TV anorexia

So Cora and I were watching Horseland this morning and they decided to take on the topic of anorexia. This show is pretty clearly geared to the 5-8 year old demographic so it is a little sad that they feel they need to confront eating disorders for their viewers. The in a nutshell summary: Pepper's owner Zoe is sick for a while and the other girls at the stable fail to exercise her in Zoe's absence. Pepper gains some weight. Zoe remarks on this when she gets back but says she'll get back in shape in no time. The other horses tease her about being "round" and suggest she should knock over the gates instead of trying to jump them. Pepper becomes depressed and starts hiding all the food she gets instead of eating it and exercising to excess. She loses the weight she gained and Zoe is proud of her. Then during a race she is too tired to continue and a vet tells her she has to eat properly and exercise in moderation. The other horses learn that teasing someone about their weight will give them an eating disorder.

This episode seemed to miss on a variety of levels. It doesn't seem like there are that many girls who develop eating disorders for the sole purpose of getting into better shape for an athletic event. So really Pepper's only negative effect from the eating disorder was being too tired to run in a marathon. That doesn't seem like much of a deterrent if you are not eating because you want to be thin. Also the show seemed to villify Zoe, the owner of Pepper for commenting on her weight gain at all even though her attitude was very positive and she committed to helping to get her back into shape through appropriate exercise. I guess I'm confused about what the take home is here. I think it was something like this: if you are overweight it is your parents' fault for not forcing you to exercise. (this is possibly legit, but probably not a good blanket statement to make) If they comment on it and encourage exercise they are bad people. Making fun of your friend's weight is bad. (ok, that one seems like a good message) Commenting on your child's weight = eating disorder. (that seemed bad since the "mom" owner was very healthy and positive about it) Making fun of your friend = eating disorder. (seems like eating disorders are way more complicated that this) Eating disorder = not eating and exercising too much. (sometimes) Not eating and exercising too much will make you svelte really quickly. (yikes) Eating disorders make you tired. (seems like there are way worse side effects too anorexia)

This episode seems to fit into the genre of hilarious issue episodes that tackle eating disorders in really bizarre ways. I should point out that the true irony of this episode is that the human girls in the show have legs that are toothpick sized and giant heads. This is just a guess, but it seems like drawing characters that resemble healthy body shapes might do more to prevent anorexia than awkwardly tackling it in an anorexic horse episode. Picture of anorexic horse and un-anorexic rider below.



Perhaps my favorite hilarious eating disorder episode of all time is the fantastic Full House episode called "Shape Up." It is right up there with the "I'm so excited" Saved by the Bell episode for instantly recognizable quotes -- "because they're beautiful!" and "Charlie Brown cheeks" are forever part of the TGIF vernacular. Sadly I could not find the clip I was looking for, but someone did this mashup of DJ's tumble into anorexia and around the 3 minute mark you get the quotes in all their melodramatic glory.



I don't think either of these episodes were meant to be funny, but they are. They seem to trivialize eating disorders in pretty cliche and bad ways. I'm not really sure what the alternative is, I mean showing kids eating disorder episodes of Intervention is probably inappropriate before high school. I'm not sure what the answer is on a pop-culture level. I'm just pretty sure this episode of Horseland isn't it.

Fancy Nancy

So in the spirit of the Fancy Nancy books, Cora and I got all dressed up last night and went to her piano teacher's concert at Krannert. The concert was the premiere of a new commissioned work by a DMA composition student here at UIUC to be played by Sam, Cora's teacher. I should say that we did not get to stay for the actual new work because the concert started at 7:30 and we left at the intermission at 9. The first half was plenty of concert for me and Cora and well worth the 4 dollars a piece admission.



The concert started with a piece called Flowergazers, written by the DMA comp guy. It was 3 separate pieces, each based on a Japanese haiku from the 17th century. Maybe I should preface this by saying I am not a huge fan of postmodern or experimental classical music. This concert pretty much confirmed my distaste. I occasionally like Phillip Glass, I think Steve Reich has done some interesting stuff, but the bulk of what I've seen at the grad school level is kind of self-indulgent John Cage ripoff stuff. (Yes, I understand the irony of using a blog - perhaps the most self-indulgent invention of the last 50 years - to complain about the self-indulgence of a genre of music) At any rate, it seems to me that this type of music frequently degenerates into an atonal mess played by a fairly random collection of instruments, but most notable for the disproportionate number of percussion players who appear to be under instructions to strike whatever they can find with mallets. At some point it does not seem particularly interesting to me to strike the frame of a harp or the case of a piano with an object when the sound it produces is pretty much exactly the same sound as striking a wood block. That just seems gimmicky and pointless to me. So in the course of 25 minutes, 3 percussion players and a guy on marimba managed to hit pretty much everything on stage with something else.

I also really objected to this composer's use of his singers. The haiku cycle had a soprano who was mostly singing in the meat of her range at full voice. However, there were several phrases that were either set so low she could not actually sing them or were meant to be spoken word. It was impossible to tell which because they were way too low for her so it was barely audible. If you're going to compose something like that, then it seems like either you should have a very rangy singer in mind whom you write it for, or you should keep the vocal parts in the fach of the singer you are selecting. If you want a lyric soprano (and this girl was almost a Soubrette) don't write something that would be better suited to the range of a mezzo or a Wagnerian soprano.

He then proceeded to abuse two male singers in a later piece which was obnoxious on several levels. He used some 14th century motets by a French composer and had a bass and baritone sing them in isolation while he had a strange ensemble (again heavy on percussion) deliberately squeaking instruments and hitting "wrong" notes (he mentioned this in the program notes), thereby producing what he referred to as a "derrangement" of the motet that held true to what the original composer wanted. Personally my guess is Monsieur de Vitry would have been rather mortified by the end result, but whatever. The first motet was actually meant for a bass and baritone, or rather probably for a bass-baritone and a low tenor voice, but the baritone was rangy and lyric and handled it fine. The rest of the piece, however was clearly written for either a boy soprano or countertenor so he had these poor men sing for 20 minutes completely in falsetto. It was painful to listen to. They did the best they could with it and honestly the baritone had a pretty nice and pure falsetto, but their voices were clearly shot by the end. It was just wrong.

So, bizarre atonal percussive disasters aside, we were treated to some truly fantastic piano playing by Sam. He played some pieces that he wrote, including some 8 hands pieces that were very charming. He also played the hell out of Liszt's Dante Sonata. I hadn't seen Sam perform before so it was a treat, but also surprising because I wouldn't have anticipated his playing style. There are a lot of variations on how pianists LOOK while they play. There are the real technical types that are very very still except for their hands and arms. Very little head or body movement. It's a very sterile sort of performance quality and I think the music tends to follow suit emotionally. Then there are the Martha Argeriches of the world who look like they are trying to beat the piano into submission every time they play. I think Lang Lang falls into this camp as well. Then there are the dancers. Sam is a dancer. They seem to be almost in a musical trance and they move with the piece in kind of strange ways. Sometimes it can be really powerful to watch, other times distracting. Then there are the people who appear to play effortlessly, Horowitz jumps to mind. He just looks very relaxed and mellow when he plays, even during really violent sections of music.





I asked Cora what she liked and didn't like about the concert. Surprisingly (to me), she said she liked the haiku pieces best. I asked her what she thought about them and she said they sounded like "people running in grass. They are playing tag but never catch each other," which is almost a haiku in itself. Apparently this guy succeeded wildly with Cora and missed completely with me. It made me marvel at how very different the experience of any music can be even for two people sitting next to each other. She fell asleep during the Liszt.

Uniformity

So a little more on the topic of uniforms. As Stacy noted, one of the appealing things about corporate America is the de facto uniform of a business suit. I have envied the uniformed professionals -- nurses with their scrubs, park rangers, cops, EMTs, firefighters, flight attendants -- for their uniformed work lives. I should clarify that I don't really envy our military men and women though, I find camo kind of creepy looking, and no uniform could make going to war an appealing work option to me. When we were looking at Singapore as a possible home next year, one thing that was very appealing to me was the uniformed librarians. I thought this phenomenon was unique to Asia as Chinese librarians also have uniforms in some cities, however a little research uncovered the following bizarre but delightful video of a librarian fashion show.



Apparently the library in Amsterdam decided to uniform their crew in these rather hilarious Euro-modern styles. I also find the "models" pretty amusing as they look nothing like the baby boomers that make up the majority of the library workforce in the States. Somehow I think this library couture would not translate well in America. I would happily wear these outfits to work though. I might be really tempted to occasionally exclaim "now is the time on Sprockets when we dance" as these seem Dieter-esque to me.

Dress codes

With an impending move to an as yet undetermined location, the hunt for a school for Cora has been a bit complicated to say the least. Luckily we have an acceptance to a school in College Park in case we head back to Maryland, but trying to figure out the school situation in South Africa has been a bit more confusing. We found a very good boarding school in Grahamstown that takes day students as well and they have written me to say they would have space for her, though negotiating the differences between the US and S.A. education systems looks a bit tricky . I've been poring over the information on their website trying to get my bearings.

It is a really nice informative website with lovely pictures. My favorite is this lovely picture of two girls in uniform. The uniforms are charmingly hideous. They look like they are from another time. I'm kind of in love with them. I find them about a million times more appealing than the current mode du jour at US schools. Here they are -- picture 1 is South Africa, picture 2 is typical American public school wear.

I grew up in uniform. I know the sentiment isn't shared by all of my Catholic school compatriots, but I loved uniforms. It was so nice to be able to wake up every morning and never have to think about what I was going to wear. In uniform you are always in style regardless of how much money you have because everyone is wearing the same thing as you. I love fashion and am somewhat addicted to browsing through fashion week photos and the RTW collections of some of the designers I like, but life is so much harder when you have to worry about what you'll wear everyday. Also, the uniform made non-uniform clothes feel a lot more special. Uniforms also keep kids looking like kids a lot longer, at least 5 days of the week. I don't think I ever got over the disturbing nature of interviewing 8 year olds at public schools in Tucson who were wearing skin tight jeans with words like "Flirt" appliqued on the back pockets to match their "Diva" navel exposing baby tees. I imagine it would be hard to be the kid whose mother won't let you wear clubwear and Hannah Montana clothes to school. Uniforms remove that bit of peer pressure during the school day at least.

We have applied to 2 Catholic schools in Maryland. Trying to decide between them will be difficult if we end up moving there and needing to make the decision. If I'm going to be honest, I have to confess I am drawn to the one school almost solely due to the stricter (read that as more plaid) dress code. I realize that is a really stupid reason to pick a school so I am trying to compartmentalize that feeling as we make a decision.

Cora seems pretty easygoing about the whole school choice. I'm not sure if this is due to her really wonderful experience at Montessori Habitat making her feel positive about school in general or just her temperament. Either way I think it is lucky we have a flexible kid since our plans for the next several years are so up in the air.

Currently she is pretty excited about the idea of South Africa due to the pictures of wildlife, and the school being separated into houses and having interhouse competitions -- like Harry Potter. I think she understands that there is no magical hat determining what house you are sorted into, but she likes the idea of it nonetheless.

No party for poor Cora

Poor Cora managed to get sick a couple of days before her birthday party and did not recover in time to host her friends. She felt too bad to really care much yesterday, but she was pretty sad today when we picked up her birthday cake (too late to cancel the order) and had no one to share it with.

As you can see, Cora went with a Harry Potter cake. The picture was a photo sprayed with dye on some sort of sugary paper. The picture was not particularly tasty, but the cake was good.

Daphne also tried a bit of cake. Very little reached her mouth, she mostly relished in smashing it with the bowl.

We had to put Cora's candles on a tiny piece of cake so she wouldn't germ up the whole cake by blowing them out.

Initial trepidations

So I am joining the blogosphere. I don't know how frequently I'll post, but I thought starting a blog now was a good idea for a couple of reasons, namely:
1) we do not know where we will land next year but it may be on another continent and this seems like a decent way of keeping up with people
2) being the wife of an academic in the current job market is more than a little stressful and likely to get more so with the economy as it is and this seemed like a decent place for my fellow academe spouses to commiserate/vent/speculate/sympathize

Not sure how to kick this sucker off, but laying out the current situation seems as good a start as any. Currently Scott has a tenure track offer at Rhodes University in Grahamstown, South Africa. He has a job talk at CASL (University of Maryland affiliated) in 2 weeks. He has funding for 1 more year of a post-doc here at UIUC as well. He's short-listed for a TT in Konstanz, Germany, but they won't pick until summer. A few other applications are still up in the air but it seems like these are going to be the major players in the decision making.

The South Africa job is both really intriguing and somewhat terrifying. It is very remote, which makes it much safer than someplace like Joburg or Cape Town, but also means it would take 2 full days to get to from the States. There is a very good prep school there for the girls, but it is the South African system which may make coming back to the States hard for them educationally if that was to happen. We have not gotten the package offer from HR yet but we are anticipating the salary will be very low by US standards. That wouldn't be a problem as the cost of living is quite low in South Africa, but the cost of travel back to the States would then be prohibitively expensive and we'd likely only get back once a year tops and it would be very hard for family to come to us. South Africa appears to be at a tipping point right now as far as the future goes and it is really hard to predict where the country is going long-term. If they survive the current growing pains it could be a very exciting place to be permanently. It also seems equally possible that the current instability there could get much worse and things could go the way of Zimbabwe. Hard to know. There is rampant poverty, an AIDS epidemic, residual systemic economic and educational disparities by race, and pretty rampant crime. Those things are all pretty big negatives. However, Grahamstown is fairly isolated from the violent crime and the other problems seem to present really compelling opportunities for us to really engage in humanitarian work as a family. I think making service as a family a priority would be a wonderful thing for all of us long term.

So that is where we are now. We did hear that Cora was admitted to Holy Redeemer in College Park, so at least we have that school option lined up if CASL makes an offer. For now we're in limbo, but being a compulsive planner I'm trying to wrap my head around all the options and have plans lined up for how we respond to any combination of circumstances that pan out. In no way would we have guessed that these would have been the options we were considering if you had asked a few years ago, but a bad economy makes for tough choices. Any feedback or thoughts on the whole process would be welcome. Next year looks to be exciting wherever we end up and at this point I feel lucky to have the security of a guaranteed paycheck come summer. That puts us in better shape than many and I am acutely aware of that.