Gender Defender!; or, why I'm well on my way to becoming a gender studies scholar.

For an outside-of-class mid-term exam (for which I wrote 13 pages!), I wrote on the topic of constructions of masculine identity in four early- to mid-American plays--Royall Tyler's The Contrast, Langston Hughes's Mulatto, Eugene O'Neill's The Hairy Ape, and Clifford Odets's Waiting For Lefty. As usual with anything I write, but particularly with literary analysis, I thought it was the most horrible text ever written and that I'd surely make a B--grad school's equivalent of a "go work at Wal-Mart" admonition--and my academic life would be over in the profoundest sense. I blame No Child Left Behind for my irrational fear of failing tests.

Anyway, I got my exam back today, and I did much better than I thought. I wasn't unceremoniously slung from the halls of academe, and my professor--who is the nicest man you ever will meet--had this to say about my exam:

Excellent exam, Tim, really excellent. You have a nuanced sense of how gender definition and dynamics play out within the broader social sphere. Great job!

Did you catch that--nuanced sense of gender? My God, I've been waiting my whole life for a man to tell me that.

Please forgive the blatant self-promotion, and join with me in celebration of an exam well-done, a good semester chugging right along!

How are your semesters going?

Birthday Blogging

Guess who's 23? It's me, it's me!

Today is my birthday, and for those who know me well, one of my favorite days of the year. I like being fawned over, damn it, and I'm not going to lie about it. You do too. So I assume my birth-given right to be the center of attention just one day a year. I've earned it, right?

I'm another year older. Definitely another year wiser. And another step closer to being what I want to be. I think I've go it together pretty well to be only 23-years-old: I'm a college graduate, I'm pursuing an advanced degree and meaningful career, I'm an important person in many people's lives (but not as important as they are in mine), and, you know, I'm not a drug-addict, nor do I have a police record. In twenty-three years I've grown up, moved away from home, and kept my senses and my checking account from dipping in the red during the process. I've read some good books, written some bad poems, made sense of the bad for something good. I've loved another person deeply and had him love me back, but more frequently I've loved and not been loved back. I wouldn't trade either experience, though I prefer the former, because they've made me learn more about myself than I sometimes care to know. I've made great friends and seen great places: New York, San Francisco, both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. I lived outside the country for a summer (okay, so it was just Canada. Still.), and I've made peace with the fact that the South is where I'd rather be. Ask me tomorrow and my answer might change, but as of today, I am happy. I'm happy to be doing what I'm doing, happy with who I am. I'm confident and comfortable with all those pesky identity issues that plagued me in younger years: sexuality, religion, class. None of that stuff does anything to detract from me being a good person. And I am a good person. It's taken me 23 years to really believe that.

Huckabee, Taco Bell, and Turning 23 (not Japanese)

Apparently Mike Huckabee likes his Taco Bell. Or used to, before he went on the mysterious Atkins-meets-South Beach-meets-crystal meth diet. (I jest). Seriously, though, I appreciate him for cleaning up public school cafeterias (on paper, at least) in Arkansas, but I've heard some horror stories from teacher friends about the slim pickings their students are fed in Bigelow, Atkins, and Scranton (two hot dogs and canned peaches!) after Huckabee's "slim down Arkansas quick" campaign.

Anyway, seems like one reporter found a whole heap of reasons to confirm what I've been screaming for months now, Huckabee is not like you, nor does he care very much about your kind. So it's yellow journalism. Still interesting to read.

In another, completely unrelated note, I am turning 23 (I think I'm turning 23, I think I'm turning 23, I really think so!) on Friday. Brace yourselves for a completely self-indulgent post about all the great things I've done in 23 years, perhaps supplemented by photos of the previous night's outings (Thursday night the birthday celebration is going down because it's .75 cent PBR night at the Mellow Mushroom). I warned you.