of being uncertain of the unknown, a curiosity. My friend and I had cast the women as "they". The "lesbians". We scratched our heads and wondered who was "butch" and who was "lipstick," terms we'd learned from the media and who knows where else.

Aided by a shared love of music, the process of becoming one with the group was ginger, slow, and organic. Until one day, the mystical "they" were just my friends. They saw me grow from a 25-year-old not-quite-sure-who-I-am into "yes, I am a woman." They were my friends who experienced the same joys, heartache, illnesses, unnecessary drama as any of my other friends.They were my friends who taught me how to be friends with women.

Without knowing I'd done so, I'd arrived at my focus group with the women in Vox by my side. They were there when I answered every question, when I abruptly burst into tears as I tried with my might to share their stories. The incredible women with their incredible families.  Women, who even with strong support systems, have had to wait for their turn at the altar.  My friends are young, my friends are old, my friends defy every stereotype that I had in my mind when I first met them.  My friends are women, personified.

~~~

The panel ended soon after that. I left, drained.

Later, I felt an enormous sense of relief, as if I'd passed a test. My tears somehow assured me that what I felt for my friends were genuine, that my pursuit of equality for my friends was on the right course...

I told this story in a class, more tears were shed, but my professor found my tone preachy. I understand... but I'm glad I did it. I will keep telling their stories because whereas I found a cause, my friends have lived it. They continue to live it. Everyday.


[Drafted in 2011, posted 11/14/14]

We're up to 31,000...!

Creepy...!  Must figure out who is looking, and what they/you are looking at...!

In the meantime, here's some food for thought --- a brief introduction into what's been twirling in my head, before I fully hop onto my soapbox. 

Oftentimes I see memes or posts on social media and credible sites with this tagline: "What Other People Think of Me is None of My Business."

Go ahead and try it, type that in under Google images and you'll find that Coco Chanel's been quoted as having said this, as has Dr. Wayne Dyer, the self-help guru, as has Simon Cowell, just for good measures. From my search I also found that it's a title of a book that was published in 1988, which I now feel obligated to buy a used copy to see if I can understand the original intentions.  This way I can find out if it does lie in contradiction to what we then do upon others when it comes to relationships, which is to assert our wants and expecting the other to modify their behavior to suit ours.  It seems a double-standard... and I hate double-standards. 

Think for a second. If both people in the relationship truly believed in this idea that we should fully embrace who we are, and love ourselves, our minds, bodies, flaws, strengths, etc. which is the essence of this saying... does it not fly in the face of other self-help, motivational and relational coaches who speak of the need to assert oneself by voicing our needs and articulating these thoughts to our partners?  Are we not expecting our partners to acknowledge what we've said, and beyond that, to then make appropriate adjustments?  In other words, try reversing the roles. If your loved one speaks to you earnestly about something they felt with regards to your actions or words having a certain influence, are you so sage that you say to them, "Thank you for bringing them to my attention, I will take them into advisement..." and... that's it?  It's either my business or it's not is what this the tagline is telling me... but isn't it at least KIND OF my business?  Especially if I am potentially unintentionally being inconsiderate or thoughtless? Is it not possible that I AM capable of having flaws? Can I NOT feel complimented if what they think of me is positive?  

I am no cynic, nor am I anti-self-help-like things... but the simplification of these ideas drive me just a teeny bit crazy. 

Thus, food for thought. More on this later. I also don't want to be accused of simplifying something that could be more complicated than what I've synthesized in one paragraph.

Have a good weekend. :) 

29,840 views and counting...

What.

There are 29,000+ users on Google+?

Who's looking at my page? 

Are YOU looking at my page?

Who ARE you....?  :) 


So yes, color me surprised when I saw that I had that many views of my Google+ page. 
It's rather odd to think that while I am open to posting my thoughts on this particular format, 
that there are actually those who might actually read this.  

Anyhow, I've a real entry that I'm marinating on, and it deals with this idea of 
"What others think about me is none of my business," that I hear thrown around.
I've some thoughts about this and other fun self-empowering quotations so will get to it very, 
very soon. 

For now I'll simply say, drop a line in the comments section if you DO happen upon this entry. 
Would like to know when and if I'm having a conversation, as opposed to simply a monologue.

Have a good one! Take care of yourself! Smile!

2:14am we meet again

Tempted to begin a new blog titled, "Chronicles of Higher Teaching: Accounts of a Freeway-Flyer." 

The reality of adjunct teaching finds one commuting between multiple campuses in order to have enough teaching assignments to qualify as working full-time. However, that distinction doesn't carry an overwhelming amount of weight since individual campuses calculate its own course load... so full-time just means you're REALLY BUSY without the benefits of those who are actually full-time faculty members. Chuckle. 

For one who has historically been a bit of a commitment-phobe when it comes to employment, I am perfectly content working semester-to-semester, or only part-time, if it means I have extra time to pick up another 4 hobbies. However, once I commit, I am COMMITTED. So students, if you're reading this, fear not, like I said in class, I'm here to make sure you get your money's worth when it comes to learning in my classroom. Otherwise we're all just wasting our time, right?

But back to my point, the part where I find myself hired, as of this week, by three different campuses. Three different sets of thrilling challenges, three diverse population of students, and three avenues for me to explore. The prologue to my chronicles have thus been written:  She came, she saw, she liked what saw, and it was good. 

2:22am, time to turn in so I can wake up to polish up the lessons for the day. I do hope the weather cools sooner than later, Hot Elliptical is not quite the same as Hot Yoga, at least the latter is planned...

Have a good week!

Yo Yo Ma.

The last post was written 24 hours ago, just failed to press the Publish button. I thought I might as well supplement with today's entry. Fair warning, this entry has absolutely diddly squat to do with Foucault and what he says about knowledge and power.

I've been listening to Yo Yo Ma's Bach Cello Suites on a loop. My soul resonates with every articulated note. It's almost like a call-and-response.

[I looked up Paris earlier this evening. Cobble-stoned streets, cute apartments for rent. Maybe.]

Melancholy. 

As I use to do, and less so the past few years, I went back through my archives. I hadn't meant to. But reading old correspondences from almost five years ago... just... made me feel, so... aged. I remember the voices so clearly. I remember how we felt. The energy. The eager anticipation. The collective looking-forward. Easy conversations with the recognition that this, was serious. The start of a new relationship. Always the new relationship that I wished would be my last. The falling in love. Thinking everything they had to say was the most interesting thing I'd ever heard. Having everything you say BE the most interesting thing they heard that day. The sobering realization that it was too late to turn back. The glee that followed.

Wistful. 

A longing for simpler times that at the time they happened, were not simple. 

A wish that we had held onto the eagerness of each other. That we had remembered that we'd thought so highly of each other. That we had known the depth to which we'd enjoy one another. 

A dream that the conversation will pick up where it had trailed off somewhere along the road. Little by little. Where it had been absentmindedly left behind... 

Tired.  

Yet like a metal rooster, ever hopeful. 

You say 4:05am, I say time to write a post.

Let's just cut to the chase:  3 weeks until Comps. Let's not kid ourselves. We're in the trenches.

As such, this morning's topic of choice is :::drum roll:::

Rhetoric & and its relation to audiences. Why? Well I'm glad you asked, that's because it's the intersection I studied today. And in order for the information to sink just a bit more comfortably into my short-term memory, I'm going to synthesize it here, with a quick discussion on rhetoric according to Herrick (2009).

[Segue: I threw a fit for about 3 minutes earlier today complete with kicking a box in my study and a surprising shout of "LIFE SUCKS!" that startled no one but Duke. Although even he was only half-startled given my odd hours and strange behaviors these days. But yeah, life is not splendid at the moment and except for periods of glee when I'm occupied with work or with social gatherings, I am not un-depressed.]

Herrick defines rhetoric as the "systematic study and the intentional practice of effective symbolic expression" (7).

Rhetorical discourse boasts six features:
1. Planned
2. Adapted to an audience
3. Shaped by human motives
4. Responsive to a situation
5. Persuasion-seeking
6. Concerned with contingent issues 

Most of these are self-explanatory, or which I can elaborate on fairly easily, but Audience requires its own spotlight, because as Herrick notes, "Rhetoric stresses commonality between a rhetor and an audience" (10).

On this topic, from the classical tradition we have an obvious choice in Aristotle, who in Book II of Rhetoric, not only identifies three very specific audiences in his discussion on forensic (jurors), deliberative (legislators), and the epideidic, explores the roles of the audience as well as the characteristics held by those who sit in the audience. To the former, Aristotle believes audiences are responsible for holding the rhetor accountable for what they say. Whereas the rhetor seeks to persuade the audience through the artistic proofs of appeal, audience is still the one who must grant that they have been so persuaded. One key feature of argumentation under the topoi of logos is the employment of deductive reasoning, specifically with the use of the enthymeme. Enthymeme are considered rhetorical syllogisms, which are "arguments built from values, beliefs, or knowledge held in common by a speaker and an audience." This is clear when we consider that while a syllogism may be structurally sound, the conclusion will be false if the premise is false, namely if the audience is not "in on the joke," or in agreement to the unspoken premise.

[Segue: I've decided to hand-write the comps, because typing out answers will take too much time. I'm more fluid with a pen.]

Moving toward the Modernists, we have Kenneth Burke, although it may be a good idea to reserve him to bat cleanup when it comes time to write my rhetorical criticism of whatever artifact. Nevertheless, a quick and very easy connection to draw between Burke and audiences can be found in identification, one of the tenets to his logology. As quoted in Herrick, Burke observes that "you persuade a man only insofar as you can talk his language by speech, gesture, tonality, order, image, attitude, idea, identifying your ways with his" (A Rhetoric of Motives, 1996, 55).  Identification is also derivative of the Catholic idea of consubstantiation, or the taking of the body an blood of Christ, in that identification means an exchange of essence with one another, thereby establishing a mutual recognition. A rhetor, in order to achieve their purpose, must be able to establish identification in such a way. Through some type of mean. For example, in visual communication, identification may be achieved through the use of recognizable symbols that inspire certain emotions or joined meaning. This ties back to Burke's most well-known articulation of the definition of human: "Man is the symbol-using (symbol-making, symbol-misusing) animal, inventor of the negative (or moralized by the negative), separated from his natural condition by instruments of his own making, goaded by the spirit of hierarchy (or moved by the sense of order), and rotten with perfection" (Language as Symbolic Action, 1966).

Finally, we have Perelman & Olbrechts-Tyteca's discussion on particular and universal audiences. To P&O-T (to save time), "all argumentation aims at gaining the adherence of minds, and by this fact, assumes the existence of intellectual contact" (The New Rhetoric: A Treatise on Argumentation, 14). They chose to use argumentation as the topic of discussion given the context of the times, where rhetoric had been reduced to being talked of as mere fluff, so they wanted to reframe the discussion in an attempt to revive rhetoric. Returning to their definition of the nature of argumentation, where essentially it means there is no argument if there is no one we're trying to convince, they propose the two types of audiences. Furthermore, they state that the quality of the audience ultimately determines the quality of rhetoric. In this vein, it sounds similar to the Aristotelian proposal of the responsibility of the audience. 

Tomorrow, I will wrap up audiences and continue with a discussion on the functions served by rhetoric, it's another set of six. And then we'll take a look at the relationship between rhetoric and power. Did someone say Foucault...?

Time to pass out so I can wake up to study some more.