mama drama

today, a second year ph.d. student asked me if i am the mother of her classmate, another ph.d. student. i share the last name of this woman, but she is likely only about 8 years younger than me.

i seriously need to have my eyebrows shaped and color my hair.

i think that he might be a total fraud, but man keifer sutherland appears to be a gentleman, and maybe even interesting. and, does anybody else think that sutherland's posture is like eddie bisese's and a little like michael mraz?

both classes went well today. i lectured in the planning class on the early garden cities including images of sunnyside that shelley shot for me earlier. whenever i talk about garden cities, i always think of the scott-childress family and their remarkably happy life in greenbelt, and i love that i understand the power of garden cities and that form of urbanism from their points of view. and in my CAAS class, i used a variation of an assignment that elsa worked out while i was at maryland. at the end, one student i think will be very interesting expressed utter frustration. i told him and the class that i was 60-70% delighted that he was frustrated with the assignment because he wanted to know precisely what the answer is. good i exclaimed. keep it up. it is hard work to think. he wondered whether i asked them to do this exercise to get them to see what was in their heads. i made a plea for fresh thinking in their own approach to sources. and then, always one to escalate, i ended up explaining how in this country, state and university public policy is crafted on what other people have in their heads about black communities.

i was very very excited for the first new episode of house tonight. i was so excited that i fell fast asleep by 8:45.

tomorrow, the last arts of citizenship planning meeting before our major conference, and lunch with sekou sundiata. this particular conference is the one i am really looking forward to this year and i learned a lot about organizing to make this one happen in a much more democratic way.

and i am so thrilled...our librarian reported that the university just acquired a subscription to chicago defender. hurrah! i was so totally pinching myself.