Random Descriptions of My Travel Adventures

I have, to my surprise it seems, managed to not only pass my comprehensive exams but also successfully defended my dissertation proposal. What this means to me is that I am now a Ph.D. candidate, what this means to those outside academia is absolutely nothing. Despite this I am still encouraged and now take this encouragement to Oaxaca, September 7th, to carry out the research I so boldly proposed. Intimidating? Yes. Unachievable? We shall see. I'm most excited to begin blogging again regularly, though I fear my adventures this second time around in Oaxaca will be a bit less exciting than my first experience during the tumultous summer of 2006. Despite the fact that initial blogging may be sporadic and pedestrian at best, and an exercise in total boredom at worst, I'm looking forward to this electronic method of communication. So, in a totally unrelated post, I ran across this awesome article in Rolling Stone magazine about the private contractor mess in Iraq and sent it to my ...

Turns out I got funding to return to Mexico so I will be headed back in September or early October. In the mean time I am teaching second summer session at ASU so there will be a lot of gems to come out of that experience I'm sure.

This last one was the back side of a class evaluation form. I was the TA for a fellow student and when the instructor got his evals back he gave this one to me to let me know that my work as a TA was appreciated. Click on the image to make it larger. This particular message was from a student stuck behind the Preznit's "cavalcade" on one of his visits to Phoenix. I like this for a few reasons, but mostly I enjoy how the caller knows of my distaste for Dubya and uses that to her advantage.

I have been wanting to post these little gems for awhile but haven't gotten around to it until now. This first item was a phone message I got from one of my students who needed some help writing a paper on current global issues. Can you imagine what the person who was taking this message must have been thinking while writing this down? What the hell is Marissa teaching in her classes! I love that the caller asks for sources regarding nuclear warheads in Russia!

A student sent this email to the instructor for the class in which I'm a TA. Everything is reproduced exactly as written however the names have been changed to protect the innocent, and the stupid. Remember, this email was sent Friday morning just before spring break. "hello, [instructor], this is Wilma Flintstone I am informing you that I will not be attending class today because I have the flu very badly to where its even very difficult to write this email, but I figured that I would let you know before starts today. I should be back on my feet again after the break. Thank you fir your time I am really sorry that I could not make it an I know chapter 8 is due today, do you believe it is possible for me to email it to you? I know it is an inconvenience on your part but I would really appreciate it. Thank you for your time. -wilma" When she finally turned the assignment in, it was definitely worth the wait. This particular exercise was a simple identify the location where...