I thought some of the topic about the cat vs. dog things was interesting...perhaps we should move this to the off topic thread?! On the other hand, such small talk is a good way to open up networking and more serious conversation....!

There is a full moon Tuesday....so what will that portend??!

What happened to the trout thread??

Those all sound like very interesting books. What is "Bringing Down the House" about?

I would say, do not underestimate the stress of such a huge relocation, along with the stress of starting a new PhD programme. I am in the start of my second week in a new country, and I think it is just going to take several weeks before things ease into "normal", that it takes some time to make all the adjustments. I find that indulging my odd cravings for things from home ( like Doritos and Mcdonalds--that I never ate at home!) from time to time, remembering to laugh, a lot, and getting the right amounts of sleep and exercise, and eating properly make a huge difference. I have finally caught up on sleep, and the world looks completely different!

Its the cat pee fumes...!

I am American. I think I mentioned in some post that I had spent time as a foreign exchange student in Australia during high school, maybe that was what you were thinking of!

This book brings it to light, and leaves me to bring on board in my own conciousness and conscience what that means and what response is required in every day living as well as on a larger scale.

Perhaps what is most disturbing to get to grips with is how "invisible" racism has been made to white America.

I think a lot has to do with how the issues are presented. I learned about American Civil Rights in a context that minimized the ills that were being addressed and basically expressed that right, that is done and dusted, and we have now reconciled our racist past...the reality is of course what want on was much larger and more pervasive than I was taught or exposed to, and goes on in the present day. I grew up in a town where you could literally draw a line down the center--whites on one side, African Americans on the other. My parents made sure that their children went to the integrated schools, not the all white schools where white people had fled. I lived on a small close that had familes that were Jewish, Chinese, Armenian, African American, and Native American, as well as white bread middle American. I was brought up to BE concious of race issues, civil rights, integration, and even with all of that, there was much that remained under the surface.

Yes, I "knew" it at an intellectual level, having studied it, and so forth, but it is put in an entirely different context when you read about how it impacted real people and real lives...and just how brutal racism is. Make no mistake that America's racism is "white washed" ( no pun intended) and it is quite easy to lead your life there ( as a white person) ignorant of those issues. America is still a very racist, very racially divided country. I was well aware of the Civil Rights movement, but did not realize the scale to which African Americans were being denied the right to vote--it was more than a handful of counties in some Deep South states.

set a task at the beginning for myself to do an easy three articles a day, and to write about them, and moved along from there...Although we all have different motivators, I think the important thing is to figure out what motivates you, break the work down into a daily task format as you might in a "real job" and hold yourself to it.

I set a rigid schedule for myself, down to the daily tasks that have to be accomplished, and then hold myself to it. No excuses. So it does not matter if I feel like doing it or not, that just never comes into the equation. I have a set of goals for the month, break them down into what should be done for the week, and then figure out what to do every day. I think people get paralyzed from seeing the big and seemingly overwhelming picture, and not breaking the thing down into discrete and manageable tasks. I remember starting my literature review, thinking...ohhhhhhh nooooooooooooooooo...it seemed so overwhelming, and then telling myself, just do it an article at a time. Pick up an article. Read it. Write a synopsis. Move on. I

I knew bits and pieces of this history in the United States, but the reality of the amount of racism in that country, up to this moment in time, and how recent the denials of basic rights such as voting and education were--and how mainstream society DID NOT CARE--is a very upsetting truth.

This book really brings out the stark reality of what all of that meant to African Americans and how it continues to impact things in the present day.

It follows on from another book she wrote about her mother's family, called "Cane River." Lalita Tademy's ancestors were slaves, and struggled to make a life for themselves in the aftermath of the American Civil War where racism remained rampant.

This shocked me to no end--and was an upsetting truth to gras--but apparently from the mid 1870's until the Civil Rights movement in the 1960's in the United States, African Americans were routinely denied their right to vote!!!!!!! It took the Civil Rights movement to accomplish this--late in the 20th century!!! At the same time, all of the fighting about school integration was on-going, and the Little Rock, Arkansas school system shut down for a year or more rather than admit African American students!!!

Has anyone read, or perhaps currently reading, a good non PhD related book lately? Or is reading the last thing on anyone's idea of a way to spend free time after doing PhD work? Since the student gulag I am living in lacks either internet or TV access ( truly!) the forms of entertainment there are few and far between. I got a really good book yesterday called "Red River" by American writer, Lalita Tademy, based on her father's family experiences after the American Civil War in Louisiana.