Personal Statement

Here's what I'm telling UC Berkeley about being diverse: (Thank you to Jean for helping me edit this)

In an essay, discuss how your personal background informs your decision to pursue a graduate degree. Please include any educational, familial, cultural, economic, or social experiences, challenges, or opportunities relevant to your academic journey; how you might contribute to social or cultural diversity within your chosen field; and/or how you might serve educationally underrepresented segments of society with your degree.

When I graduated from college with a dual music/computer science degree, the dot-com boom was in full swing. I worked at a startup, and startups expect 60-80 hour work weeks. I did not write any music at all while I worked there, because the schedule took over all of my time.

A job was offered at Netscape, with more free time and more money, I accepted. I purchased a MOTM Modular synthesizer and started recording tape music. It became clear to me that my music was more important to me than my stock options. I wanted to be an engineer and a composer simultaneously. In 2001, I was laid off.

During the job search, I continued recording tape music and posting it to Mp3.com. I joined a group of noise music composers on the service. We hoped that by working together, we could raise the profile of noise music in general while also advancing our music careers. Despite having made virtually no money from music, when it became clear that the dot com bust really was the end of the party, I decided to switch my focus towards a composition career.

My father, my brother, my uncle, my grandfather and my great grandfather have all been engineers, but no one opposed this decision. For my own part, I felt a bit guilty at first. Instead of helping to solve the problem of the scarcity of women in computer science,, I was jumping ship. Ironically, I think I may have switched to a field even more male-dominated. (As it happens, almost all of my interests are in traditionally male-dominated fields.) I’m frequently the only woman or the only queer person present at lectures and events, or, for example, in the yearlong program at CCMIX this year.

In 2003, in an effort to learn how one might actually make a living as a composer, I attended the Composing a Career Conference sponsored by the Women's Philharmonic. Almost everyone else there had a masters degree and the presenters all assumed they were speaking to a masters-level audience. Clearly, I needed a degree. I enrolled and completed the master’s program at Wesleyan University in Connecticut. While there, I discovered a fondness for teaching, which will require a doctorate. So here I am.

I think it’s useful and encouraging for women, queers, and other under-represented groups to see people like them teaching college. I hope to be that kind of positive reinforcement when I’m a professor.

Annnnd, I'm not sure this essay answers the question posed at all. Hm. Man, I hate this crap.

Tags: UC, Celesteh

Happy Pseudo-Secular American Harvest Festival

I get to celebrate on Saturday. But today, I've got to go to the store and the post office and class and I can because everything is open. Maybe the patisserie wil have tarte de potiron. It's the only thing I'm missing. Well, that may not be entirely true, but it would be better for me not to reflect on this.

Tags: Paris, Celesteh

Won't anyone think of the children?

From the Washington Post:

But Vatican officials say those rules have been loosely enforced, and some have blamed homosexuality for a worldwide scandal over sexual abuse of minors by priests. Other Catholics say there is no connection between homosexuality and pedophilia.

Indeed. Some catholics say there's no connection between pedophilia and homosexuality. As does the DSM and every major professional organization of psychiatrists and psychologists in the united sates. Some shrinks point out that 98% of child abusers are not gay or bisexual. Some victims rights groups point out that the majority of victims of sexual abuse by the clergy are girls and oppose this plan. Some newspapers occasionally do a bit of research rather than presenting things that are verifiable as a difference of opinion. Or, you know, maybe they could "teach the controversy." Oh, no, that's another debate over a verifiable phenomenon.

If American culture is going to be relentlessly dedicated to positivism, could we please actually make an effort at doing even a smidgen of research. We have google. We have the internet. Reporters have Lexis Nexis. Heck, they could just call up an "expert" and ask for some information. They could open a book. There are so many ways to get information now. It boggles the mind to have to think about it. I remember the old days when libraries had card catalogs. Now you can find out about almost anything without having to leave your desk. It's so much easier now to do research, yet it seems fewer and fewer news organizations ever bother.

Some catholics believe that the world is round. Some people actually earn their paychecks by doing their jobs.

Tags: Catholic, Gay, Celesteh

Wine reviews: Côtes du Rhône 2004 and Touraine: Curvée du Savoir 2003

Both of these wines cost 4,50€. Both these wines are appellations contrôlées, meaning they're named for a region and only wines from that region may have that name. There the similarity ends.

The Côtes du Rhône 2004 has a fruity nose with strong hints of apple and an afterthought of vanilla. The taste is syrupy, but not sweet, creating a disharmony between the nose and the mouth. It has a slightly acidic flavor, with a hint of lemon peel and an overtone of unripe fruit. Unlike most modestly priced wines, it' has fat, slow-forming legs, showing a certain viscosity that I haven't before seen in wines I've purchased in Paris.

The winery is Vignerons de Beaumes de Venise S.C.A. Vaucluse - France. I bought this bottle at a wine shop I'd never been in before. I'm going to assume it's not representative of Côtes du Rhône.

The Touraine: Curvée du Savoir 2003 was fruity and understated. It faded quietly to the background when paired with cream of broccoli soup. I can't say much about it because it didn't have much to say. It would probably go with anything and it's very drinkable: light and fruity. There is absolutely nothing to complain about. It uses Gamay grapes which are fruity and tend to be lower alcohol (this wine is 12% vs 14% for the other bottle).

The winery is Coteaux Romains 41140 Saint Romain/s/cher - france

Since Nicole is gone, I probably won't be reviewing any wine for a while. I'm thinking of settling down with the 3€ wine form the fromagerie (the Pigmentum) because it's cheap and good and I can get 3 bottles of it for the same price at 2 bottles of these more expensive wines what tell you things like what kind of grapes they have. However, I think there's a wine show next weekend, so maybe I'll have things to talk about from that.

Tags: Wine, Paris, Celesteh

Full of complaints

I woke up very early yesterday morning and my back hurt. a lot. I think I slept on it wrong. It hurt all day yesterday. a lot. It still hurts today, thank goodness less. I want a chiropractor.

Nicole has gone home to the Inland Empire for a food-based holiday. Ha ha. Alas. I have class on thursday night, even. I don't think I can figure out how to make a pumpkin pie.

My house is cold. I'm out of rice and vegetables. I have lab hours tonight, but the software we just learned isn't installed on the mac yet, so I don't want to go. Anyway, I need to do my UC Application essays, which are too long and very annoying. I wrote some music and it got played. Then I wrote some more music and it got played. Then I wrote a different kind of music. Yawn.

It's going to rain down slushy muck on friday.

Last week (the week that Cola was here), I had class everyday from 10 am - 7pm, which ran late sometimes. This week, I have two hours of class on thursday night. My school has had toilet paper two days out of the last three weeks. That's not counting the day one other student got upset and begged some off a neighboring studio. He went and complained. He was informed that it will take two weeks for new toilet paper to arrive. What happened to the old toilet paper? He suspects students may have stolen it. He has suspects in mind. We're a suspicious lot. There are rumors going around about people stealing each other's work and each other's samples. Improbable, strange theories wherein the stolen samples were only heard when the informant was outside the studio, thus highlighting the sneakiness of the thieves. (I'm being deliberately vague here, but I'm not making these rumors up, just causing inadvisable drama by repeating them.) The tweeters on the main speakers are definitely out. The mixing board has dirty faders (smoking in the studio doesn't help). The patchbay's normalizations are going out. I have serious hatred for frustration with one individual (if you're reading this, it's not you.)

I want to get a job. My visa allows me to work 20 hours per week. If I had a job: 1. I could afford to buy more blazers. 2. I would know more people. 3. My french would likely improve. 4. I would have more than 2 hours a week of things I was supposed to do with other people.

Or I could go awol. Nobody at school is French. I don't have any connections to the french performance scene. If I went to Berlin, I could make connections there through wesleyan people who did the german exchange. But I have a lease on my Paris apartment.

Nothing makes me feel more female-identified than sexism. Where is Hothead Paisan when you need her?

I need: a conversation partner, a transformer for my mixer, to finish my stupid application, to find out if I can fax it in or find somebody in the us to print and mail it for me, to request transcripts from previous schools, (It is such a pain in the ass to do these things from another continent.) to figure out how the hell to get gigs, to go buy some rice and vegetables and toilet paper and baugette and cheese. I'm thinking emmental and st nectaire, although i haven't tried the latter.

Tags: Paris, Celesteh

French food you can try at home: Crème fraîche

French food! What exactly is crème fraîche? Wikipedia says that it's "a heavy cream slightly soured with bacterial culture, but not as sour or as thick as sour cream. Originally a French product, today it is available throughout Europe." I don't know if it's available world-wide or not, but it's a very useful thing to have. You can add it to soups and sauces to make them extra tasty. Here are a couple of recipes, one very easy, one harder. For those of you who are vegan, you can substitute cashew nut butter and a drop of vinegar to get a similar effect.

Grad student cream of broccoli soup

Optionally sauté onions, optional garlic and optional pepper in some butter or olive oil. If you choose not to sauté, then just put some olive oil or butter in a pan.

Add some dry rice, too much water and some bullion. Optionally add herbs de provence or other spices. Cook the rice until it is nearly done, then add a head of chopped broccoli. Cook the broccoli in the water and rice. After three minutes you have watery cooked rice and broccoli. Then add a spoonful or so of crème fraîche. You now have cream of broccoli and rice soup! This might go well with baked chicken.

There are many options in the above directions, because graduate school is an exploration in options, boundaries and the like. Also, it's cheap, easy and fast.

Soup of Potimarron

Take one small or medium potimarron (a pumpkin or butternut squash may be substituted) and bake it around 175 degrees C (or 350 F) for 40 minutes to an hour. You can tell it's done when you can easily pierce it with a fork (the same is true of the other squashes). At the same time, also bake, in the same oven, a handfull of chestnuts. You can tell their done when around half of them have cracks in the shell. They will take less time than the squash.

Peel and dice the chestnuts and set them aside. Put a lump of butter in a pan and sauté in it an onion, two or more cloves of garlic and a hot pepper. When the onions are getting translucent, add a small amount of rice (a handful) and broth or water + bullion. Also add a tablespoon of herbs de Provence or other european soup spices, two centimeters of ginger root, a pinch of dried red pepper flakes (to taste), and a teaspoon of cinnamon. Cover and let simmer.

Cut the squash in half and remove the seeds, which you should save too cook later. Scoop the squash insides into the soup. Then add the chestnuts. Let simmer until the rice is cooked and the squash is breaking apart. Then add a head of chopped brocoli. Cook that for 3 - 5 minutes. Then ladle the soup into a blender and blend it. Return the blended soup to the pot and put it over low heat. Add 0.5 - 1 cup of soy milk and a few spoonfuls of crème fraîche, until the soup tastes really rich. Salt and pepper to taste. Your soup is done.

Beware if you try to cook the chestnuts in a frying pan or something instead of in the oven. Take them off the heat after most of them crack. The ones that don't crack can explode, which is extremely messy and probably hazardous.

Squash seeds

Now take the seeds that you saved from the squash and wash most of the squash goop off of them. Put then in a frying pan with oil that takes high heat (like canola or corn or whatever) and some soy sauce. You can add black pepper and your other favorite spices, like curry powder or herbs de Provence or anything else. Cook them until the soy sauce evaporates away and the bits of squash goop burn to the bottom of the pan. This differs for different seeds. Potimarron seeds take a long time because they're so thick. When you're done, the seeds are a nice browned color and crunchy when you sample them. If they start to explode like popcorn (watch out for butternut squash, esp), they're definitely done. Eat them with salt.

Tags: Food, Crème fraîche, Paris, Celesteh

Buying a coat

It hit zero today, as I wined earlier, but fortunately, I had the foresight to go out yesterday and buy a coat. It took most of the day, alas. I'm skinny, but with long arms and I didn't want to spend too much. Before, I left for here, I posted something about wanting to get as many clothes as possible before I left, because of not knowing what it would be like to cross-shop. Oh, what a fool I was.

First of all, only one guy gave me a kind of disgusted look and that was the extent of anything negative. Much better than home. (People are reading me as female now because my hair has gotten longer.) Also: blazer-type jackets for sale at every store. In velvet(ine). In corduroy. In my size. Picture: blue velvet blazer. Royal blue!! Oh my god!!!!! There was a whole store for very scrawny slightly femme-y guys who still wanted to dress like it's still the mid-to-late 90's! I was a size medium there! They had tweed jackets with elbow patches, something I spent months looking for!!! For only 230€, ahem, yes. I had to leave without buying anything because it was lovely, but it was just too much money.

There's a store called the C&A which has ads in the metro where they show whatever their featured sale item is. This week it's a black corduroy jacket for 30€. I'm going back to buy one tomorrow, but their coat selection, alas, didn't fit me well. But every fashion in the store was really nifty, as far as I could tell. A city where I can shop for men's clothes where it isn't suspect for men to wear anything other than trainers or sweatsuits!

Anyway, after a lot of looking, I walked into a fairly fancy-seeming store and tried on a tweed coat in a size medium. It was too big. But a sales person came over to help me. At home, I try to duck sales people because they're not entirely friendly. The woman clearly thought it was a little odd that I wanted to try on men's coats, but was happy to help. She went and found me a size small coat in black. It fit very well. I bought it. At the register, she went through the script, kind of laughing as she did so. Did I want men's gloves to go with my men's coat? How about some men's dress socks? She would have smiled and sold me some if I'd said yes. We chatted a bit in frenglish. She wanted to know how to say, "would you like anything else?" in english.

Sometimes, it's really good to be foreign. I have no idea about modern french cross dressers and what their experiences are like (I've seen some around in bars and whatnot, but not had a conversation). But I think I get away with a lot because I'm foreign and people expect me to be kind of different. That's true in Paris and it's also true in Nebraska.

Anyway, I have never before enjoyed shopping for clothes that I can remember. Right now, I am pondering buying a whole new wardrobe. And coming to Paris from anyplace else in the world when I need clothes.

Tags: Cross Dressing, Paris, Celesteh

It freezing outside

No, it's actually freezing. 0 degrees C. Why do I keep moving places that are so cold?

I might have a concert on Wednesday night, but I might not. grrrr for uncertainty.

Tags: Paris, Celesteh