Writing vs. Editing vs. Revising

The other day I was giving comments on a job application cover letter written by a friend of mine. It was a solid letter to begin with, discussing her research interests, teaching experiences, and intellectual trajectories.

What I ended up doing to it, though, was not only giving it comments, but also EDITING it to smithereens. I mean, cutting words here, moving things there, combining paragraphs everywhere, etc., etc. I took a step back after I was done and was like, "Shit, that is a great letter." (Maybe my friend prefers the original, but.)

One thing I've known for some time is that I'm a much better editor than I am a writer. So I love editing what other people have written (and also, I guess, what I've written), but it's so painful for me to write that first draft. And even though I enjoy revising a lot better than I do writing (once I have that first draft), I still end up doing a lot more nitpicky editing than actual, substantive revising.

Help. I don't think people make it as academics being mere editors of their own work. Research, write, revise...but so little emphasis on editing. I know editing is important—but how can I get some balance here?!

「エロティシズム」とは

とか言っちゃって、「エロティシズム」って一体何なんだろう・・・とか考えてます。

先日読んだ本で、上野千鶴子が結構分かりやすい「エロティシズム」の定義を述べていましたが、忘れてしまいました。（忘れちゃったら、何冊本を読んでも元も子もないのに・・・）

（最近ちょっと「壇蜜」にはまってます。いやいや、色々と事情がありましてね。ちょっとした私的な研究対象になってます、はい。）

でも、本当に、「エロティシズム」とか「エロティック」とは何なのか。見た目の問題？感情の問題？物理的／生物学的な問題？基準は、一人一人？それとも社会が決める？文化？男性と女性はどう考え、どう相手が考えていると思うのか？異性愛者、同性愛者との間では、どう考えるのか？

やっぱり、個人的な好みですかね〜、何がエロくて誰がエロくないかって。

（画像は京都駅の天井です。全然エロくない。）

Makeup or Make-Up?

I've been thinking about makeup (make-up?) lately. This "thinking about" has been somewhere between me thinking about donuts (e.g., "I wonder what flavor cronut I should get next time?") and me thinking about education reform (e.g., "What is appropriate teacher training for a 'liberal arts' education at the secondary level?"). As in, I wonder about the theoretical implications of choosing between new lipliner and new eyeshadow.

Hey, don't laugh. I only started wearing makeup when I started working, and only because my manager gave me samples that her mother sold through her work at a Japanese cosmetics company. Since then I've accumulated random makeup items, but mostly as gifts from other people. No joke, 90% of what I own, I never even paid for.

This wouldn't be a problem, except that that means I end up with a lot of things that just don't look right on my face. For example, of the seven lipsticks/lipglosses I own, exactly two are colors I actually feel comfortable wearing. That's 28.6%, which, the last time I checked, is an F.

But what can I do? I'm grateful that people give me all these things, and I'd feel bad not using them. And I'm not about to go spend $30 on new lipstick when I have various shades of rose and mauve scattered about my bathroom cabinet. Hence years of mixing colors and finding innovative ways to "use" makeup items.

Except that's just the donut side of thinking about makeup. The education reform side is that I can't quite come to terms with my own desires to wear makeup (except those days when I'm like, fuck it, all I need is sunblock), even with the understanding that "wearing makeup" is just another way for us to "fit other people's standards of beauty". Oh, come on—it's true. We can talk about all the ways makeup plays up our best features, makes us beautiful, helps us love ourselves...but please. What we really mean is, it makes us beautiful in the way Western (and thus most other) marketing has defined beauty, and it helps us love ourselves because we get that affirmation from others that makes us feel so good. (Sooo good.)

You want me to use lipgloss because it makes my lips look fuller (but not too full)? You want me to use shadow on the bridge of my nose so that it looks like I have a three-dimensional nose rather than the two-dimensional one with which I was born? You want me to change the shape of my eyebrows to suit this season's trend? Oh come on, now. I have books I have to be reading.

But still...if I want learn how to shade and highlight my face in such a way so as to make it look more like a white person's face...is that so bad? If I want to wear concealer so that my skin looks even, with no blemishes or pores (and thus biologically impossible), am I a sellout? It's so nice to look and feel pretty...and it's true, thinking that I look pretty makes me feel a whole lot better about myself than when I'm sitting there thinking, wow, what a mess. It's like a pair of good heels—height and longer legs, even if it's all an illusion. And if I'm paying my hard-earned money to get that illusion from multinational corporations, to learn how to do that in a way that suits my own face—is that so theoretically criminal?

To Apply, or Not to Apply

(Wait, didn't I have a post title like this somewhere else a little while ago?)

It's a funny thing trying to decide whether or not to apply to a particular job post. Last year it was like, "Anything with the word 'Japanese' in it, I'm applying!" but this year it's like, "OK OK, no need to be so voracious here." Like, like...

There are jobs that I clearly can't apply to (not my field, not my time period, etc.), and then there are jobs where I'm like...is this a job I want over the one I have now? And would I want to apply (ever) to jobs in particular geographic locations, when I know that my heart belongs in sunny California?

And what of the question of research vs. teaching? Why the valorization of research institutions over teaching institutions, when I'd much rather be in the classroom teaching than in my office writing? Or am I spoiled even to have such a preference?

上野千鶴子と林真理子と・・・

最近上野千鶴子と林真理子の本ばっかり読んでる。交互に読むと言う事、そして上野千鶴子が林真理子についても書いたり話したりすると言う事から、結構私の頭が混乱してきたりもする。何故こんなにも二人の本や考え方に惹かれるんだろう？とか。

先日は遥洋子の『東大で上野千鶴子にケンカを学ぶ』も読んだ。著者の視点から書く「学者の世界」の説明は面白かったし、そして上野千鶴子（何故いつもフルネームなのだろう・・・）が著者に対してとる態度の説明も読んでいてとても嬉しかった。

私は上野千鶴子にも林真理子にも会った事がないし、会うより本を読む方が好むと思うけど、上野千鶴子は私が聞いている程悪い人ではないと思う。遥洋子にとっての上野千鶴子は、私にとっての大学院の恩師に似ている。きつい人かもしれないし、暖かい人では無いかもしれない。気難しかったり、「それはないんじゃないのっ？！」と思わせる様な事をしたり言ったりするかもしれない。でも、彼女は彼女の考え方を持っていて、それを主張できるだけの地位に行き着いたんだ。彼女だったら、私が彼女の本と林真理子の本を一緒に読む事を批判しないと思う。

How to Eat Breakfast

Call me racist, but I think Japanese people shouldn't sit on chairs to eat at tables.

OK OK, it's not so much that I think Japanese people shouldn't own dining sets, it's just that I find it disturbing when I see a furniture catalog in a Japanese 7-Eleven that features "Western" furniture that just screams, "Hi, I just came out of a dining room in a country on the other side of the globe!"

I mean, what are you going to eat when you sit at these tables in your little island nation, people? Are you going to sip Earl Grey and eat spotted dick, or are you going to have your rice with miso soup and maybe a side of salted cod roe? Please.

And why can't we eat stuff that's grown in our locality, or at least within close range, rather than importing things using gallons and gallons of gas?

(Even in the States I am confused by marketing phrases like "urban chic" and "elegant classic". How can my style be boiled down to adjective + adverb?)

A Ph.D. Entrance Exam!

これ。これが好きなんです・・・！

This is the thing I love whenever we have an event in our building. The organizers put up signs everywhere that say "Do not enter"...like, ENTER AND YOUR HEAD WILL EXPLODE. I love it.

Today our department is having entrance exams for our Ph.D. program. I had forgotten that we had such things as grad school entrance exams, even though my parents had talked about them before. (Specifically, my mother talked about how my father had wanted to get into the grad program for a particular department but had to go into a different department because he wasn't smart enough to pass...while my father sat there looking kind of awkward.)

Oh, entrance exams. I'm so glad I never had to take them. I'm sure I would've failed them anyway, seeing as how I don't study and my parents weren't ones to send us to cram school. And the only thing that saved me in the States was SAT II Writing...