:: intellectualized ::

The past few days have been demanding in every sense. I could quote Foxy Brown and say that I am stressed the fuck out, even though it is not necessarily visible to those around me (I simply don’t want to take anything out on my family or friends). The last two weeks of any school term are usually difficult and loaded with tons of work and exams; this year seems to be going for a record. I know, certainly, graduate life is not the same as that of “party-all-the-time-study-only-for-midterms-and-finals” that most undergrads are accustomed to. But even my previous semester (during which I was attending six seminars, in contrast to five in this one), was somewhat easier than what I am facing right now. Add the demands at the office to this, and we have a delightful setting, more typical of a movie by Pedro Almodovar; maybe I could create my own story: “Grad Students on the Verge of A Nervous Breakdown.”

In any case, I have spent the past few days divided in three sections: (a) work for nine hours —from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. with my hour of lunch, (b) read a ton of monographs, scholarly journals, and supplemental texts at night —from 9 p.m. to 2 or 3 a.m. and, thank God my body doesn’t need a whole lot more, (c) sleep from 2 pr 3 a.m. till 7 or 8 a.m. If I continue at this rate for two more weeks I will definitely crack apart… Man, I have been so darn busy that I haven’t even had time to go see the new Harry Potter flick.

The results, however, are pretty satisfactory thus far. As a matter of fact I have decided to post three of the final projects online (the other two I need to maintain private, since one of them is part of my graduate thesis and I truly cannot afford to have anyone ?besides my professors? looking at it, and the other one is not very interesting at all).

One of them is due tomorrow at 3:00 (for my seminar on race, gender, and politics in America) and it deals with Black Women from the colonial times through the days of feminism in the 70’s. It is about 20 pages long, so if anyone is actually interested in reading that much I will be quite surprised. Expect it to be available on Wednesday or Thursday of the following week (I can’t afford to spend time uploading it and all that ish when I have other works to finish).

The second project is for my seminar on the social history of Brazil (and you know that this is one of my most beloved topics) and it is actually going to be a website project. Some of you know the URL, but the actual content of the site is hidden from public view at the moment. This project is based on the influence that music has had on racial, social, economic, and political issues in the country that is usually thought of as a “racial paradise,” a land “beauty and carnival.” Once the content is uploaded I will keep it open for public view, and even accept contributions ?either intellectual or musical, unless my school tells me otherwise (given that this work is part of my ongoing thesis as well). I think this one will be more interesting to the few visitors that I get on this site, and it will be quite enlightening to those who know something about Jazz, Bossa Nova, Samba, and other musical expressions.

My third and most important project for the semester is a work on race and miscegenation in Colonial Latin America. It has taken me way too much time to do this research; my bibliography includes a total of 16 books and 24 different journals (and yes, I had to read them throughout the semester, in addition to my regular school load). I feel a little worried about this one due to the changes that have occurred as I’ve gotten deeper into the radings for this project (I started at one point and ended elsewhere, with a main thesis that is completely different from what I had proposed). A rough draft is due tomorrow as well, and the final document ?which is going to be anywhere between 25 and 30 pages? is due on Tuesday of next week. I feel like I am running out of time on this one, but I will get it done, even if it sucks in the end. It is imperative however that it turns out well as this document may be one of my written samples submitted to a certain scholarly competition in March of next year, which would help me getting my name noticed within the field. But let’s worry about that whenever the time comes, for now I just need to get it done.

And that’s all, really. I need to post some personal stuff that’s been dancing in my head for a while, but I will wait till next week, then I will pour all my thoughts and mental diarrhea into this journal and maybe use it as post-stress therapy. I guess I used these few minutes writing this entry only to distract myself from all the responsibilities (and maybe to procrastinate a bit more). For now, I really have to go.

Lots of love to My Flowah Boo (thank you for posting them “pik-chas”), my catty Cat (who has been having some really rough times lately, especially her mum’s accident) , and Resha Poo (who, and I should have announced this about two weeks ago, is back in effect at her own journal). And now I am really, really, gone…