To whom it may concern,

This summer, I have been in South Africa doing research for my PHD in Performance Studies. As Africa is my focus area, and will make up the bulk of my dissertation, it was necessary that I leave California to do my research, which has consisted of practical experience working with community theatre groups in Soweto and Thokoza townships, attendance of over 30 performances at the Grahamstown theatre festival, and interviews with South African theatre practitioners. This trip is essential for my future fieldwork, as it has given me an accurate idea of both the political and theatrical contemporary scenes. I will use my experiences to complete seminar papers that will hopefully culminate in a dissertation that will gain Berkeley and my department distinction in the realm of Performance Studies and African Studies more generally.
I left on May 25th and will return on August 6th, visit my parents in Washington DC for two days and then return to Berkeley on the 8th.
Thank you for your understanding in this matter, and your allowance for these special circumstances. I look forward to achieving residency in California, and spending my next four years at Berkeley.

Sincerely,
...

I am in presentation-preparing hell. I swear to god, I thought this was going to get easier this semester. I just. never. stop. working. I got up this morning at 9, had class from 9:30-11, read like a madwoman from 11-2, class from 2-5, meetings with prof until 6, then worked on syllabus for the acting class I'm going to teach (ha!)until 7, bought a book that I have to read before 2 PM tomorrow, went to rehearsal for Lab Run from 8-10. Freaked out a little, had a good time a little. Then from 10 until now I have been reading said book, trying to find quotes and make sense of my increasingly blurry head. I think I'm going to probably end up sleeping in the grad lounge, since I have to be here for a meeting at 8 AM anyway. Good. God.

Saturday I slept for over 24 hours. That's a new record. I am so so tired. Last night I worked from 2 PM until 2 AM. What the hell?

Got all A's in my first semester in Grad School. Have applied for several upcoming conferences (including one in Copenhagen!), and am potentially getting an article published in Theatre Survey in the next year or two. Am presumably getting my chapter published in the TRC book sometime next year (pending revisions). I generally survived the semester with sanity intact. Am going to South Africa for the summer (probably June 1st-mid August), to conduct research on theatre and performance/interview LGBT people about being queer in townships/attend the Grahamstown festival of the arts. I am signed up for some awesome classes this semester: Performance methodologies (basically, responsible ethnography), Post-colonial African theory, Lab Run (a performance workshop, where I will expand my one-woman piece about religion, music, grandpa Barber, and Gogo), Coloquium (where I can retool/build on the papers I wrote last semster), and Zulu (which I have completely forgotten over the break).

These are the positives I try to hold on to when I am depressed. I've been inexplicably down the past few weeks, sleeping waay too much, avoiding things I really should be on top of (because I can), and generally being a bump on a log. I also "broke up" with my non-girlfriend, which, though for the best, does not a happy April make. It was amicable as can be, but means that I have no more sex on tap. And, you know...less intimacy. Which is sad, especially when I'm feeling disconnected (disconnecting myself) as it is. On the plus side, I've started going to the campus counseling center, which should hopefully give me an outlet to analyze all of the things I was too busy to think about last semester.

I just wish I could stop feeling so freaking sad for no good reason.

Sigh.

Anyhoo, here's a list of things I have to do to begin to prepare for my South African trip:

-Book flights (see if I can go through Virgin and spend a day or two in London on each side)
-Contact theatre people in South Africa: Try Pieter-Dirk Uys again, get in touch with those two south Africans I met at Catherine Cole's party whose sister works with Playback Theatre in Cape Town, Yvette Hutchinson (even if she thinks I'm ridiculous), the people who work at Magnet, Try Brett Bailey.
-Get in touch with Marje at Khulumani and see if she needs any help with the kids on the June 16th performance.
-Call Leslie, RE: work she's doing with Bokomoso, the Grahamstown Festival, etc. See if she knows any South African Theatre people I can contact.
-Get in contact with Queer Orgs (Triangle Project, etc.) and try to figure out what my project actually will be.
-Fill out all of the necessary forms for "The Protection of Human Subjects."
-Call Gogo. See if she needs any money/is still alive, etc
-Contact friends in Cape Town. Try to somehow make new ones, as many of emigrated.
-Get in touch with Sisisebuye (sp?) about the work they do at Constitution Hill. Look at constitution hill as another site of memory.
-Budget. I have $2,600 from department. Do I need more? Sources of funding...

Hmm. And that's just the tip of the iceburg. But if I can make some progress over the next few days (classes start a week from today)...that would be something.

Wake up, April! Snap to it!

I hope all is going swimmingly for you guys!

Jan
My new years was fun and eventful (though not as eventful as I would have liked). I went out clubbing in Durban with these two Australian girls I met at the hostel.

Feb
I'm feeling annoyingly depressed these days.

March
I got waitlisted at Austin. I guess this is what I get for not going to their open house.

April
I am in San Francisco right now. It feels so weird, so off somehow. This is most likely because I was in DC this morning, Chicago this afternoon (it was snowing), Cape Town a week and a half ago, and Soweto working with my kids two weeks ago.

May
The girl I was hoping to maybe explore things with doesn't seem to be interested in me after all.

June
So a quick med update: I've been on Wellbutrin for about a week and a half (continuing on 50 mgs of Zoloft) and the side effects are beginning to really kick in.

July
I found myself returning home from a BBQ at Cy's in Bernal Heights, just after the sun had set and the sky had fallen into a deep blue. Suddenly the night was punctuated by the glimmering bangs, whistles and sighs of illegal fireworks, shooting above and around me, clothing the streets in an ethereal glow.

August
*head explodes after reading 75 pages of anthropological theory in 24 hours*

September
In my first two weeks of graduate school, I have:
read approx. 750 pages for class
Signed up for three seminars, one colloquium, one Zulu language class, one readership, and one part time job at the Performance Studies library.
Lost six pounds because I haven't had time to eat.

October
Things to get done this week:
...

November
It's been so long since I updated this thing that I don't know where to start. Graduate School has been everything I hoped it would be as well as sometimes horrifically challenging. I've stretched myself in ways that I had forgotten I knew how, and have made some wonderful connections with people. My ego has gotten a nice beat down or two.

December
I just found out that my entire summer project (a trip to the Grahamstown Festival in SA, collaboration with Khulumani, and more) got funded by the department. Woot! Now I can start making plans...


And the beat goes on...I don't know how I'm going to write all of the papers I'm supposed to write in the next week. I very well may go insane. But there you have it.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071205/ap_en_tv/people_degeneres_jenna_bush;_ylt=AoR021YFXDDrJ26KeAJG0ecDW7oF

Not quite sure how I feel about it...talk about "Mainstream Bizarre!"

I just found out that my entire summer project (a trip to the Grahamstown Festival in SA, collaboration with Khulumani, and more) got funded by the department. Woot! Now I can start making plans...

My kitty cat died.

I am sad. She was my baby. I got her when I was 11. Granted, I haven't been around for the past six or so years. But I still loved her. Friskie was the sweetest cat ever.

I have so much work to do that it seems a little unreal (and therefore I am strangely calm).

but sad.

Sometimes, it's just a leeetle too late for Foucault. Though I enjoy studying in his window seat at Sufficient Grounds coffee house.

It's been so long since I updated this thing that I don't know where to start. Graduate School has been everything I hoped it would be as well as sometimes horrifically challenging. I've stretched myself in ways that I had forgotten I knew how, and have made some wonderful connections with people. My ego has gotten a nice beat down or two. I have spent long nights in coffee shops, going insane reading theory that is virtually incomprehensible. I have four papers to write in the next three weeks. I have no idea how getting through this will be humanly possible. But, none-the-less, I know I'll be able to get through it. Hopefully next semester will be less crazy--still a full load, but less of the complete culture shock.

I feel older. old, even. I want permenancy. I've been seeing someone for almost four months now; it's mostly stayed at the "dating" level, since she lives in Palo Alto. I like her a lot. It's nice to be intimate with somebody. However, I'm becoming more and more aware that I want to be in a real relationship. I want more. Maybe more than she's able to give me. But if I can't find that with her, I think it is still something I want. Love. Comfort. Someone to come home to and share silences. I used to assume that I would eventually meet someone. I'm beginning to lose hope that these things just happen. But I don't have the energy to search for it. Or even meet that many new people. I wish I had more time. Or less to do. Things will only get more and more busy from here on out. I accept that. I'm glad that I'm here.

Happy thanksgiving everyone. I love you, and still check my friends' page every day. It just gets hard to write when things get so crazy and I have no sense of what I'm actually feeling. Therapy next semester, maybe? Yeah, that would be good...

I have discovered www.playbillradio.com and I am never going back.

Things to get done this week:

Tonight--Grading for mid-term. Begin PS Theory Reading. Finish reading that was due today.

Tomorrow--Finish grading midterms. Work on summer plans and funding applications. Reading for readership. Reading for African Theatre. Zulu.

Thursday and Friday--Do some solid research for Museum Paper.

Weekend--Watch Pieter-Dirk Uys films in Library.


Tommorrow:
Shannon during office hours.
Baraka at the starry Plough

Don't forget: Have fun.

Artworlds
Provisional Thesis/Abstract for Final Paper

For much of the past five centuries, South Africa’s sense of history and self-perception has been shaped by the white minority. During the apartheid years, especially, State control of knowledge echoed its desire to control non-white bodies, using scientific and social racism to justify the subjugation and displacement of almost 90% of the population. Since the advent of democracy in 1994, South Africa has struggled with the legacy of its painful past and concurrent redefinition of its identity. This need has been partially addressed through large-scale socio-judicial mechanisms such as the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. This quest can also be seen at a micro-level, in community-based projects and, especially, in the ways in which formerly contested space has been re-inscribed to create what I’m provisionally calling “living museums.” These museums utilize the history of their location (often grounds for struggle and resistance) as a point of departure, and create a space that privileges the histories, memories, and voices of those who were previously silenced by the ruling regime. Much has been written about the most famous of these sites Robben Island and the District Six Museum; I hope to use this paper to build upon that discourse, including a discussion of two (or perhaps three) sites that perform the possibilities and flaws of this particular brand of recovering memory. These sites will likely include (but not be limited to)—the Traveling Exhibit, situated in the context of a larger museum; the Township Museum, and the Government Building that doubles as both a space for the state and a space for remembrance. I will most likely also discuss the ways in which these museums function within the context of the popular narrative of South Africa’s “success story” (often at odds with the realities of life for most South Africans); within the larger process of healing and reconciliation started by the TRC; and within the demands of a tourism-based economy.

Dear April,
>
> It is my pleasure to inform you that you have been
> selected to be one of
> two TDPS/Berkeley representatives to the
> Multi-Campus Research Group in
> International Performance event at Irvine in late
> October. I will be
> forwarding your name, contact information and a
> brief description of
> your work to the Irvine organizers, Daphne Lei and
> Frank Wilderson. They
> will get in touch with you about further details
> regarding travel, etc.
> They are also looking at putting together a graduate
> student panel on
> African theatre, and I know that they will be
> interested to see if you
> might have something to contribute. The other UCB
> grad representative is
> Ariel, so the two of you may decide you with to
> travel and/or room
> together. I'll leave that up to you!
>
> Congratulations! And I look forward to being at this
> wonderful
> conference with you.

So I have not lost the six pounds after all. Poop!

Otherwise, things are moving along (though not without stress)--I have my first writing assignment due for Performance Theory this Friday, where I'm supposed to create an ethnography of a field site, define a key word, and then problematize my position as an ethnographer or anthropologist.

I think I'm going to write about the rehearsal when the Soweto youth told me that I had cast people in the leads who had never auditioned, and the space between my vision of myself as the director (in the Western sense) and the reality of their troupe as emblematic of the primary problem of the outside practitioner entering/recording/controlling an experience is not their own. Hopefully I can offer my response (Letting them take ownership of the piece and recast the parts by consensus) as a learned experience in collaboration.

We're supposed to utilize a writing form that evokes the problems inherent in our position and I'm not sure how to do that. I don't want to try to do a multiple perspective take on it, because of the obvious problem of (re)creating someone else's position. I could potentially tell it through different stylistic modes (Objective, Subjective) and in different languages (though, once again, I would be putting words into someone else's mouth). Is that ethical?

I've been lately concerned with the concept of Ethical Ethnography, and how an outsider (especially coming from the Western academic, theatrical, etc tradition, can responsibly represent another culture, when that representation will be inherently subjective and biased. I can situate myself and some of my perspectives, but this is a 1,000 word exercise, so there is only so deep that I can go. I also don't want to get lost in my own guilt/anxiety about my position.

I know that several academics/smart people read my lj; if you have any suggestions about how i could approach this assignment, I would be forever grateful.

Now I have to go read 20 pages and a play for my African Theatre class tomorrow. Fun fun!

In my first two weeks of graduate school, I have:

read approx. 750 pages for class

Signed up for three seminars, one colloquium, one Zulu language class, one readership, and one part time job at the Performance Studies library.

Lost six pounds because I haven't had time to eat.

Met and made connections with Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, a really awesome scholar from NYU who was one of the founders of the discipline and who is doing really interesting work in museum studies.

Have patronized coffeeshops all over the East Bay in attempts to get reading done.

And have gotten laid. Go me!

To give you an idea of the daily madness:

9:15: Get up. Jump out of bed, rush to catch the bus (which only comes once every half-hour) and get to campus with some time to read before class. Grab muffin and diet coke. This will be my only meal until 6 PM. Read Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimlett (sp?) stuff until...

11 AM: Class with Catherine Cole on African Performance (thank god I switched into this from a theory-heavy course called folklore of dislocations--which ended up being about dislocated middle eastern jews...not exactly my specialty. Love love love Catherine Cole, and all of her work on Africa. Class ends 12:30.

12:40: Next class starts across campus. I run to get there on time (it's unseasonably hot in Berkeley) and I arrive sweaty. This is the undergraduate class I'm a Reader for: Sexuality, Gender, and Colonialism. It's as awesome as it sounds. Why are all of the undergrad classes so much more fun than the crazy-theoretical grad classes? Class ends at 2.

2:15: Meet Jen for coffee and catch-up. Kvetch about theory and talk about classes. A nice social interaction. I need more of those. Jen leaves and I read B K-G for another half an hour before...

4:00: Gym, which is conveniently located in the middle of campus. Lots of weight lifting, lots of biking, etc. Nice cold shower. I seem to have lost 2 lbs in the last week. Which reminds me...

5:30: Dinner! Cheap ass teryaki and rice from campus fast food. I sit on the steps of the big administrative building and *gasp* finally finish the article! Pretty good, about the performance of display (museums, fairs, folklore festivals, etc). I get a call from Marc (my fabulously gay, kinetic-performance cohortmate and we meet up at

6:45: at the Bears Lair, an on campus bar, where they're having a queer grads night. I'm not super-impressed, and am antsy about all of the hypothetical reading I should be doing, so I head out early while Marc hits on beautiful, intellectual boys.

8:00 I catch the bus back home and go to a cyber pizza place (the internet is still down in my apartment, the lobby of which smells like someone peed in it. Lovely.), where I write this.

I have read about 150 pages of theory in the past three days. I have another 100 to go before next Monday. I have one more new seminar to go to tomorrow, and from looking at the books at the campus store (13 of them), it should be pretty intense. I think I may take tonight off (relatively), and maybe only read a short article.

My weekly schedule:
Monday--Performance Theory
Tuesday--African Drama, LGBT readership, Graduate Colloquium
Wednesday--nothing as of yet...I'll probably do my required hours at the Performance Studies library this day.
Thursday--African Drama, LGBT readership
Friday--Artscapes: the politicizing of museum space. (or something like that)

I also got wind of a language class in the African Studies department that teaches Xhosa and Zulu side by side, so that might get figured in as well. My schedule is a bit full as it is, though...

Hope everyone is hanging in there. Love to you!

*head explodes after reading 75 pages of anthropological theory in 24 hours*

Why did I ever think I could do this? I'm an English major, for crying out loud!

Someone has also taken my air purifier.

Wtf.

As I pack in preparation for my big move across the bay, I've discovered that my roommate put my Ann Taylor suit jacket into the free-bin when she moved in, thinking it was Shareef's. Unsurprisingly, it is no longer there.

It doesn't really do any good to get angry or upset at this point, but...man. That was part of a $200+ graduation present.

I was also laid off at my job with the kid co-op and am in fairly dire financial straights, at least until I get my stipend from Berkeley.

Sigh.

I've been feeling more and more like myself, the longer I'm off Welbutrin! Thank god.