29th January 07
Why are women required to strip more often?
(to read YouTube video comments you have to double-click on the video and go to the site directly)
archives for January, 2007
29th January 07
The never-ending nightmare continues…
(to read YouTube video comments you have to double-click on the video and go to the site directly)
26th January 07
Rambling about dancing and other things.
(to read YouTube video comments you have to double-click on the video and go to the site directly)
25th January 07
As is customary I had my Weight Watchers meeting this morning and was happy to be down 1lb so I made up for last week and lost a bit more. I worked quite hard this week and I can tell that it’s getting more difficult to shift this weight because my losses are getting smaller as I get closer to my goal (now 12lbs away).
Even though I haven’t been losing much in terms of numbers I can tell that my stretching and exercises are paying off more because my pants I bought last month are getting looser (always a good sign).
My plan for this week is to invest in two 5lb weights to start working on my arms in order to get some sort of definition because I hate my flabby arms.
Hmm…. the only other thing in the past week that was exciting on this front is that I started volleyball again and am now working out at least 6hrs a week with my team. I have a huge bruise on my side from showing off and unnecessarily diving for a ball during practice. =) Several of the girls noticed I’d lost more weight since they’d last seen me at the beginning of December and that felt great. Actually, my flatmates and classmates have noticed too – lots of people comment about how different I look from when I arrived in the fall… and that is definitely giving me more motivation to press on.
23rd January 07
I’ve been debating with myself what exactly I ought to write my dissertation about ever since last year when I found out a dissertation would be 50% of my Master’s degree course work. I haven’t actually been very stressed out about it, which is quite surprising.
I think I’ve settled on a general topic and will define it more with my advisor in two weeks. But *drum roll* my topic is: The Christian Right’s influence on US foreign policy in the Middle East.
There’s a significant amount of academic interest about this subject in Europe & in fact in last week’s Economist there was an article about it. My advisor is interested in doing a survey in a mid-western state regarding the Middle East – what people know, think they know, and simply don’t know. I may somehow incorporate a survey of my own into my dissertation but I won’t decide that for at least a few more weeks because I first need to narrow my topic.
One thought is to profile the new lobbying group CUFI (Christians United for Israel), their aims, eschatology and potential political impact. They’re actually holding a conference in D.C. in July that I absolutely have to attend… either direction I go it’s probably my best opportunity to interview or survey leaders of the Christian Right, which my advisor will help me sort out.
I told my advisor I’m most interested in speaking with John Hagee since he’s the founder of CUFI and will do whatever it takes to get to chat with him. I think he’d give some great quotes I could put in my dissertation. =)
I’m reallllly excited about this project. I feel like it’s the convergence of my academic, personal, religious and political interests. Plus, I’ve already read quite a bit about the topic and have a good grasp of the basics, which will make tackling it a lot easier.
So just thought I’d share the big news. =)
