In general, I’m glad that television writers’ strike is over. Hopefully some of my favorite shows (let them remain unnamed lest I appear as a total geek) will run full season instead of a meager 6-8 episodes.
There’s only one regret. I thought that if the strike draged on a lot longer, producers would be looking for fresh ideas for reality shows and I could pitch them mine, “Dissertation Boot Camp.” Can you imagine how quickly graduate students would finish their dissertations if they were faced with fierce competition, had writing coaches taking them through the process step by step, and could potentially win a prize of hundreds of thousands of dollars to pay off their student debt! And what a treat it would be for the viewers: sociologists taking on economists, historians teaming up with anthropologists against cultural studies folks, comp lit people making out with art historians. And all those riveting repartees between Marxists and feminists, Kantians and Hegelians, small-N and large-N political scientists…
For now, I’ll have to motivate myself, rely on my friends for support and stimulating conversations, and hope there are enough jobs for all of us. And watch less TV!
Thursday, February 14, 2008
Monday, February 11, 2008
Immigration: Step Two
Monday last week I had a biometrics appointment. In plain English, the Department of Homeland Security called me to be fingerprinted and photographed, as a part of my immigration process. The appointment notice sounded very strict: if I didn’t show up or reschedule, my application would be “considered abandoned;” I couldn’t have a cell phone, camera, or any other recording device with me; I couldn’t have scars or bandages on my fingers (they’d prevent proper fingerprinting); I was advised not to bring anybody with me unless I needed their assistance (with paperwork, interpreting, etc.) during the appointment because of the limited seating at the DHS office.
As a law-abiding citizen-in-the-making, I got up at 7 AM (to be downtown by 9), left my cell phone at home, and even trimmed my nails the night before: I wasn’t sure how the fingerprinting was going to be done – hi-tech electronic image scanning or the old-fashioned way, how it was ten years ago when I went with a friend of mine to keep her company during her procedure – and if I was going to dip my fingers in black powder, I didn’t want it to get stuck under my nails. Expecting the same low level of efficiency and organization as I usually experience at the infamous West 112th street post office, I brought a ton of reading materials with me. I also got another cup of coffee on the way, from a guy who assumed I had stayed up late the night before watching the Giants win the Superbowl and who was disappointed to know that I was not a football fan. (Until that day, I actually thought it was Super*ball* as in foot*ball*.) To my distress, it turned out that no beverages were allowed at the DHS office either. Does this government of yours have to be so rigid?
But in this case its efficiency exceeded all my expectations. It sure looked like a DMV: fluorescent lights, rows of cheap plastic chairs, electronic number display on the wall, and mostly minority employees (Latino and African-American security guards and Asian women technicians). And of course there was more paperwork: in addition to an inch-think application package that our lawyer had put together, I had to fill out yet another “personal data sheet”. Mostly, it wasn’t hard: date and place of birth, my name and names of my parents, height, color of my eyes. But three items proved tricky: My weight – I hadn’t weighed myself in almost a year and knew only approximately what the number was. Color of my hair – did they want to know the color I was born with (dark brown), as it is likely to be now (one third salt, two thirds pepper), or how I’ve wearing it for the past seventeen years (reddish-brown); after a consultation with one of the friendly guards, I put down “red.” And, lastly, my race. This one is always a challenge for me. Is this a category of official designation or subjective perception? I am clearly not African- or Native-American, Hispanic, or even Asian (although I often do think that I must have some Asian ancestry, if only because of the two hundred plus years of the Mongol Yoke in Russia). But people rarely think of me as a Caucasian. And so do I. While, arguably, Jews in this country had become “white” by the time I arrived ten years ago (although one of my sociology professors, who’s an American-born Jew himself, strongly disagrees with this point of view), we are not quite as “white” in the old country. For example, the nicknames I had growing up ranged from the affectionate “little chocolate bar” to the hurtful “crow.” So, in this respect, you can take a girl out of the old country, but you can’t quite take the old country out of a girl. I wish they had “rootless cosmopolitan” as one of the options. But they didn’t, and I went for “race unknown.”
No one seemed to care how accurately I filled out this data sheet. At this time, it was much more important that my fingers were clean and I didn’t fidget while being fingerprinted. Even though each of my fingers was scanned – yes, it was hi-tech! – at least three times (and some more than that because I did fidget and the sensitive scanner did not take it well), I was out of the door and having another coffee by 9:15. So far, this immigration stuff is taking far less time than I anticipate.
On my way back home I kept thinking whether I hadn’t totally inadvertently left my fingerprints on some crime scene. I was also wondering how long they would be kept on file. Are they going to be expunged once I become an American citizen? If not, it doesn’t seem fair that naturalized citizens without a criminal record (I hope!) are treated differently than the native-borns. Maybe I should ask ACLU about this, I doubt the Department of Homeland Security will give me a straight answer…
As a law-abiding citizen-in-the-making, I got up at 7 AM (to be downtown by 9), left my cell phone at home, and even trimmed my nails the night before: I wasn’t sure how the fingerprinting was going to be done – hi-tech electronic image scanning or the old-fashioned way, how it was ten years ago when I went with a friend of mine to keep her company during her procedure – and if I was going to dip my fingers in black powder, I didn’t want it to get stuck under my nails. Expecting the same low level of efficiency and organization as I usually experience at the infamous West 112th street post office, I brought a ton of reading materials with me. I also got another cup of coffee on the way, from a guy who assumed I had stayed up late the night before watching the Giants win the Superbowl and who was disappointed to know that I was not a football fan. (Until that day, I actually thought it was Super*ball* as in foot*ball*.) To my distress, it turned out that no beverages were allowed at the DHS office either. Does this government of yours have to be so rigid?
But in this case its efficiency exceeded all my expectations. It sure looked like a DMV: fluorescent lights, rows of cheap plastic chairs, electronic number display on the wall, and mostly minority employees (Latino and African-American security guards and Asian women technicians). And of course there was more paperwork: in addition to an inch-think application package that our lawyer had put together, I had to fill out yet another “personal data sheet”. Mostly, it wasn’t hard: date and place of birth, my name and names of my parents, height, color of my eyes. But three items proved tricky: My weight – I hadn’t weighed myself in almost a year and knew only approximately what the number was. Color of my hair – did they want to know the color I was born with (dark brown), as it is likely to be now (one third salt, two thirds pepper), or how I’ve wearing it for the past seventeen years (reddish-brown); after a consultation with one of the friendly guards, I put down “red.” And, lastly, my race. This one is always a challenge for me. Is this a category of official designation or subjective perception? I am clearly not African- or Native-American, Hispanic, or even Asian (although I often do think that I must have some Asian ancestry, if only because of the two hundred plus years of the Mongol Yoke in Russia). But people rarely think of me as a Caucasian. And so do I. While, arguably, Jews in this country had become “white” by the time I arrived ten years ago (although one of my sociology professors, who’s an American-born Jew himself, strongly disagrees with this point of view), we are not quite as “white” in the old country. For example, the nicknames I had growing up ranged from the affectionate “little chocolate bar” to the hurtful “crow.” So, in this respect, you can take a girl out of the old country, but you can’t quite take the old country out of a girl. I wish they had “rootless cosmopolitan” as one of the options. But they didn’t, and I went for “race unknown.”
No one seemed to care how accurately I filled out this data sheet. At this time, it was much more important that my fingers were clean and I didn’t fidget while being fingerprinted. Even though each of my fingers was scanned – yes, it was hi-tech! – at least three times (and some more than that because I did fidget and the sensitive scanner did not take it well), I was out of the door and having another coffee by 9:15. So far, this immigration stuff is taking far less time than I anticipate.
On my way back home I kept thinking whether I hadn’t totally inadvertently left my fingerprints on some crime scene. I was also wondering how long they would be kept on file. Are they going to be expunged once I become an American citizen? If not, it doesn’t seem fair that naturalized citizens without a criminal record (I hope!) are treated differently than the native-borns. Maybe I should ask ACLU about this, I doubt the Department of Homeland Security will give me a straight answer…
The darkest days are behind us!
At least, for the next eight months or so.
When I happened to look out of the window at 5:30 PM today, it was not pitch dark as it has been for the past couple of months. Even though we’ve been having the coldest weather of the season lately, I’m optimistic that the spring is coming, no matter which groundhog pair – Chuck and Hal or Phil and Mel – you think was correct in their predictions.
Twenty-eight days until Daylight Savings Time!
Twenty-seven – till International Women’s Day (the unofficial beginning of spring in the old country).
Yankees pitchers and catchers report for spring training this Thursday.
Can spring be far behind?
(I am a lot less certain about the Democratic presidential nomination.)
When I happened to look out of the window at 5:30 PM today, it was not pitch dark as it has been for the past couple of months. Even though we’ve been having the coldest weather of the season lately, I’m optimistic that the spring is coming, no matter which groundhog pair – Chuck and Hal or Phil and Mel – you think was correct in their predictions.
Twenty-eight days until Daylight Savings Time!
Twenty-seven – till International Women’s Day (the unofficial beginning of spring in the old country).
Yankees pitchers and catchers report for spring training this Thursday.
Can spring be far behind?
(I am a lot less certain about the Democratic presidential nomination.)
Sunday, January 27, 2008
The Language of Matrimony
A few weeks ago, for the first time ever I had to introduce CAG, my beloved, as my “husband” (we spent our first month as a married couple almost a thousand miles apart, that’s why it happened only recently). He later commented on the seeming ease with which I did it. I told him he was quite wrong. But not so much because I’m still not used to us being married, but because I don’t like the word. It seems to lack affection, romance, and fun of couplehood and implies, to me at least, nothing but responsibility and burden, not to mention the old-fashioned patriarchic domination. It got me thinking – is there a word that would satisfy me more?
I don’t seem to find one entirely to my liking, in either languages I speak (English and Russian that is, for those who might be wondering). Unsure whether this is my very subjective perception, I did some etymological research, which was a lot easier to do from the couch than pretty much any sociological study: my main data source were the Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, the Oxford English Dictionary online, and the Russian version of Wiktionary (the last, I concede, is not the most authoritative source, but the only one available to me without a trip to a library). Here are my findings.
Turns out, I wasn’t so wrong about “husband”: as far I can decipher MWCD’s abbreviations, in Old English it meant “master of a house” and in Old Norse – “householder.” What else but relations of property and power comes to mind?! (“Wife,” on the other hand, is “of obscure origin,” as OED puts it.) The politically correct and now hip “partner” would seem a lot better: it’s gender-neutral and almost unequivocally suggests parity of both participants. But it does not transcend, in my opinion, the connotation of marriage as a business-like union that two sides enter for utilitarian rather than romantic reasons.
For someone, who does not speak Russian, “spouse” would probably be ideal. It too evokes equality of the two sides and even hints at something metaphysical, not just purely material: it is related to “espouse,” one of which meanings is “to take up and support as a cause, become attached to.” I kinda like it: marriage as faith rather than a business venture. But the Russian ruins it all. “Spouse(s)” translates as suprug for him, supruga for her, and suprugi for them together, which quite literally mean “joined together by a harness (upriazh').” The two of them, like workhorses covered in sweat and grime, pulling a plow, forever yoked together, that’s the image that comes to my mind. Suprug is not a lover, soul mate, or even friend; he is bonded to, if not by, his spouse for backbreaking toil.
There are also muzh and zhena, which, respectively, come from “man” and “woman.” Not bad maybe, but the former rhymes with “gorged on pears” which connotes “kicked back, slacked off,” while the latter – with “Satan,” no analysis necessary here although the roles of domination seem to be reversed. Another wonderful marriage-related Russian word is brak, the institution of marriage itself. Apparently, it comes from Old Slavonic for “take” and, in this particular context, to “snatch, kidnap [the bride],” as apparently was a custom of ancient Slavs, according to Wiktionary. Better yet, a modern homonym of brak means “defect” and “waste.” Why would anyone even contemplate partaking in an institution with such a name?!
In any case, husband, spouse, partner, muzh, or suprug, are all either too bland for my taste or smack of old-fashioned conception of marriage as an economic union, rather than romantic relationship. Well, it is widely known that marriage based on love rather than economic considerations is an utterly modern phenomenon (see, for example, “Love and Property” in Randall Collins’s Sociological Insight). But does it mean that we have to carry on using the terms with outdated meanings? After all, as offspring of cultural and linguistic turns in humanities and social sciences we need to remember that language constitutes reality just as much as the other way around. Maybe the decline of the institution of marriage – high divorce rates, late nuptials, commitment-phobia, marital infidelity etc. – is to a certain extent a result of this discrepancy between expectations of affectionate companionship and the old notions of marriage as economic enterprise that still pervade the language we use to describe it?
I don’t have a universal solution to the problem, after all I am not a linguist, just a sociologist. For now, my beloved and I settled for “wifele” and “husbandchik” to stretch a bit the linguistic limitations within which we have to operate for now.
I also propose that if we all want our unions to be joyous (most of us do get hitched sooner or later) we call it *merriage*. Any other suggestions, folks?
I don’t seem to find one entirely to my liking, in either languages I speak (English and Russian that is, for those who might be wondering). Unsure whether this is my very subjective perception, I did some etymological research, which was a lot easier to do from the couch than pretty much any sociological study: my main data source were the Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, the Oxford English Dictionary online, and the Russian version of Wiktionary (the last, I concede, is not the most authoritative source, but the only one available to me without a trip to a library). Here are my findings.
Turns out, I wasn’t so wrong about “husband”: as far I can decipher MWCD’s abbreviations, in Old English it meant “master of a house” and in Old Norse – “householder.” What else but relations of property and power comes to mind?! (“Wife,” on the other hand, is “of obscure origin,” as OED puts it.) The politically correct and now hip “partner” would seem a lot better: it’s gender-neutral and almost unequivocally suggests parity of both participants. But it does not transcend, in my opinion, the connotation of marriage as a business-like union that two sides enter for utilitarian rather than romantic reasons.
For someone, who does not speak Russian, “spouse” would probably be ideal. It too evokes equality of the two sides and even hints at something metaphysical, not just purely material: it is related to “espouse,” one of which meanings is “to take up and support as a cause, become attached to.” I kinda like it: marriage as faith rather than a business venture. But the Russian ruins it all. “Spouse(s)” translates as suprug for him, supruga for her, and suprugi for them together, which quite literally mean “joined together by a harness (upriazh').” The two of them, like workhorses covered in sweat and grime, pulling a plow, forever yoked together, that’s the image that comes to my mind. Suprug is not a lover, soul mate, or even friend; he is bonded to, if not by, his spouse for backbreaking toil.
There are also muzh and zhena, which, respectively, come from “man” and “woman.” Not bad maybe, but the former rhymes with “gorged on pears” which connotes “kicked back, slacked off,” while the latter – with “Satan,” no analysis necessary here although the roles of domination seem to be reversed. Another wonderful marriage-related Russian word is brak, the institution of marriage itself. Apparently, it comes from Old Slavonic for “take” and, in this particular context, to “snatch, kidnap [the bride],” as apparently was a custom of ancient Slavs, according to Wiktionary. Better yet, a modern homonym of brak means “defect” and “waste.” Why would anyone even contemplate partaking in an institution with such a name?!
In any case, husband, spouse, partner, muzh, or suprug, are all either too bland for my taste or smack of old-fashioned conception of marriage as an economic union, rather than romantic relationship. Well, it is widely known that marriage based on love rather than economic considerations is an utterly modern phenomenon (see, for example, “Love and Property” in Randall Collins’s Sociological Insight). But does it mean that we have to carry on using the terms with outdated meanings? After all, as offspring of cultural and linguistic turns in humanities and social sciences we need to remember that language constitutes reality just as much as the other way around. Maybe the decline of the institution of marriage – high divorce rates, late nuptials, commitment-phobia, marital infidelity etc. – is to a certain extent a result of this discrepancy between expectations of affectionate companionship and the old notions of marriage as economic enterprise that still pervade the language we use to describe it?
I don’t have a universal solution to the problem, after all I am not a linguist, just a sociologist. For now, my beloved and I settled for “wifele” and “husbandchik” to stretch a bit the linguistic limitations within which we have to operate for now.
I also propose that if we all want our unions to be joyous (most of us do get hitched sooner or later) we call it *merriage*. Any other suggestions, folks?
Monday, December 24, 2007
Why I am not in Therapy: Do I *Need* Another Fib?
Even Freud was more optimistic: at least he promised to turn neurosis into "ordinary unhappiness," whatever that means!
Robert Mankoff's December 10, 2007 New Yorker Cartoon is available for purchase
Robert Mankoff's December 10, 2007 New Yorker Cartoon is available for purchase
Saturday, December 22, 2007
The Making of an American: First Step
So I’ve begun my immigration process. Yesterday, I went for a special medical exam, which all aspiring immigrants have to take. Out of hundreds of special doctors, certified by the government to attest to the good health of newcomers, my lawyer recommended a doctor in Chinatown. To assure me that there was no impropriety in his recommendation, the lawyer said he had never seen or talked to the man, nor got as much as a Christmas card from him. The last part of the argument didn’t seem convincing to me: the lawyer is a Jew and the doctor – Chinese, so even if they *were* tight, why *would* they exchange cards on Christmas?!
I went to this doctor anyway: he was taking walk-ins and was, supposedly, cheap. I cursed my way through half of Canal Street – you try to stay calm amidst holiday shoppers and tourists mesmerized by counterfeit Prada purses and Chanel perfumes! – looking for the address. Even though the entrance I needed turned out to be well lit and marked by a bright-blue awning, I could not find it at first distracted by overpowering sights, sounds, and smells of the fish shops on both sides of the door and along the entire block.
The doctor’s office was the least medical-like establishment I’ve ever been to (maybe with the exception of a “home office” of a respiratory-disease doctor my parents took me to almost thirty years ago, where I had to inhale some eucalyptus concoction for my bad sinuses in a corner of his living room). First, I talked to the receptionist, who did the paperwork, informed me about the payment (cash only, but it was half of what I had expected), and made sure I am not pregnant (for vaccinations and X-ray). When it came to the last issue, the woman, despite her pretty good English, decided to also use sign language: she started making circles in front of her stomach and then crossing it. I got confused at first: to me it looked like she was asking whether I was hungry, or whether I had eaten recently, or had digestion problems. Nothing in the sign evoked babies. But it must be a universal sign for pregnancy for the Chinese communicating with foreigners: when I went down to radiology, the man there did the same circle, only now I knew what it meant and almost preempted his question with a resolute “no.”
The immigration form for the medical exam makes it sound a serious affair. The applicants are warned that they will have to get undressed to allow a doctor a thorough check-up. They are urged to share any medical history and health concerns they might have during the exam. I was prepared to spend a good half-hour with the doctor discussing my higher-than-desirable cholesterol, my psychosomatic bladder problems, my bad posture, and persistent sinus problems (those visits to the “home office” of the Russian doctor evidently were a waste of time and money – also, cash only!). The man wouldn’t have it: all he did was draw some blood and give me a TD shot; I didn’t even have to take off my sweater all the way, just bared my forearm for the former and shoulder for the latter. More surprisingly, though, the doctor didn’t wear latex gloves, or even a lab coat. I wasn’t even sure his syringes were sterile. He barely spoke to me, and the whole thing didn’t last more than a few minutes. When I brought back my chest X-ray taken in a lab two floors down, his diagnosis – my lungs are healthy (which is surprising after so many years of smoking) – came way too quickly, but I am hoping it is because of his profound expertise rather than professional sloppiness or dislike of Russian Jews. I am due back next week to pick up results of my blood work; at least this takes some time to process.
I am not sure whether this encounter is a reflection on the immigration system of this country; or on the state of its healthcare; or on the standards and work ethic of Chinese doctors, although here I wonder how different my experience would have been with a Russian doctor in Brighton Beach and besides the man was chosen and presumably trained by the United States government. Or am I a cultural imperialist with no understanding and respect for another culture? In any case, something seemed a bit off, shady, and fishy, and not only because of the fish market outside of the doctor’s office. On the other hand, if the entire process of immigration is this quick and unintrusive, I’m all for it.
I went to this doctor anyway: he was taking walk-ins and was, supposedly, cheap. I cursed my way through half of Canal Street – you try to stay calm amidst holiday shoppers and tourists mesmerized by counterfeit Prada purses and Chanel perfumes! – looking for the address. Even though the entrance I needed turned out to be well lit and marked by a bright-blue awning, I could not find it at first distracted by overpowering sights, sounds, and smells of the fish shops on both sides of the door and along the entire block.
The doctor’s office was the least medical-like establishment I’ve ever been to (maybe with the exception of a “home office” of a respiratory-disease doctor my parents took me to almost thirty years ago, where I had to inhale some eucalyptus concoction for my bad sinuses in a corner of his living room). First, I talked to the receptionist, who did the paperwork, informed me about the payment (cash only, but it was half of what I had expected), and made sure I am not pregnant (for vaccinations and X-ray). When it came to the last issue, the woman, despite her pretty good English, decided to also use sign language: she started making circles in front of her stomach and then crossing it. I got confused at first: to me it looked like she was asking whether I was hungry, or whether I had eaten recently, or had digestion problems. Nothing in the sign evoked babies. But it must be a universal sign for pregnancy for the Chinese communicating with foreigners: when I went down to radiology, the man there did the same circle, only now I knew what it meant and almost preempted his question with a resolute “no.”
The immigration form for the medical exam makes it sound a serious affair. The applicants are warned that they will have to get undressed to allow a doctor a thorough check-up. They are urged to share any medical history and health concerns they might have during the exam. I was prepared to spend a good half-hour with the doctor discussing my higher-than-desirable cholesterol, my psychosomatic bladder problems, my bad posture, and persistent sinus problems (those visits to the “home office” of the Russian doctor evidently were a waste of time and money – also, cash only!). The man wouldn’t have it: all he did was draw some blood and give me a TD shot; I didn’t even have to take off my sweater all the way, just bared my forearm for the former and shoulder for the latter. More surprisingly, though, the doctor didn’t wear latex gloves, or even a lab coat. I wasn’t even sure his syringes were sterile. He barely spoke to me, and the whole thing didn’t last more than a few minutes. When I brought back my chest X-ray taken in a lab two floors down, his diagnosis – my lungs are healthy (which is surprising after so many years of smoking) – came way too quickly, but I am hoping it is because of his profound expertise rather than professional sloppiness or dislike of Russian Jews. I am due back next week to pick up results of my blood work; at least this takes some time to process.
I am not sure whether this encounter is a reflection on the immigration system of this country; or on the state of its healthcare; or on the standards and work ethic of Chinese doctors, although here I wonder how different my experience would have been with a Russian doctor in Brighton Beach and besides the man was chosen and presumably trained by the United States government. Or am I a cultural imperialist with no understanding and respect for another culture? In any case, something seemed a bit off, shady, and fishy, and not only because of the fish market outside of the doctor’s office. On the other hand, if the entire process of immigration is this quick and unintrusive, I’m all for it.
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