Why Theory?

What is your opinion about women in the military?

I do not agree with women joining the military because I don't like what the military involves. In other words, it's not that I don't want women to have the same opportunities as men, it's just that I don't think killing others to defend a country's sovereignty and interests is something anyone should aspire to, neither men nor women.

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Today's blog entry is a bit different from what we are used to do.

Today you'll have to pick 4 of the questions below and answer each one of them providing your personal opinion on the topic.

Each answer has to be 60 words long, so in total you'll be writing 240 words

The questions to choose from are the following:

1. What is your opinion about women in the military?
2. What is your opinion about the Chilean politicians?
3. What is your opinion about violence on television?
4. What is your opinion about buying instead of adopting pets?
5. What is your opinion about having an exotic pet at home?
6. What is your opinion about legalizing marijuana and other drugs?
7. What is your opinion about  climate change?
8. What is your opinion about cloning?
9. What is your opinion about recycling?
10. What is your opinion about immigration?
11. What is your opinion about the legalisation of abortion?

As usual, you'll have to leave comments on 3 of your classmates' posts

And 1 comment on my post.

The Answer

This is me and my grandma Margarita. We were born on
the same day and I loved her more than anyone in the world.
She died while I was in the UK because life sucks like that
sometimes.

Today’s blog post is about one of the topics that you chose. That topic is your first love. 

I have two first loves because I’m pretty sure they happened almost simultaneously, since in my earliest love-feeling memories they both occupy the same place. My first loves were my mom and my grandmother (my dad’s mother, that is). 

Now how do I know I loved them? I guess it’s because I was so scared of losing them. Also, because I would have given my life for them. Now, this sort of makes me wonder about love. Is that love or just selfishness/fear? What is love really? I think about it a lot, and I always reach different conclusions. 

There are different kinds of love. For instance, we have fraternal love and romantic love. Maybe there are more kinds, but those are the only two I can think of right now. I don’t really think I believe in romantic love anymore. I believe we relate different feelings and emotions to this thing we have called (romantic) love, which is a cultural construction we developed for some reason. Maybe as a way to ‘humanise’ us and differentiate us from other animals (to make us appear less instinctive, perhaps). Or maybe as a way to justify our need for company or fear of being alone.

Many feminists have written about maternal and romantic love
as facilitating gender oppression. Silvia Federici
 has written about this from an anti-capitalist perspective. With
the famous sentence 'They say it's love. We say it's unwaged work'
pretty much summing it up. I also found this 1986 paper by
Alan Macfarlane which refers to capitalism and love.
I haven't read it yet, but it looks quite
 interesting.

I’ve heard that love is all you need, that love is the answer and other similar discourses. Well, when I think about the current state of the world, I think what we actually need is solidarity, and solidarity is the answer. However, love makes us, the individuals, feel better. And we are all about individuality in this consumerist world, aren’t we? Also, love is probably a more useful concept as well, since it keeps the world functioning the way it does. Traditional romantic love is assumed to (eventually) provide the (supposedly) appropriate conditions for the effective reproduction and development of people (aka the labour force). Also, it keeps us separated from our broader community (since a couple or the nuclear family are not a community in themselves. In fact, it has been claimed that neoliberalism needs people to be separated so they don't organise). So maybe the idea of romantic love is just a convenient way to help reproduce the status quo... In that sense I don’t think I like it too much. I hate the concept as well, but I do like the feeling. When I feel romantic love, I always wish the feeling never ended. It is like a drug, isn’t it? but luckily, it’s not eternal, because it makes me numb and I hate being numb.

But, anyway, tell us about your first love and/or your thoughts about this feeling. In your post you can mention:

1. What you think love is
2. If you’ve ever been or felt in love
3. Why you think you loved that person/those people
4. How you know it was love
5. Anything else that may be relevant to the topic

• This entry has to be written in 230 words
• Leave comments in 3 of your classmates’ posts
• Leave 1 comment on my post

Everything in Its Right Place

Warning: this is a long post, so you can skip to the last paragraph and the instructions bit at the bottom if you're feeling too lazy or find my writing too confusing/boring or you just can't be bothered. 

I think this picture of me perfectly captures the
anguish a hater carries inside.
You can see the early manifestation of the
  space-between-the-brows wrinkle
that signals an uneasy disposition to worldly matters. 

When I was little I hated studying. I used to complain a lot about having the obligation to go to school each day. “Children should only be supposed to play”, I used to say. Or at least that’s what my mother recalls. This is part of my childhood mythology*. 

So I was a hater from an early age, but I still couldn’t find the strength to tell the world to f* itself and do whatever I wanted. I had a huge sense of responsibility when I was little. I hated studying but I was among the best students in my class because all my mother wanted was for me to be a good student, and I loved my mom so I had to. Of course at some point all of that backfired because puberty hit me really hard in terms of mental stability (being a hater from an early age and all), so when I was in high school I finally started being lazy and thinking about dropping out. Of course I didn’t, because I’m a coward who’s been well indoctrinated, so I carried on studying and finished high-school with lousy grades (for my standards, at least). 

However, life has a way of screwing with you (or maybe helping you), so even when I wasn’t at all interested in studying and having a traditional life with a traditional career, I sat for the PSU (or PAA at that time) and got a rather decent score despite the fact I hadn’t prepared for it. Due to that twist of fate, I decided to consider university and ended up enrolling in the BA in English Language and Literature at this university, which I finished, although it took me longer that it was supposed to since I truly hated having to go to class and all. But anyway, I did, and after I did I realised that I had to continue studying if I wanted to be something other than a high-school teacher because, being the hater I am, I also hated school and couldn’t imagine a life forced to work inside one. So I did a BA in Education just to have more options and improve my reputation (since I had been a lousy student in my first BA and I needed to prove my teachers I had changed) and then enrolled in my first Master's degree at this same university with the same teachers that had witnessed the worst side of the student me (yes, I managed to convince them). I did this in an attempt to escape fate, but also because I really liked English linguistics so I wanted to have the chance to teach something I enjoyed rather than just present simple and past tense in an ever-ending loop, as I imagined most teachers did in the school context.

My copy of the 1989 edition of one of
Fairclough's most influential books

I still haven’t finished that Master's though, because I got a scholarship to study abroad when I was starting to write the thesis and was too overwhelmed to carry on with it. However, it helped me to realise that I actually loved learning, specially about linguistics and gender, so everything changed and I ended up doing an MA in English Language at the University of Manchester and writing a dissertation using corpus methods to do critical discourse analysis on British newspaper articles about lesbian women. I was high on my love for learning at that time, so I decided to do a PhD in Linguistics at Lancaster University studying gender and sexuality in the Chilean context. I chose this university because that’s where Norman Fairclough worked and he is one of the most important scholars in the field (of course I met him). Also, I wanted to be supervised by Paul Baker, who specialises in language and sexuality discourse studies using corpus methods, and he was also in Lancaster. I got accepted and then started hating everything again, but that’s another story. Luckily, I finished my degree and now I’m super motivated again, so I’m glad my sense of responsibility has played this trick on me once more, forcing me to carry on along the path that best suits me despite all my efforts to resist it. Honestly, I’ve reached this point in life when I feel everything I've done has led me to this and everything in my past  makes so much sense. I took these courses because I realised that linguistics for the sake of it was not my cuppa, that I needed to do something that I felt had an effect in the world and being a language lover cisgender woman who’s always been sort of an outlier I really felt that this is what I was meant to do all along (namely language, gender and sexuality studies with a queer linguistics perspective).  

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So, today you have to write about a postgraduate course that you would consider taking in the future. You can tell us about your motivation to undertake that course and the reasons why you like that discipline. However, if you don't feel too chatty (unlike me), you can just stick to the task and mention:

- The course (duh)
- Reasons to do it

- Subject(s) you would like to study

- Where you would like to study (Chile or abroad)

- How you would like to study (distance learning, blended system, part-time course, etc.)

- Any other relevant ideas

• This entry has to be written in 220 words.
• Make comments on 3 of your classmates’ posts and 1 comment on my post.

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childhood mythology**: this expression refers to those stories about one's childhood that everyone in one's family knows but still get continuously told during Sunday lunchtime or family gatherings. This task is usually performed by mothers and grandmothers, who can't get over their (grand)children's lives due to their imposed role as child carers. 

** I think this is probably a misnomer, but I recently coined this term and now I'm trying to make it a thing, so please bear with me. 

Slave to the Wage

This is me pretending to read on the exact
 same spot in Chetham's Library where
 Marx used to sit when he visited Engels
 in Manchester in 1845

Today’s blog post is about your future job. There’s probably a reason why you’re studying this, hence you may already have an idea of what you’d like to do after you finish. You may even have a dream job. 

I remember I had a dream job when I was an undergraduate student, but looking back I can see it wasn’t really ambitious or relevant. I did get it, though. I’ve sort of got all the dream jobs I’ve had in my life so far. I’ve put a lot of effort into it, and even when at times I was lazy and irresponsible, I managed to find ways of making up for the damage that behaviour may have caused. I achieved this by taking new responsibilities and bringing them to completion the best way I could.

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about my next ideal/dream job. I really want to continue teaching, but I think that I need to complement that work with research if I want to be able to contribute to society in the ways I’m interested in. I think the ideal future job for me would be one where I can do research, while being able to disseminate the knowledge my research produces through my practice as a teacher. Of course I’d also have to publish papers, go to conferences and the like (because research institutions need to produce in order to survive in this (capitalist) world), but I firmly believe the actual dissemination takes place outside academia, and a way to achieve that is through education. 

I’d also like to disseminate the results of my work through my involvement in different NGOs and at grassroots level organisations. I’m currently volunteering in one NGO called OCAC (I’m part of their studies group) and I’m also volunteering for a campaign with SINTRACAP (we still need volunteers if you’re interested). Although these activities are not necessarily related to the research I can do or have done, I think they're a good start. However, I'd still like to be able to do what I like whilst being able to earn a living with it, so the ideal job for me would allow me to do both things without having to choose just one. I’ve come to the conclusion that this is the only way I can get on in a world where we’re forced to depend on wages, without losing the motivation to go to work each day. Wish me luck!

Now what about you? Have you thought about your future job? If so, what is it and why do you want that job and not another? If you haven’t thought about that job yet, you can tell us why. Or think about the features your future job should have. Whatever you decide to tell us about your future job, make sure you:

- Do it in 210 words. 

- Leave comments on 2 of your classmates’ posts.

- Leave 1 comment on mine.

Frenz

My girlfriends.
Tans courtesy of instagram filters.

Some (cliché-loving) people say that friends are the family that you choose. That's obviously true. I don't have that many friends, but the ones I have are the ones I really want to keep around. Maybe more than I want to keep my family around sometimes, to be honest...

When I was living abroad there was a time when all I wanted to do was come back and see my friends, do things with them, have talks about serious and not so serious stuff with them, catch up with what they were doing and have some drinks or lady terremotos* together.

I have different groups of friends, most of whom I met at university. What I do with them is very similar, but varies slightly depending on who they are. For instance, with my girlfriends we have drinks, smoke some special cigs (they do, I don't) and talk about life and partners, or the lack thereof. I know that's very heteronormative and if we were in a movie we would definitely fail the Bechdel test but I don't give a damn.

I also have two friends who are married and now have children. Whenever I meet them we mostly have barbecues (my friend Javier really likes them), drink beers and catch up on our latest complaints (aka lives).

Additionally, I have some ex-colleague friends with whom I drink posh drinks, eat finger food and talk about our professional lives and nerdy interests.

When I was in Lancaster, I had a friend with whom I talked about life and our political interests always accompanied by some pints which we bought in rounds so I always got drunk and ended up hungover. I'm not proud of that, but it's a fact.

Ex-colleague friends when we took a stroll around Valpo once

It's nice having friends. The bad thing is when they start standardising their lives but you are still stuck in your twenties (even when you're 37), because that usually means you have less and less things to talk about.

Another bad thing is when we start working and are always too tired to get together, so we end up seeing each other every six months and feeling really sleepy at 11 pm. I remember when I was young and I could spend the night anywhere, just for the sake of having fun. But now I always want to spend the night in my own bed. I guess that's a sign I'm really 37. Although this is mostly a thing that sucks about (paid) labour and ageing, not friendships proper, so ignore it (or think about it and do something before the time comes!).

In this week's post you have to write about your friends. This is one of the topics you chose, so you could pretty much say whatever you want about friends and/or friendship.

One suggestion when this post was voted was to write about hanging out with friends ('dates', according to Sergio) and what you do when you get together.

Other things you could discuss are the best places to meet friends and what qualities people should have to become your friends. Personally, I'm very open, but I draw the line at racists, fascists and people who justify the coup d'etat (yes, I'm not over that and I never will. And no, I wasn't alive. I said I'm 37. Focus, people).

Whatever you choose to write, make sure you write 200 words.
Also, leave comments on at least 2 of your classmates' entries and 1 comment on MINE (I won't give up asking you to do this!).

* lady terremotos are a middle-age-crisis drink which consists of sparkling wine and pineapple ice cream. I know that's what (some?) people drink on the New Year's but if you drink it any time during the year it's called lady terremoto, just so you know (according to me, though. Patent still pending). Note that pineapple ice cream does not exist in England, or at least in the town where I was living so, yeah, I missed it.

Panic

Hello everyone.

Today's topic is one that you chose: world challenges. I could write something but I don't know anything about world challenges and I don't really feel like thinking or googling anything about it, to be honest.

I suppose you are interested in this topic and doing stuff for the world and that's probably the reason why you chose your career path, so please, go ahead and tell us something about the different challenges the world is facing today.

If you want to, you can also share some ideas on how to solve (some of) them.

You need to write at least 180 words.

And, as usual, you have to leave comments on at least 2 of your classmates' posts.

If music could talk

I started liking English when I started listening to English music when I was thirteen years old.

This concert was amazing.
Angel Olsen at the Union Chapel in London. 

Before that I couldn't be bothered with the language, to be honest. Consequently, when I got the chance to live in England I used the opportunity to go to lots of concerts. At first, I went to the concerts of the bands I knew, but then I decided to go to as many gigs as I could provided I knew the band that was playing was an important band, meaning that they were considered to be influential in some way. As a result, at one point I ended up going to about one concert per week. Mind you, that's at least 52 concerts a year, since that's the number of weeks a year has.

This is a picture of Lancaster, where I lived.
Beautiful, but boring as death.

Going to as many concerts as I could was the best decision I could make while living in the UK. Being a PhD student can be very dull, stressful and repetitive (not to say freaking depressing), so having the chance to go to concerts allowed me to take breaks from the work in my office on a regular basis. Since I was living in a small northern town that barely had anything to do, going to concerts meant I had to travel a lot. Therefore, every time I went to a concert I could basically feel like a tourist as well, go sightseeing, go to the museums or theatres, or get to know other towns in England I wouldn't have been to otherwise, like St Austell in Cornwall. 

I always went to concerts on my own, which only made the experience more enriching to me, as well as empowering, since that's not something I would have done before I lived in the UK. 

One of my favourite musicians: PJ Harvey.
I saw here 5 times in England and would have kept
going to her concerts even when they
were pretty much always the same. Mesmerising.

 As you can imagine, going to as many concerts only means I cannot choose one. I had so many great concert experiences. I discovered so many bands and even started to like others whose albums I had heard and not really liked before I saw them live. The thing is, seeing and hearing a band play live is a whole experience. They can surprise you sometimes and watching the fans enjoying themselves also adds to the experience, making it unforgettable and sometimes even indescribable. 

I have too many great concert memories to choose just one, so I'm not going to. I keep a record of the concerts I've been to so I don't forget them, and also because I just enjoy seeing the number of gigs I've been to increase. I know that's silly, but I'm a concert nerd. The list of the concerts I've been to so far can be found here, in case you're wondering what kind of music I like. 

Unlike me, you will have to choose a concert to talk about today. Or maybe two, if you like. You can also talk about another topic, in case you really hate going to concerts because, let's face it, backache is a fact of life, and concerts may not really be your thing. So this week you'll have to choose whether you want to tell us about the best concert you've been to or the best holidays you've had so far. Just make sure you write about one of these topics and not the two of them! 

In your post you should mention: 

(if you choose to write about your best) Holiday (so far):

- when it was

- where they went

- how long it was

- people they went with

- things/activities they did

- why it has been the best so far

- any other relevant info

OR

(if you choose to write about a) Concert (you've really enjoyed):

- when / where it was

- the artist they saw

- a bit of info about the artist

- describe the atmosphere during the    event

- describe how they felt and why they  enjoyed it

- any other memories about it

This time the word count must be 170 words at least.

Also, make sure you leave comments on 3 of your classmates posts and 1 comment on mine (yes, that's down here).

Saw Lee Ranaldo (ex Sonic Youth) and got him to sign his
 record for me. I was alone and leaving without a photo until
someone's dad said I couldn't leave without one and 
offered to take it for me. I had to go back and Lee 
remembered my name. It's silly but I felt special xD

Holidays in the sun (?)

If I could go anywhere right now, I’d definitely like to go to Greece. I don’t know which city in Greece, but the country has been in my bucket list for some time now and I feel sort of sorry I missed it during the time I was living in the UK.

I’m not really a beach person, so I think I’d just stick to ancient ruins, museums and old buildings. I really like architecture, even when I don’t know anything about it. I just have a thing for buildings, particularly when they are in old cities. I blame colonialism. I know, shame on me!

Another thing I’m really looking forward to about going to Greece is the food. I don’t really know what sort of foods Greek people eat (other than kalamata olives) but for some reason I believe I’m going to love their cuisine.

Food is a really important thing for me. I think that it is actually one of my favourite things in the world, and one of the greatest benefits of human migration! (besides the actual getting to look beyond your own belly button sort of thing, of course).

I know it is a lame excuse, but whenever I’ve come close to consider becoming a vegetarian or vegan, this is one of the reasons that stops me from doing so. I believe that food is a way you can get a better understanding of the different cultures, especially when you consider the way people relate to food or make their lives around it. But that’s probably for another conversation.

Anyway, I think if I had a dietary restriction, my travelling and getting to know other cultures experience would be severely damaged. It’s selfish, I know, but I'm a selfish person.

Anyway, now let’s see where you’d like to go! Yes, that’s right, in your first post this term you have to write about a country you’d like to visit. You can tell us the reason why you’d like to go there, whether you’ve been there before or if you have plans to go there soon. You can also provide any other piece of information you consider relevant to share in your post. Just make sure you write at least 160 words! And, as I said before, make sure you leave at least 2 comments on your classmates’ entries.

Some ideas:
- Which country you'd like to visit?
- What do you know about it?
- What would you like to do there?
- Would you like to study/work/live there? Explain
- Upload pictures

Welcome to the Jungle

Aka: Welcome to the blog sessions! Before we start posting, I want to lay down some ground rules for our work with blogs this semester.

First of all, here, in my blog is where you’ll find the instructions for the entries you have to write each session, together with a sample post of my own, which will allow you to get an idea of what you’re supposed to do in class.

Also, my blog will allow you to access your classmates’ blogs. This is very important, since part of the blog sessions includes you reading your classmates’ entries and making comments on them.

You have to leave at least 2 comments on your classmates’ entries each session.

Also, your blog has to have links to my blog and all of your classmates’ blogs. That way it will be easier for you to find mine and their entries, read them and make comments on them.

Finally, always make sure you leave a comment on my entry! I’m trying to monetise my account and that really helps (I’m kidding! But I really need you to do this, though)

Now let us move on to the first entry of the term :)