Scott vs Dick (D51-54)

In the past week I've read A Scanner Darkly and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, and all I really wanna do is go back before my birth to give a big hug to my kindred spirit Philip K Dick, and say hey, man, it's all gonna be ok...really! Even though it probably really isn't. I also watched Bladerunner and I'm quite upset the only fake animal that made it into the whole film was a snake (although jr's toys were pretty cool), but I'm also fairly disappointed that I will never get to meet the Harrison Ford of the 80's.

SPOILER ALERT
SPOILER ALERT
Ridley says Deckard is a replicant and it's written in the origami, but some further proof of Dick's hope for humanity is that he wrote Deckard as tough man with a huge soft spot for fake toads and androids. Also he at least wrote some sex into the novel whereas Ridley gave us nothin' aside from declaring one of the androids a "pleasure model" and having her try to kill Deckard with the sheer strength of her theighs
SPOILER ALERT
SPOILER ALERT

As I continue my exploration of California authors, time for the Crying of Lot 49, and then perhaps I'll dip back into some Raymond Chandler.

The weekend is now far behind me but in line with the mission of this blog (the documentation of a NON GRAD life), I will describe it here:  bringing in the first weekend of summer (I so declare) by dancing around to this kind of stuffScot, eating decent Thai food, meyhane-ing, critiquing the form of the fishermen on the Galata Bridge while eating Gavur Dağı Salatası.

TWO SECONDS OF LOVE (D49-50)

Today was not the most productive day at work, but it matters not a bit, because when taking a break from OFFICE LIFE to walk across the street, I made two seconds of quality eye contact with my (retroactively declared) favorite actor while he was sitting in traffic in his big black jeep, talkin' to his abi on his phone.

Also bought a bargain-basement ticket back to the Land of the Free courtesy of Aerosvit and started plotting some summer escapes.

Wanted to post some interesting links or videos for others pushing through office life today, but the weekend calls!

A CALL TO ARMS (D47-48)

What can't you do in grad school?  According to the Dmytro Tabanchnuk, the Ukrainian minister of education, you can't be both a successful grad student and an attractive woman.

Radio Free Europe quotes him as calling the country's most talented grad students "girls who have a less bright, less attractive, and less model-like appearance."

Fortunately FEMEN stayed away from this one. (FEMEN is the bane of my Ukrainian alter-ego's existence, so much so I can't even bring myself to link to them. If you must search for them yourself, beware: NSFW.) Instead, a number of bright, attractive, model-like grads assembled outside of the Ministry of Education in Kyiv. My favorite response in the RFE video is the girl who says "Which approach should I take: to be beautiful for smart? I don't know what to choose." The women also asked Tabanchnuk out on a date, but he has yet to reply.

Loyal readers of the ivory tower, please take this as an opportunity to support our intellectual comrades: look real hot, today and everyday, please.

Which reminds me:



I don't think these girls are in grad school (their literary tastes are much too deliciously diverse), and they are the hottest book-ish types I've seen in awhile. Grad girls, let's step up the game!

THE BOOK (D43-46)

Today in office life: rearranging deck chairs, again and again. Or we could call it an exercise in Keynesian economics.

Remember when that Turkish singer made that really weird music video about Faysbook? I hardly do either, that's why you get no link.  But "I can't get off of the Facebook" is slightly more memorable, addresses all of the things you hate to hate about facebook, and even reminds us of the good old days, when referring to facebook required the use of a definite article and membership was correlated with the cost of your college tuition. I predict this will blow up exactly where you think it will.

MORE THAN MOST PEOPLE (D41-42)

Slacking on blog duty. This is all I've got for today, because I'm too busy eating my weight in fruit and vegetables on the cleanse diet and giggling through The Golden Calf:

Ambiguity, multivalence, misanthropy, long beards, BOW TIE...what's not to adore?

Last night was a little flashback/flashforward to GRAD LIFE - a dinner with a collection of graduate students.  Never fear, I escaped unscathed!

SCATTERED THOUGHTS ON A VERY SLOW TUESDAY (D40)

Sometimes it is the small successes in life that really make you proud.  Today my success is not breaking my CLEANSE DIET.

The opening paragraphs of Ilf and Petrov's Golden Calf, which I've now started and abandoned twice, has been in my mind a lot lately while skillfully darting through traffic as a rabbit darts through the fields of their birth:

You have to be nice to pedestrians.
Pedestrians comprise the greater part of humanity. Moreover, its better part. Pedestrians created the world. They build cities, erected tall buildings, ladi out sewers and waterlines, paved the streets and lit them with electricity. THey spread civilization throughout the world, invented the printing press and gunpowder, flung bridges across rivers, deciphered Egyptian hieroglyphs, introduced the safety razor, abolished the slave trade, and established that no less than 144 tasty, nutritious dishes can be made from soybeans.
And just when everything was ready, when our native planet had become relatively comfortable, the motorists appeared.
It should be noted that the automobile was also invted by pedestrians. But, somehow, the motorists quickly forgot about this...The roads became twice as wide, while the sidewalks shrunk to the size of a postage stamp.

You can read part of a draft volunteer translation here, but the new one published by Open Letter is really wonderful. I've been giggling to myself through every page, but it may just be the restrictive detox diet?

This deliciously cheesy video/song combo presents quite a dilemma: watch or dance? watch or dance?! Today I've decided on watch.

This summer photo of Ataturk is blocked by Sonic Wall as pornography. The shame!

Poll for the audience - how bad of an idea do you think it would be to create a meme which consisted of photoshopping pictures of Don Draper's face on famous Ataturk photos? Scale of 1-5, please, 1 being horrible and 2 being an absolute must.

AND WHERE WERE YOU WHEN YOU WERE TWENTY? (D37-39)

Cocktail party success, turns out all the dudes loved Poland's number one girly drink, Zubrowka and apple juice. "Wow, where does that awesome cinnamon flavor come from?"

Football madness makes me wish I could be that happy about anything, ever. But I am just so pleased with myself when I at my most cynical and jaded! Perhaps I should have waited until I was out of the impressionable years of my early adolescence to dive into Kafka and Dostoyevski.

I really like these songs right now:

 



Also miss bank's got a new one, and where were you when you were twenty?

DETROIT MARTINIS AND PARTY DRESSES (D36)

Tonight is dedicated to drinks with sugary syrup and trashy party dresses, because contrary to that wretched list floating around from Glamour/The Huffington Post, YOUTH LIVES ON FAR BEYOND 30, and also because I am having a cocktail party in my living room.

Salami breadsticks, roquefort/cream/almond covered strawberries, ginger-lemon-mint cocktails, and a bunch of things that are even better than that (compliments of officemate).

LOVE FOOD HATE FOODIES

ADVENTURES IN SEX SCANDALS (D35)

This goes out to those out there futily searching for my "sex blog":

1. OMG can this be true? You'll never be able to listen to Greased Lightening ever again, so plan on skipping the weddings of any remaining single cousins.

2. Is make-up sex like a cocaine addiction? Shouldn't we be glad that there is a somewhat healthy alternative to class-a dependencies?

3. Actually that is all I've got. Today this office worker gets to leave early! And continue the day's work in a less desirable place with more annoyances and without constant access to the internetssss.

THE PROOF IS IN THE PILSNER (D34)

Could the malt beverage you choose to imbibe truely affect the economy in which you find yourself? Perhaps not, but select the right beer and it could help you package yourself as a more attractive and distinctive consumer with the side benefit of being really tasty.

It is sometimes difficult to pull this off quite the way you'd like if you live somewhere where beer varieties are few or alcohol is heavily taxed, but if you need some help, you could always consult ratebeer.com (the IMDB of beers, but without a trivia section).

One loyal reader recently sent in a number of rankings from ratebeer.com to empirically demonstrate the inferiority of Efes Pilsner:

Guiness Foreign Extra Stout!  97 out of 100! A ratebeer.com user writes: Bottle. Pours dark, dark crimson, very nearly opaque, with a 3-finger creamy and meringue-like light brown head. Long retention and blebby lacing. Aromas of toffee, raspberry, and caramel, with cream and mocha as well. The flavor is sweet toffee and burnt sugar, sugar cane, and roasty and bitter coffee in the finish. Medium carbonation, a bit prickly, with full body. NIce.

Leffe Brune! 92 out of 100! Another user writes: Aromas Frutales con final intenso a vainilla.... Color cafe intenso, obscuro con matices brillantes a la luz. Espuma abundante que perdura hasta el final Al rimer sorbo se siente una deliciosa cremosidad, quiza superior a lo esprado en una cerveza estilo abadia. Al trago la cremosidad cede para que se perciba un cierto sabor dulzon. En general es una muy buena cerveza estilo abadia, facil de tomar y sin tanta complejidad para entender.






And finally, scoring 6 out of a possible 100, and scoring better than 46% of beers of its kind, the pasha of beers, Efes Pilsen Fıçı! One user describes it as: Clear medium yellow colour with a average, frothy, good lacing, mostly lasting, white head. Aroma is moderate malty, grain, hay, corn, sweet malt, vegetables, cardboard. Flavour is moderate sweet and light bitter with a average duration, sweet malt, cardboard. Body is medium, texture is oily to watery, carbonation is soft.

ADVENTURES IN SCIENCE IN THE NEWS (D33)

Sometimes I read things like this and I get angry about the otherwise intelligent people who bring absolutely no rigor to the interesting topics they focus on. Yes, we would love to believe that there is something wrong with the Republican brain, or at least we know that we could sell quite a few copies of a poorly researched pop-science-non-fiction claiming that.  The dude wants to know why social conservatives cling so confidently to myths about non-heterosexual marriage and poor analysis of empirical studies to "prove" things that are far from accurate, such as that same-sex marriages are detrimental to child development. But why oh why does he refute pseudoscience that says that homosexuality is a choice and then imply that the very conservatives that believe this are somehow hardwired for strong gut reactions to homosexuality? #whytheleftwillneverwin

This reminded me of another question I found much more beautiful but much less profitable: how do creationists use different kinds of scientific knowledge to "prove" the problem of the supernatural? 

EEP! That was getting too close to GRAD LIFE. Time for something else.

Apparently self-breast exams should be taking 7 minutes per breast, so don't do them in the shower, especially if you live in a dry climate! It is so hard being an eco-feminist.

"ANYTHING YOU CAN DO I CAN DO META" (D32)

When I grow up, since I probably can't be Umberto Eco, I want to be a semiotically-inspired cultural commentator.

Predicting dating success with language use? Don't agree with this arbitrary distinction between "function" and "filler" words, his research methods or assumptions about the distinction between language and self...in fact I found this clip downright infuriating...but interesting to think about nonetheless.

WEEKEND! (D30-31)

BBQ's, terrace parties and catching up on Game of Thrones while thinking about approaches to rule, political organization and semiotics of the brothel.

Dancing around at a Hakan Vreskala show at the brilliant suggestion of my lovely roommate, but unlike in that video his band was largely comprised of what I believe to be erasmus students....odd?

Strange chance meetings with strange people and having my retrospectively-declared FAVORITE SWEATER stolen while I was waiting to hear 212.

[Edit 12:12:  Sweater found.  Sweater demoted back to "shapeless dark blue sweater"]

WE ALL HAVE OUR REASONS (D29)

Last night I attended an event called "Free Beer". I hadn't been to one of those since college but it was just as fun as I remember. Perhaps even better, and that is because the owner of Cheers is pretty fucking great.

At said event I met a poor soul who was considering the GRAD LIFE. Although he currently has some sort of job in finance (but not as good of a job as his friend, also in attendance, who "used to work at Barclays" and wears "$300 socks" [leading us to wonder what a guy with $300 socks is doing at a Free Beer night]), all he really wants to do is go to school for modern European history.  He even told me what kind of research he was interested in but I had taken a bit too much Free Beer and cannot recall. It seemed sufficiently GRAD-y. I gave him a list of reasons he should not go to grad school, including, if my memory serves me correctly here, that he was single with massive earning potential and would probably bag a much hotter wife if he stayed in finance.

Then came the question, "then why are YOU going to grad school?"

Oh yes!  Well first of all, I will be a hot wife, so that reason doesn't apply to me.  But mostly it is because I am a hopeless nerd with a personal history of political radicalism that guilts me away from real jobs and I prefer to use my few marketable skills to PUSH BACK THE BOUNDARIES OF HUMAN KNOWLEDGE. Why else?

[Edit 10:57:  Officemate was also in attendance last night and is currently sleeping underneath her desk]

[Edit 15:20: I have remembered a number of other things that happened at Free Beer night, such as meeting and accidentally publically shaming T's nemesis, and then being slowly publically shamed by officemate, who spoke of and then later located some documentary footage of me circa 2005 with fake facial hair]

DAY 28 BONUS - ANOTHER LETTER FROM A READER!

A reader in New York writes,

Dear TYCDIGS,
I am already in grad school and have given up on doing many of the things I used to love to do. I am wondering if there is any way that I can build a time machine and visit my pre-grad school self to tell her not to go to grad school. Problem is, I am a "social scientist" and don't know anything about quantum mechanics or math.

Can you help me?

Trapped in the Tower 

Dear Trapped in the Tower,

Alas I cannot even begin to help you. But some people find momentary respite reading occasionally humorous comics about life as a doctoral student. But then again, those jokes are about people who are studying math and science.  Best write to them instead.

Love,

TYCDIGS

A MULTITUDE OF WORK DAY DIVERSIONS (D26-28)

1. The best work day diversion is the DAY OFF. That was DAY 26.  You may know it as MAY DAY. This was an amazing day with sun and shine and socialists.

2. DAY 27 there was no officemate to entertain me so I just read from her various ereaders and forgot to update about my NON GRAD life.

3. I think that what this city needs is some Swedish Lunch Discos. This would be infinitely more entertaining than my current lunch routine, which involves seeing how many large men I can get to move out of my way on tiny sidewalks as I walk home and back.

4. I have decided to learn how to solve the mighty rubik's cube. So far my knowledge is purely theoretical.

5. Tamerlane chess...practically perfect in every way! Each pawn has a different promotional schedule and there is even a war engine!  And an elephant! And a giraffe! I feel cheated that I've lived almost three decades without knowing about this amazing game. You can apparently play it here but I can't install Java.  Woe of woes!

6. Slate says that different kinds of alcohol do not really get you drunk in different ways, even hand sanitizer! But mixing with diet soda could make you lose it all, so watch out.