First impressions of Europe

I got here (Berlin for the picky, Europe for the less geographically militant) yesterday. Here are my first impressions:

Women are not afraid to look like RoboCop.

Levis 501 still reign supreme in the world of jeans fashion. However did that get started? I know people think they're being stylishly American, but when was the last time you saw someone in Levis 501? They're being more Catholic than the Pope.

People freely give toys with tiny little pieces to toddlers who proceed to mouth them under their parents' noses for hours. Should I consider it a miracle they did not choke?

Europeans are not afraid to be racist in public, joking loudly that the passport line was being held up because some "Chinese" people were trying to get into the country to open "another Chinsese restaurant" but the customs officer didn't want them to because "we" already have enough.

Quite amaying, really. I can't believe I lived here for almost 20 years.

Thunderbolt and lightening!

Very very frightening!

One bowl of symbolic capital, coming up!

To all of you who've been on the edge of your seats, biting your nails (of course, except Katie who's kicked the habit): I passed. Hallelujah.

I am now a candidate. For what, is not entirely clear (actually, right now, for some sleep, but I'm not sure that's going to happen). I can see how one can have some fun listing the things I'm now a candidate for. Kinda like the -ness paradigm (happy-ness, grumpy-ness, etc.), in case you know me from way-back-then. Any ideas?

So, before I turn in for the night after a horrendous two weeks, I'd like to thank the Academy for not forcing me to go off and become an illegal alien studying to be a midwife (somehow, the two don't quite go together).

In the land of symbolic capital

I'm now 2/3 done with my prelim exams. Today is my day off. Tomorrow I move back into hell, part 3: geographical area. As my advisor likes to tell people, at this point they already know whether you pass or fail. Could someone give me a call, then?

These things aren't fun. My friend, who is also taking exams, is losing all sensation in her hand from typing. I dragged myself through a 32-hour-writing session with a 100-degree-fever, and probably 78% blood oxygenation from the deepest chest congestion I've ever had. Neither of us slept much, and speaking for myself, I don't even remember what I wrote.

Prelim exams don't really test any actual skills we need to have. When will I ever again have to write 30 pages in 32 hours, incl 8 hours for rest (ha!)?! According to all those people who try to reassure you, they don't expect much in the way of quality writing. Wouldn't it be better for me to create some quality writing instead, in maybe fewer pages and more time?

They also say prelim exams are "just a hoop" to jump through. But if they're just a hoop, why do we have to do them? Yes, prelim exams are a rite of passage, but anthropologists study those. No need to go "native" now, people.

In short, prelim exams are a way of accumulating symbolic capital, as the theoretically fashionable social scientist would say. [The snide would probably add, it's the only capital we're accumulating, since academia isn't exactly a goldmine] I don't like, I would respond.

In the land of symbolic capital, I'm not having much fun these days.