Hi, People

10May08

now that we’ve all but bit the dust [hey Sven, when are you coming back from China, anyway?] it would be nice to say that we never think about this project any more because we’re big, bad Bachelors-holders, But! That’s simply untrue! I think about it all the time, and even though my interest in Hipster Party Photography has waned [probably from being subjected to it firsthand– ew. As my roomie says, ‘Dance Pretty!’ As If.] I still view my brief [though likely extended in the future, once I get the fortitude to go back to school] stint with Anthropology as something that really shaped my worldview lens. And? After being employed as an administrative office grunt in the Proverbial Ivory Tower and witnessing its various systems and interactions, I can say that I still hold a similar level of disdain for it. I wrote complained about it in my personal blog, if you care to read.

Filed under: Annie, harvard   |  1 Comment
Tags: ivory tower, the academy

Across The Great Divide (just grab your hat and take that ride)

29Aug07

 

Ok, I’m going to hijack the blog. If anyone has an issue with this, I suggest posting.

 

Yet another personal story intro: Last week, a friend came to visit and had in tow a friend she had made while working at a summer camp these past few months. For days we talked about the infinite issues in the world and their approaches and solutions, which are mighty admirable direct action services. Late the last night in town, lounging in a park, I began to explain what I was doing. Without going into specifics here, I explained that I worked for a group that took private money and turned it into public service via pro bono legal work. And that one of the big donors is Pfizer.

None too happy that I praised them for their bit of social contribution, she lost it about how corporations get away with not giving anything and that it’s only done for show and tax benefits.

Filed under: Activism, Culture, Megan, Politics, Uncategorized   |  2 Comments

ACTIVITY! (sort of.)

13Aug07

one of the first foundations taught in anthropology is that culture is not fixed, that it is as transient as the people who possess it and is freely manipulated to the extent that collective consciousness will allow. but what is often skimmed over and tossed around with cultural relativism is people’s desire to be fixed. to identify and solidify self in society seems to remain a major motivator within the grand u s o’a, and as the country’s ground becomes muddier and thicker, i believe people will only become more…uh..stuck.

why the sudden burst of nonsensical ideas? well i fell victim to one of the anthropological dangers a favorite professor once warned about the other night: drunkeness.

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19Jun07

This is, in part, a response to Megan’s Morose June 7th Entry re: motivation.

I assumed at one point that I really would miss School, after I graduated successfully and had settled into a mediocre routine of a day-time retail job and nightly feel-good hangouts with the friends that I neglected for the last two months of my undergrad career. I thought, “I’ll get back into it! Come August, I’ll be ready to do something scholarly and at that point I’ll be in Egypt doing something scholarly, so I’ll be ok, right!?” Wrong.

Filed under: Annie, Culture, harvard, Uncategorized   |  3 Comments

eyes like neon signs, flashing open all the time.

07Jun07

tis a shame here. our blood and sweat is dead. perhaps it’s only our brains, that’s my secret wish.

i want to rant, but for the first time in a long while, i gots nothing.  minorly depressing but mighty freeing…do you ever get motivation back? or is life just a long slide to total apathetical acceptance?

the world feels freshly mundane. it really is a shame.

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a little reminder from your friends

26Apr07

comment, please.

part of our goal with this project is engagement with what is being posted about online and thought about offline. visitors or writers, both are on a level playing field on our site. we have heard the line “only undergrads” enough to disbelieve it, so don’t be shy: none of us really knows what’s going on. but we should probably talk about…that.

and other things.

like how anthropology as a field is making an online leap but still maintaining its academic sense of superiority.

so really, we are asking you to mix it up, to mix us up, pour the ideas out and collectively see what happens.

this concludes our intermission, apathy will return shortly.

(a big THANK YOU for those of you who should ignore this plead. keep us blogging.)

Filed under: Blogging, community, Megan   |  3 Comments

Meet Rahel

19Apr07

Rahel , a pseudonym, is a first generation Ethiopian-American. She views the expatriated Ethiopian community in the context of a huge social network. And, as a member of that community she understands many currents that run through the community. Most notably, Rahel agrees with my hypothesis that Ethiopians move to DC for the social networking amongst Ethiopians. She claims that, “Once a[n] [Ethiopian] person goes to a place, [Ethiopian] people start flocking”. Rahel in no way owes me for this idea, it is something that has been reinforced throughout her lifetime.

Rahel’s uncle on her father’s side was cited by Rahel as one of the rare instances she had heard of an Ethiopian moving to the United States to a place without any other Ethiopians. Ironically, this caveat strongly reinforces the social network concept.

Filed under: Culture, Ethopians and the DV, immigration, Sven, Uncategorized, Washington DC   |  3 Comments

The Gun Game

18Apr07

I am so pained to feel inspired to write another post about death, but after Monday’s events…I feel resigned to do so. Thoughts and prayers to VA Tech’s campus will not heal the wounds, but there is little else we, collectively as a populace, can immediately do. Stunned, shocked, lost, scared, worried, troubled…enraged. You name it, the emotion is provoked.

And out of all of this, an old debate keeps on brewing, bubbling a bit hotter: gun control and the right to bear arms.

Filed under: Activism, Megan, Politics, State Power, Washington DC   |  4 Comments

Technology/Apathy

18Apr07

Last week I attended a panel discussion called: “I remember AU When… The Age of Protest.” The panelists were three graduates of American University from the 1960s and ’70s. After eating Swedish meatballs, checking out the slide show, and listening to The Grateful Dead’s “Casey Jones,” they gave a somewhat interesting presentation on the political activism at our school when they were students. Though they heavily romanticized the era as a time of freedom and open dialogue, the panelists wisely warned against doing exactly that.

Filed under: Activism, Culture, Digital Divide, Sean, Technology   |  5 Comments

A slight deviation from topic

16Apr07

As many of you are aware, this past weekend was Easter, and so for purposes of appeasement (appeasing my conscience mostly; I’m sure God has no tally on my church attendance- or lack thereof!) I attended services. Given my family-at-large’s current preclusion towards Orthodoxy, I went to the Pascha services at St. Sophia Greek Orthodox Cathedral. In another investigative project I’ve been examining (what a cold, harsh word choice, by the way!) the Coptic Orthodox Church in relation to ethnic and national Egyptian identity- a far cry from the urban hipster world on my computer that I’ve simultaneously been inhabiting (much better word than “examining”!).

Filed under: Annie, Hipsters, internet party photography, Theory, Uncategorized   |  4 Comments

A Crack in the Cage

12Apr07

“Being so pitilessly prone toward the absolute, the ideal and knowing that lawyers and law courts are witnesses to the imperfect state of our civilization, temporizing adjusters of society’s ill-adjustment and yet whose occupation, largely viewed, though transient, tentative, unbeautiful, amid trouble and contention, is still noble in good offices and lavish of sacrifice in its long slow evolutionary process of justifying man’s ways till delay feels confined, compromised in the legal profession, and casting ahead, falters strenuously against steel barred gates, to be away and enjoy the wildest individual freedom and self-government.”

-From the journal of Edwin Manners

A lawyer’s Diary

1893-1913

“my pet butterfly”

Well now, that’s quite a muddled mouthful. I pretend not to decipher this mysterious writing but in parts; I’d encourage others to do the same, should the desire (and script) arise.

Filed under: Culture, Megan, Politics, State Power, Theory   |  2 Comments

Finally! A Happy Coincidence

10Apr07

I have recently run into a young woman on American University’s quad, and she has offered to help me with my project. She overheard me discussing my project with another AU anthropology student, and she got excited at the word “Ethiopian”. In return, I got excited at her excitement. It turns out that she is a first generation American with Ethiopian parents, and she’s very involved in her Ethiopian heritage through the Ethiopian community, or at least enough to have a number of Ethiopian contacts.

In discussing my project with her, she initially confirmed my hypothesis that Ethiopians come to the DC area for social networking purposes.

Filed under: Ethopians and the DV, Experience, Racial Inequality, State Power, Sven   |  3 Comments

A Laptop for Every Kid

08Apr07

source

Am I just going to far with my April stress-induced cynicism? A little optimism wouldn’t kill me. But then again I might just be right in thinking One Laptop Per Child is full of it.

The OLPC Foundation is a non-profit that has been around since January ’05. Their goal is to create a laptop that costs $100 for third/fourth world schoolchildren, the idea being that a computer is the best tool to increase quality in education for these children.

Filed under: Digital Divide, Maine Laptop Initiative, OLPC, One Laptop Per Child, Sean   |  15 Comments

Questions of Method, pt. 2

06Apr07

 

“Hip is a culture of the young because they have the least investment in the status quo.” -John Leland in Hip: The History

Filed under: Annie, Culture, Hipsters, internet party photography   |  4 Comments

Forgotten Faces

06Apr07

A full day of classes in your last semester can leave anyone a bit worn and emotionally edgy. ‘Twas my state as I exited the newest addition to campus, Katzen Arts Center. I was immediately struck by the exhibit on display in the foyer; the multimedias screamed with intriguing pain, the unnecessary title hidden from direct view. Engrossed for several moments in “Interrupted Life: Incarcerated Mothers in the United States”, I pulled myself away only to see a flyer informing me of “Death Penalty Week” (or something a bit more eloquently phrased).

Is it true that when you begin to think of something you notice it everywhere? Or is life simply not a coincidence?

Filed under: Megan, Politics, Racial Inequality   |  Leave a Comment

Sven’s Third Post

05Apr07

My survey has garnered one response. His pseudonym is Debebe, and he’s a 27 year old male. Most excitingly, he came to the US on the Diversity Visa Program. Tezeta is friends with this young man. He’s lived in the US for three years and one year in the DC area.

The reason Debebe moved to the DC area is job opportunities. Networking amongst Ethiopians does not seem to be the main attraction of Washington for Debebe. His extra time is spent attending school, getting to know people who are not from Ethiopia and exercising. And he does not see himself staying in DC for a long time. He does not like the living and transportation in Washington, DC. He actually found them to be a bit of let down, based on his expectations of the US.

Filed under: Culture, Ethopians and the DV, Sven   |  3 Comments

typically off topic

05Apr07

Well now this isn’t a real post in the sense of the project, but the spread o’ info is always important and relevant so….

Karl Rove at American University

Our campus newspaper may not be the best thing in written form, but check it out.

Is it a sign of the times when our ruling administration is scared to tell students one of its footmen is coming to campus? Ah, you can run but you can never hide, dear civil servants….

Seeing is believing…

Filed under: Megan, Politics   |  Leave a Comment

Sven’s Second Post

04Apr07

Since February 12, I have been in contact with my friend, Tezeta (a pseudonym, means “memory” in Amharic). She has been helping me as my primary contact with the Ethiopian community in the DC area. Yet, I try not to ask too much of her because she is very busy, and our friendship takes precedence over the project. And so it has been very difficult to get very far, despite both our efforts. Tezeta has worked to get me in contact with coworkers, friends, and community leaders. So far, I have had two informal interviews with Tezeta, and had one survey filled out by a friend of hers, Debebe (another pseudonym). Due to these difficulties, I have begun to consider other options for getting into contact with Ethiopians.

My most valid idea for finding more contacts in the Ethiopian community is to go to an Ethiopian restaurant and simply meet someone. This idea has been strengthened by the story of another anthropology student who reported great results from studying Chinese in DC by simply approaching strangers in Chinatown.

Filed under: Culture, Ethopians and the DV, Racial Inequality, Sven   |  4 Comments