12/6/00
I'm writing this from work, which is something I hardly ever do. I wanted to write something today, but I don't think I'll have the will to do so when I get home this evening. I'm going to a political debate in a couple of hours. The debate is between my district's two candidates for the city Board of Supervisors--none of the candidates in this district won a majority of votes in the election last month, so there's going to be a runoff election next week, and I'm not sure who I want to vote for.
The guy I voted for last month, Matt Gonzalez, is in the runoff, but since that election he's joined the Green Party (he used to be a Democrat), which is a big turnoff for me. My dislike of the Green Party is not because I'm bitter about Nader handing the election to Bush, although I'm not terribly happy about that either, but because I think the Green Party platform, and especially the Green Party of California platform, is full of misguided, half-baked, and just all around bad ideas. Like the fact that the Green Party of California platform advocates an immediate phasing out of all animal research (it's written right here), which would bring almost all medical research to a screeching halt. I've heard many Green folks say that the content of the platform isn't really relevant, and that it doesn't necessarily reflect what the candidates advocate, but I'd have a really hard time giving my support to a party whose leadership advocates ideas that I think are unethical and irresponsible.
The other candidate, Juanita Owens, doesn't seem like a great choice, either. The main reason why I didn't vote for her last time is because she was endorsed by our smarmy mayor Willie Brown, which is always a bad sign. Another thing that's bugged me about her is the fact that all of her campaign literature seems to indicate that the main reason we should vote for her is because she's a gay woman of color. It's not that I don't think she should mention her race, gender or sexual orientation, because I do think that the Board of Supervisors should reflect the diversity of the city, but it shouldn't be your main selling point in a campaign. Hopefully, she'll talk about something other than her demographic status tonight, and I'll get to learn where she stands on the actual issues.
So, just like what happened last time, my heat and hot water came back on within an hour or two of my writing a diary entry about having no heat and hot water for several days. I guess I know what to do the next time they go out.
All day yesterday, I was plagued by the feeling that I was forgetting something. For some reason I had a vague feeling that that date, December 5th, was a significant one. I tried to think if I knew anyone whose birthday or anniversary it was. I couldn't think of anyone. I tried to think if there was something I was supposed to do that day, like go to an appointment or send in a form or something of that ilk, but I couldn't come up with anything on that front, either. Maybe I was thinking of February 5th, which is my ex-boyfriend Dan's birthday. Maybe I'm just crazy. So, if it was your birthday yesterday, and you thought I forgot, well, you're kind of right, but not completely!
Speaking of remembering things, I finally got that new memory installed in my laptop. As you may recall, I had tried to do this on Monday, but was unable to remove the heat shield from my laptop because the screws attaching it were too tight, and I didn't have a very good screwdriver. So, today, I swallowed my pride and went back to the campus computer store and told them my sob story. The guy told me that he could install it for me--for $45! There was no way I was going to pay him $45 for 30 seconds' worth of work, and I told him that. I guess he felt sorry for me, because he volunteered to just loosen the screws for me for free, which he did, and then I went back to the lab and installed the memory myself. I was actually a bit worried, because it was kind of difficult to get the card to snap into its little slot, and the card was so flimsy and delicate-looking I was afraid I would break it (or worse, break something else inside my powerbook) if I pressed too hard. But eventually, I got it in, and it works just fine.
Other than that, not much has been going on. I've been working a lot, as always. Work's been a bit weird lately because our lab manager left a few weeks ago to take an industry job (industry is where all the $$$ is) and nobody's been hired to replace him yet. So, the last few weeks have involved a lot of cleaning and reorganizing and stuff that I don't usually have to take part in, because it's the lab manager's job to do that stuff. It's badly needed, though, because the lab is a complete mess--not only is it really dirty, it's also really disorganized, and it's impossible to find anything. I think I mentioned last time that one of the machines in our lab is missing a part which renders it totally useless. I know the part is somewhere in the lab (unless someone walked off with it, which is pretty unlikely) but nobody knows where it is, and two weeks of looking haven't turned up anything. Oh, and the part costs $1000, so it's unlikely we'll be replacing it, even if it never turns up.
Anyway, the main reason why it's all a bit weird for me is because I'm not sure how fully I should participate in the cleaning and organizing efforts. I really want the lab to be clean, and I want to do my part, but I'm worried that I'll get sucked into doing a lot more than my part because 1. I have a low tolerance for messiness (at home I'm messy, but I can't stand having a messy workspace) 2. as a graduate student, I'm a low man on the totem pole, and 3. I'm a female. It's been my experience in several labs that the women usually get suckered into doing most of the cleaning. I don't know if it's a cultural thing or if it's just because the women care more about having a neat lab, or what, but that's the way it usually goes. So, my dilemma is that while I want to have a neat lab, and I want to participate in the effort towards that goal, I don't want to get suckered into taking on more than my fair share of the work, and more importantly, I don't want others to have the expectation that I will continue to clean up after them in the future.
The forum: What do you think of the Green Party?
