Happy Christmas, all.
Oh, before you ask: no, aside from the invitation to send in a decent research proposal I haven't heard anything from my PhD application.
Yes, I have found an alternative in case it goes wrong. The only downside to this alternative is that I wouldn't be able to do exactly what I want, but something close to it.
No, also haven't heard anything yet about my internship application.
Yes, I sent in my abstract for PALA 2013. No, haven't heard anything about that yet either.
No, haven't finished my essays yet.
I am bothered by all sorts of Christmas songs implying that it is somehow sad and really something of a social failure to spend Christmas by yourself. As if being able to do what you want, without having to be bothered with (family) politics, eating whatever you want, is something to be pitied. As if it's a shame that you can now watch that one documentary on the history of Rome without people going "aaah that's laaaammeee!" and "can't you put on something more Christmassy, something we'll all enjoy?" and subsequently being forced to sit through Home Alone 2 for the nth time. As if you're missing out on something when you prepare a lovely lamb steak and green beans for yourself instead of spending six hours around a table messing around with tiny pans and minuscule blobs of undefinable meat, when you're full after the first half hour because you were hungry and scarfed down about two baguettes because the tiny pans weren't hot enough and your meat just wouldn't cook.
Ah, but I'm being unfair here now, especially to my really lovely family. I'm just focusing on and enlarging the things I don't enjoy about Christmas. The forced part of everything. I love to be with my family for Christmas and, yes, I must admit, I like the gifts part. I like having the opportunity to spend three hours arguing with my father's girlfriend's mother on my side against my father and my father's girlfriend's father about whether women in general should be in charge of things (my father's girlfriend usually refrains from participating). I like commenting on stuff on the telly with my step-dad and being allowed, this once a year, to help my mum with the cooking. Discussing economics with my brother, and the fact that my brother and step-brother manage to still suggest McDonald's after a four-course meal. I like when I somehow managed to find the perfect gift for a person just this once, and seeing their faces when they unwrap it.
But I don't need Christmas for that - I'm going to the Netherlands in a few weeks and I can do all this then. And then I thankfully get to miss out on the forced part, because I rather than the calendar decided that this was the time to visit my family and planning these visits isn't limited to just two days.
Anyway.
This past year, I've come to understand what I like about criminology, law, economics and, yes, media studies and stylistics/linguistics is the notion of a social construct. This does of course allow me to throw around vapid phrases such as "ah, but everything is a social construct!" but more importantly, it allows me to try and analyse social relations from a distanced point of view. I like that (draw your own conclusions).
And I get to take conspiracy theories seriously, which is quite fun, of course.
I'm still reading Constitutive Criminology, and found Mike Presdee's Cultural Criminology and the Carnival of Crime so fascinating that I finished it in a day. Next up is Cultural Criminology Unleashed.
Happy Christmas, and a good final few days of 2012.
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