I’m not sure whether Geneva’s calvinist seriousness and reverence for the demands of business are starting to get on my nerves or if it’s only about these amazing adhesive tapes with lots of different patterns I found in a hip little shop in Berne, but lately I have been listening to female punk bands from [...]
Archive for the ‘Studies’ Category
ZINEage years
Posted in Shopping, Studies, Work, tagged PhD, punk, snowflake-patterned adhesive tape, Studies, teaching, zines on June 3, 2010 | 7 Comments »
A crash course in teaching
Posted in Home, Leaving, Studies, Uncategorized, tagged Berlitz, Coppet, moving, PhD on May 16, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
After being unemployed for four months, during which I worked quietly for myself at my own rythm, the recent change of pace came as a bit of a shock. Suddenly my PhD proposal deadline arrived, I started having job interviews, and after the Berlitz school of languages selected me for their initial training I only had [...]
Feminist ramblings
Posted in Friends & family, Studies, tagged activism, feminism, Sharpie markers, The L Word, yurt on December 24, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
I have been reading about feminism a lot in the last month or so. While I had been exposed to many of the ideas before, I had never been this eager to integrate them into my life in a coherent manner. The end of the year is an ideal time to examine my motives and [...]
Taking things in stride
Posted in Leaving, Studies, Trips, tagged application, Busy, Studies, travel on May 22, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
I had no idea I would suddenly be very busy, going from one thing to the next without much time for reflection; and I’m generally know to be the reflexive, rather than active type. Ignoring this tendency, last Friday I went to Germany, came back to Switzerland on Sunday, left for Paris on Tuesday, and [...]
German Blues
Posted in Studies, Trips, tagged conference, Drew Hayden Taylor, Lueneburg, Native American on May 18, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
This week-end I was in Lüneburg, a charming town between Hamburg and Hannover where a symposium in Native American / First Nations studies took place. The funny thing about Germans is that for unclear reasons they love American Indians. They have popular novels with a character named Winitou and powwows across the country. Well, if [...]
Books for spring
Posted in Home, Studies, tagged library, novels, reading on May 1, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
At last, I can read books I’ve chosen myself! I know I should be revising for my exam but I’ve decided to pretend I mistook Eugenide’s Middlesex for George Elliot’s Middlemarch and my honour will be safe (sort of). I ordered some of these on Amazon and they’ve been sitting on my shelf for a [...]
Deadlines and departures
Posted in Campus, Leaving, Studies on April 13, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
These last weeks I’ve been writing a lot: every day, most of the day, day after day. I was in my room writing as other students played football outside or chatted for hours, spreading blankets on the grass. I was in my room writing as they started packing one after the other, and left noisily. [...]
The meat chronicles – 3
Posted in Food, Studies, tagged meat, mutton, sheep on March 30, 2009 | 3 Comments »
I had a presentation for my literature and food seminar and showed this chart to the class. The real thing had pictures of all the parts of the animal that can usually be found on a butcher’s stall. Students had mixed reactions: while some of them found it disgusting, others argued that they prefer their [...]
Spring attraction
Posted in Campus, Studies, tagged spring, Studies, sunny on March 22, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
During the last week, deep change has occured in students’ lifestyles. Many of them are following the example of the young rabbits that graze recklessly around the brick houses, and make brave efforts to focus on essays while their computer screens soak up the sunshine on the kitchen tables they’ve installed outdoors for a change. [...]
Borderlines
Posted in Campus, Studies, tagged borderlines, space on February 24, 2009 | 2 Comments »
There’s what I can take and what becomes too much; the quantity and quality of food I can ingest without being sick; the door that separates my room from the rest of the house. There’s how many articles I can read in a day and how much time I can spend with housemates in the [...]
