Check It Out

Did I already apologize for disappearing for two weeks? If not, then a big "My bad" to all of the lovely people that read Ice Climber. You know how it is sometimes. There's no theme to this page, nothing perpetual or consistent to fall back on for material. Since the posts are generally about me, I think my willingness to post hinges upon how I feel at the moment. And, I guess for the last two weeks I've just felt uninspired. But "uninspiration" is a dangerous thing. Not being inspired to write my thesis for the past six months is why I didn't have it completed on May 19, when it was due. Perhaps it has taken two weeks for me to come to terms with the fact that finishing graduate school actually requires a great deal of effort. In any event, it's time to get back on track, which includes sharing curious anecdotes and sensationalizing myself (NEVER!!) through this incredible blog. So, uh...off we go.

Check it...I'm totally finishing my master's project this summer. It's about the motivations of underrepresented students in the sciences (and their implications on diversity in higher education)! This isn't going to be some groundbreaking document, but the investigation on diversity tends to focus on the background and socioeconomic (such a university word) characteristics of students. What about the student's thinking? One thing that has been illuminated from a few interviews so far is that people perceive the sciences as where the $$ is. I mean, if you want that SL500 and you're not an entertainer, how are you gonna get it? Well, evidently lots of minorities take business, so there's that. Otherwise, it's physics, dammit.

Hey, take a look...it's June! I'll hit you all later.

Still Here

Just having serious mental block lately. Which is alarming, considering this blog isn't exactly the New York Times. In any event, I'll get something up here soon.

Dusty Lake Trip

The Dusty Lake field trip wasn't nearly as fun as our class' first two field trips to Olympic National Park and San Juan Island. Desert environment, a ton of mosquitoes and a ton of ants. No cabin this time; everyone pitched a tent outside in the brush minutes after we arrived at the campsite. Everyone except me, that is. The 6-7 person family tent I borrowed from Kristian was missing poles, and of course I didn't notice this until we were three and a half hours from Seattle because I didn't realize what components were necessary to pitch a tent. Yes, there's a dirty joke to be said there.

If I were totally immature I would have identified my oversight as a golden opportunity to make nice with some of the women in my class because really I had nowehere to sleep and there's no question the mere act of sleeping in each other's close proximity would undoubtedly fetch me dates and lovin' for, well...until the end of the quarter, but that's incredibly foolish. Plus, none of them had room. I ended up bunking with Devon (shown below) in his 2-person tent. Turned out as something of a blessing in disguise because I'd never spoken with Devon at length before this past weekend but he seems to be generally a decent guy. In fact, that's my wifebeater he's wearing in the photo.



Check out the Dusty Lake area. I call it Grand Canyon, Jr. because these high rocky walls surround an expansive valley. It's quite lovely.







Make no mistake, this thing is fucking HUGE.

Future Journalists of America

Another weekend, another field trip.

Tomorrow the class is headed out to the aptly-named Dusty Lake. It reminds me of something of the Grand Canyon although I've never been to either place. The power of photography, man. We'll be camping for real this time; the 6-7 adult family tent will accompany me tomorrow. It's much too big, of course, but it's the only one I could scare up from among my friends. It's all good, though...I'll run a hotel for the class, you know?

I've written before about how the UW campus seems to be divided across racial lines. Or at least among the hard-hitters, those students who are active in student organizations and also community and Greek groups. The battle for ASUW office seems to always boil down to the white Greek organizations versus some combination of progressive white students and students of color. I can't even remember what it was like at Stanford. Certainly not as contentious as it is here, but then again, what power did the Stanford student government really have? I suspect that at Stanford there is an overriding sentiment that the school is run as it ought to be and that it is fair for everyone. The concept of Stanford pride and honor is pitched at all times and perhaps all of that pride and gratefulness clouds students' imaginations on how to make things better. Not so at UW, though. This student government has cash, power and influence; it is the flagship institution of the Northwest.

Anyway, let me get to the point. One of the students running for the Director of Diversity Efforts position is Miranda, a young woman I've interacted with often since starting my job. The campus newspaper ran an "endorsement" for Miranda that was neither challenging, nor supportive, nor informative. In fact, it was just racist trash:

"Miranda Bethay as a candidate is like vanilla: Her responses were very standard and she didn’t make us want to go out and diversify. “When did vanilla get to be such a bad thing?” asked our opinion editor. “When chocolate was invented,” an editorial board member responded. Exactly. We wish we could offer a flavor to the position of diversity efforts, but seeing as Bethay was the only candidate to show up to our forum for an interview, the only choice we can offer is the standard vanilla variety."

Is this a play on Miranda's being half-black and half-white? Is her job to make other people want to diversify? And what kind of ignorant crack is this about vanilla and chocolate? I think it is totally inappropriate to even use euphemisms like that for this particular candidate. If the Daily editor missed that when reviewing this piece then he's a fucking idiot. If he didn't miss the offensive content, then one must wonder why it was allowed to run. Mind you, this isn't the humor paper or conservative rag on campus (not that the nature of the paper would have made it acceptable) but rather the widely-circulated, student-funded and presumably unbiased source for news. These are our future journalists, people. The people writing for the Daily, who chose to deliver a backhanded slap to Miranda instead of offering no endorsement, are the ones the public will rely on in the future to deliver facts about politicians so that we can make the best decisions. I wish I could get angrier at this and I wish more people recognized this when they read it...it's just the sort of unnecessary, "innocent" bullshit that happens every day.

That said, I finally got some photos from the Bachelor Auction. Ignore the dates on the photos; these are from about 3 weeks ago. Did I mention that I went for $20?! Two guys went for less, thankfully for me, but really I could kick anyone's ass who was at that thing. View, enjoy and have a good weekend!


Twin MCs. These guys ought to go professional.

Myself and lovely Angelita, $20 poorer.

Way to keep that camera above waist-level

Accessorized with phone and rose

I think this dude went for less than me.

This crazy girl spent $170 on this dude. No pressure at all!

Cross my heart.

3 Wonders

There must some way to snazz up my webpage so that visitors can be satiated when I don't post for, like, two weeks. I oughta start by replacing that hit counter. The CoolCounters thing seemed like a good idea because there were some cute images, it gave interesting information like search terms (more on that later) to arrive at this page and it's only $2/month. But, as it turns out, there aren't that many images I actually want on here and I want something that will positively bombard me with data. Every hit on Ice Climber will be like its own focus group. So, yeah...I'll look into it soon.

Someone gave me this Letterman-style list today. #1 is mighty clever.

Top 3 Things NOT overheard at a D&D convention:

3. “What is that movie with the Ewoks? You know, it's that one movie...”
2. “Wait, porn? On the Internet?”
1. “The most interesting thing happened to me today.”


And last, Joan Ryan asks, what the fuck is wrong with these people?? Ignorant, racist, irresponsible, greedy, inconsiderate...you name it. Even for people who are passionate about the "A&F image", so go buy some Hollister or American Eagle. I guarantee no one will know the difference.

Celebration 2005

My boss at the ECC has been out sick all week so he tapped me to take his place at Celebration 2005, an awards banquet for EOP students here at UW. It was a pretty hoity-toity affair with the president of the school in attendance and hundreds of university staff wearing suits, waiters serving wine and fish with ginger sauce served for dinner. The last two parts were especially nice. I've gotta make it a habit to eat more fish.

But this Celebration was about the students. Pretty amazing students, at that. Dozens of them were also in attendance...easily identifiable by virtue of wearing casual clothing amongst all of the lipstick and cuff links. Twelve students were being honored and given scholarships for their research and academic achievement. Listening to the stories of these students...from tough backgrounds, first in family to attend college, divorced with two children makes one sympathetic and awestruck at the same time. How it is that the young woman who has worked since age 15 is the Phi Beta Kappa-qualifier and also has completed four undergraduate research projects? How is it that the C-student in high school whom the university rejected, raised his GPA in community college, then raised it to Dean's List-level upon his transfer to UW, then became the head of the Student Senate Judiciary Committee for two years and has already been accepted to a Master's program at Columbia? It's the kind of thing that reminds me that I've got to take advantage of the opportunity...and so does everyone here. It shouldn't take a life of adversity for students to dawn on the fact that they are capable of, and somewhat obligated to, doing great things. Sometimes it just takes a reminder like tonight and so I congratulate all 12 scholarship recipients for grabbing life by the horns and, in doing so, reminding us that we can do the same.

One More New Link

I've been reading Women's Hoops Blog for several weeks now and it is, most definitely, the most insightful, well-referenced and informative basketball site this (non-corporate) side of ESPN.com. The focus is on women's college basketball and, now that it's nearly summer, the WNBA, but the topics covered often address men's leagues and there's a bit of social commentary as well. Okay, you can click over now and see for yourself.

Links

Changed some links again. Got rid of that Listen, Lady... link because that blog hasn't been too interesting lately, in my opinion (look who's talking). That site did introduce me to Questionable Content, however, which EVERYONE should be reading because it's fucking awesome.

I changed the Sprizee link because it has been broken for some time now. Sprizee graduated to Movable Type publishing tools, I believe. How long will it be before Ice Climber does the same? Correct...no time soon. Finally, I'd like like to share with you all Overheard in New York. I just found this last week. It is very New York and it is very amusing. Good night, everyone.

UITC - That's What I'm Talkin' About!

Last year, when WhatUpThen was holed up in his apartment learning the basics of epidemiology, the College Republicans of the University of Washington threw one of those Affirmative Action Bake Sales that have become increasingly popular at schools across the country. I hate linking to FOX News, but it has the blurbs about the different schools. It's a horrible thing, in my opinion, first because affirmative action has been illegal in Washington as of 1998, and second, because the premise of the bake sale is flawed. The concept of the sale is that women, people of color and disabled citizens pay less for the items sold; it's supposed to be an allegory for those groups putting forth less effort for the same job or college admission. However, let's use the college example. Every university in the U.S. has minimum standards for admission. No school would bring in a student who did not meet those standards, so every person admitted has put forth the effort, or "paid the total price". It's also insulting to suggest that white males have a more difficult time advancing in life than women and minorities, yet that assertion is implicit in the CRs claim that whites are paying the most. Of course there are white males out there in truly fucked-up situations, but there are privileges to whiteness that, if anything, allow whites to pay less than everyone else to obtain the same things. I hate to even talk about this whole "payment" idea because really everyone should be judged on their talents, abilities and skills. We've made a ton of progress in the right direction but we aren't anywhere near that day and I know I won't see it in my lifetime. There's a lot of other stuff I'm missing, but I should move on.

The Bake Sale last year ended badly. There was a lot of shouting and someone got hit and one student (I've met her and she's fucking awesome) tore down the CRs sign and canopy. It wasn't totally crazy...not like anyone was arrested or anything, but it wasn't just another day.

Long story short --> Last week, the CRs put on another Bake Sale but this time the sane students on campus were ready. The GBLT Student Commissioner rallied a ton of student groups to essentially have a fair that day and in the same location as the CR Bake Sale. The idea wasn't to confront the madness, but to drown it out with music, promotion of events, frisbee and FREE baked goods (I got my hands on a few donuts before I left). It was a great success. There were no confrontations and the unnecessary and divisive messages were largely ignored this time around. I'm impressed by the student's ability to mobilize in such a short time (just 6 days for the whole thing) and also I was happy to see so many groups encompassing so many ethnicities working together for a common goal. It was called Unity in the Community. If you were an employer, wouldn't you want to hire a student who put this together?

Here are a coupla more links to Leoule's column in the UW Daily and the counter-argument by the CR president, Nick Dayton.


This crowd wasn't just for the bake sale.

I shoulda gotten in this photo.

ASA next to Amnesty Int'l...everyone got involved.

The Young Democrats are outspoken in their own right.

At least he passed up the MSA.

Leoule (being interviewed) was the driving force behind UITC.

Doing the MEChA clap.

Bunch of my students smiling for a job well-done.

Starter (B)log

If you visit this page regularly you know that I have a TON of blogging to do. Cramming the last two weeks into a single, gigantic superpost crossed my mind last night, but there was homework to finish, that new episode of Family Guy to watch and, later, my first visitor to Seattle. By the time all was said and done it was 2:30am and ever since freshman year I've been in a struggle to not go to sleep so late. Sooo...I'm gonna do that backblogging again and broken up into chunks. It'll be like reading last week's newspapers.

While it's on my mind, let me just say that the Family Guy episode, the first one since it was brought back from cancellation, was fucking hilarious. The list of cancelled shows on FOX, the Bed, Bath and Beyond joke and that fucking Passion 2 trailer...those things that genuinely make me laugh out loud are rare. Hopefully the show has some longevity this time around.