sniffles, honorarium, acknowledgements, dog

I'm sniffly -- still definitely allergic to cats. We had brunch at "grandma's" today. It's silly/cute how Rob's mom pretends to be Giles's grandmother. She called and left him an answering machine message on the home phone last week, making it official that Giles gets more phone calls than I do. Brunch was delicious as always, and I met Rob's sister's new beau (and his two children from a first marriage). Giles barked at Chester, one of the sister's cats that their mom is now housing (four total). Giles loves going to grandma's because there is much more commotion there than in our quiet, dark apartment. There are people with treats and cats.

Yesterday, I was an invited panelist for a discussion on Asian American activism and organizing in the South. I was the "academic" representative, though of course everyone else were professional-types with multiple higher-ed degrees. I was happily surprised when my friend who co-organized the event said that they got enough money to pay panelists $100 each. Yay for making money over the weekend! The panel itself was predictable and draining, though, with lots of talk about "educating the masses" and the difficulties of keeping activist momentum going. I really don't consider myself an activist because of this kind of persona that all grassroots organizers seem to take on -- and while I'm totally for this kind of work and want to support the people who do it, I'm also always wanting different cultural work to be done that these activist-organizers seem to discount. There's also the heavy reliance on essentialist notions of racial difference and solidarity that is just ultimately annoying, too. Like, the constant talk about "people of color" as a logical collective of radical, oppressed-but-fighting-back people and "whites" as a monolithic oppressor class.

I've also now gotten a handful of acknowledgment letters for my job applications sent to my home address now, despite the fact that I clearly state in my cover letter that my preferred contact address is the department one. I figured that the letter-letters would tend to be the unhappy news, and would like to confine that to my work space, af any school wants more material from me or to set up an interview, they'll probably e-mail or call...

Now I'm off to my campus office to do some teaching work. Giles will accompany me so he can whine while I work. And then it's dog parking!