World Cup and Politics

Wondering who to root for now that we're in World Cup stage 2? I posted this on Buzz this morning and here's a re-post:


The Netherlands - Because of legalized prostitution, bike culture, and beautiful ball movement.
Brazil - Because they're world beaters.
Paraguay - Because football is their national sport.
Ghana - Because they're the last African team left.
Germany and Argentina - No sentiment here, if you are a betting man, this is where you put your money.
Spain - Because David Villa is the last secretly great football player.
Uruguay - Because they are the true underdogs, and really no one will be rooting for them.

Pick a reason, and work backwards from there to find your team.

In movie reviews, my sweetie and I watched the Weather Underground last night. It was... disturbing. Good, but I had dreams about it and they were sad. It's a historical/political documentary, so if you don't go in for that sort of thing, maybe don't rent. But if you do, it's good, like I said, just sad.

For somewhat related fun, do you know where you stand on the political ideology spectrum? Political Compass gives a test that is actually pretty interesting. I'm right next to the Dalai Lama, near Gandhi: left libertarian. Posting online about your politics is like posting your weight. Kinda scary actually.

em

EndNote X3

I attended a training this morning on EndNote X3 that was offered on campus, and I've spent most of the rest of my day building up my EndNote Library. Right now I have 45 references stored!


How cool is this software?! I cannot believe how excellent it is to have this citation management tool that is best friends with MS Word. X3 has tons of citation styles built directly into the program. For example, in my papers I cite with Chicago style, so I just set the controls to Chicago 15th B, and when I go to insert a citation into my paper, voila! It appears in perfect format.

Also, importing the references into EndNote has been pretty simple, since most of the academic articles that I have been using have options right on the sites, like JStor or SagePub, which allow you to just click a button and import the citation off the web directly into your software.

If you get a chance, seek it out. There are versions for Mac and PC, and if your school is like mine, you might even be able to get a copy free!

For all you grad students out there, do you use this? I LOVE it!

I finished my spring semester, somewhat victorious. One A and one B. Better than two B's! Most importantly, the A was in the class for which I completed my thesis proposal. So greenlight go on my thesis! Huzzah!

In other excellent news: it's summer! Yay yay yay summer!

Have you seen any good summer movies? I've only seen Iron Man 2, and I was not impressed. Maybe hopefully I'll see something else tonight.

Have you seen Charmalade's vacation pics? She's in Thailand. SO BEAUTIFUL!

Procrastination

Now you see, here's the problem:


This is the time of year that I start to seriously question how bad an incomplete could really be.

Personal Style Blog Research

Well, Tania of What Would a Nerd Wear asked to hear more about my project. So here we go.

Last semester I looked at Identity and Outfit of the Day Blogs. I interviewed seven OOTD bloggers to hear the story told through the voices of participants, and I followed approximately twenty blogs to watch how the community worked. My research question was: how is identity as an OOTD blogger shaped and influenced by the community of OOTD bloggers? I am a sociologist, so I am drawn to questions about the interplay between self and society.

This semester I am returning to the project and looking at it from a new angle. First, I have changed the terminology to personal style blogger, as that appears to be a cultural trend that has surfaced. Now I have two questions: what influences the personal style blogger's choice to, or not to monetize, and is personal style blogging a feminist enterprise?

A second big difference between last semester and this semester is that my current project is a research proposal for my thesis. My thesis will be due in April, 2011, so I have one year to read tons more books and articles, do more data collection, and do data analysis. This summer I will do a second round of interviews, and I would like to get as many as 40 interviews completed (if you're a personal style blogger and you're reading this, I would definitely like to talk with you). I will also be creating a database about PSBs, like posts per month, ads or no ads, links or no links, blogroll, number of pictures, cross posting, all that good stuff. From what I can tell, there is no centralized data collection of this kind, except probably Blogger and WordPress have use numbers. I suspect that blog companies would be unwilling to share that data, and also, since personal style blogs are not always distinct from personal blogs, mommy blogs, beauty blogs, etc., the info probably doesn't exist for just the type that I'm investigating.

So, what do you think? I have lately seen tons of reflective posts on these exact topics. Those are really cool and helpful, and I want to strike while the iron is hot, before people get tired of talking about why they do what they do. On the other hand, there is no money to do this research; I'm just working on my M.A., so it pretty much happens when I have time for it to happen. Same issues that most grad students face.

OK, so there you have it. Let's talk!
Emily K.

:(

Oh. So sad. And so snowy.

I have just returned from vacation!

Oh baby. This was the most insanely excellent vacation ever. EVAR!

My husband and I went on a delayed honeymoon to Turks and Caicos in the West Indies. We stayed at the drop dead gorgeous Bohio Dive Resort on Grand Turk (pop. 3,720) and we got dive certified. We also made tons of friends with our fellow vacationers. It was truly divine. Pictures:

(All pictures property of Emily Kennedy.)

Huge picture size, I know, but you just cannot imagine how lush and beautiful this island was. It was a tremendously wonderful trip, full of sun, local beer, relaxation, fishes, and chilling out.

Then we returned to find that our Kansas Jayhawks have won the Big 12 Championship and are ranked #1 in the nation for the NCAA Tournament. Rock Chalk Jayhawk! Go KU!