Lately

I've been pulled away from blogging due to a couple of self- imposed deadlines concerning vague academic ambitions that I'd rather not get into in detail just yet. Let the record show that personal statements are loathesome exercises in self- doubt. It's not that I have a problem with self- promotion, but I hate having to represent myself to an audience I know nothing about- save the fact that they are a shadowy ring of academics perhaps installed in a bunker atop the Alps. It's a daunting task. What do the high priests of intellectual taste want to know? Probably they'd like to know if I'd be any fun at a faculty party, but the zombie dialect of academic writing bars me from mentioning the time I was bitten on the knee under a bar table by my very inebriated and otherwise gay advisor.

The best I can do is mention this site, so that maybe someone will click on over on break from reviewing applications.

The nature of the work I want to do necessitates that I talk about my disability. Again, it helps to know your audience. Have they been educated on the rights of people with disabilities? Do I have some 'splainin' to do ? Or will revealing too much offend some one's need to perceive herself as politically correct and "supportive of diversity?"

Personal statements are a crazy maker.

I'll follow up on this thread soon.

Blog Hlumblug

I attended the BlogHer Conference at Navy Pier last Saturday where I was subjected to unbridled tourism (It's a mall! And an amusement park! On a pier!)

I'm tempted to call Navy Pier Chicago's French Quarter, but that would be an insult to the French Quarter. Forgot how long the Pier is, and of course the conference rooms are in the very back, so this blogger was truly living up to her avatar by the time I picked up my mail bag full of green- tea scented promotional items and crept in towards the back of the Business of You session. The food was great, and the atmosphere decidedly uncritical. One of the panelists was hesitant to call herself a writer, prefering blogger, as it denotes what? Someone who is willing to be exploited and underpaid because they're "uncomfortable" with the term writer! Or maybe the term blogger now refers to one who schills products on the Internet under the guise of sisterly chitchat.

Perhaps the scariest moment occured when a woman in the audience identified herself as an HR Director at a biotechnical firm. I KID YOU NOT, she wanted to know how she could contract bloggers to do ad copy work on the cheap without having to pay them benefits!!!!! That was her question, in a room full of bloggers who sat there in silence, perhaps stunned, perhaps drugged on Curves New! trail mix waifers.

Has bloging devolved in to nothing better than a Tupperware Party? Many of the BlogHer attendees identified themselves as full-time moms. For these women, and others, blogging affords an extra source of income with all the benefits of a built- in community.

Perhaps I should just mist my pillow with corporate- sponsored green tea opiates and dream of android sheep.

P.S. Elizabeth Edwards was there campaigning. She made this lady cry.

And lest I sound too gloomy, something that gave me hope.

Like so many Americans, she was trying to construct a life that made sense from things she found in gift shops.

Yes Babies, it's been some time since I've posted. A few major changes to report: I have a new job as an art instructor and advocate working with developmentally disabled adults. With the new job came a new beau. And I successfully completed DSP (Direct Support Professional) training, which means that I am legally certified to push people around in wheelchairs and take a rectal temperature, should the need arise. Actually, that last skill is no longer in demand, as our instructor kindly assured us, thanks to the glorious invention of the ear thermometer. Still, the mention of it drove me to ridiculous (anxiety induced?) fantasies of temperature- taking ornithologists (you know, birds don't have ears on the outsides of their heads...).

In other news, my friend Suzanne tells me that Kurt Vonnegut's death interrupted what was to be a year- long celebration of the author's life, sponsored by his hometown of Indianapolis. That's SO Kurt!! I never knew he had a mustache. I still can't picture it. All I see is that Magritte painting of the man with an apple hovering in front of his face, except in my version he has really wavy hair and does a cameo in a Rodney Dangerfield flick.