warning, long rant about school disorganization follows
First exam went ok, except for an absolutely typical comedy of errors in the beginning. We had all been told by our profs that there were 2 questions, and we'd write for an hour on each. "It's a 2-hour exam." they said numerous times. So, we came in, sat down and looked at the cover sheet where it said in bold print "THis is a three-hour exam." We asked the guys who are there to keep an eye on us (they call'em 'invigilators', which sounds like a gynecological device) what's going on, we were told it was a two-hour exam. "Oh no" they say "it's three hours." Modified panic ensues. one of the guys says "I'll telephone, just to make sure." he leaves, comes back in a minute or two "three hours." just ridiculous. Then, two hours into the exam, a woman opens the door to the room. She sees all of us, and heads to one of the guys and talks to 'em. I'm still writing, I don't hear. But a fellow student tells me afterwards she said "what are you still doing here? this was a two-hour exam." As I head over to the department office, I run into another professor, who's a big gossip. He says "So I hear you guys got an extra hour on your exam! Prof. A (one of the courseteachers) was quite upset, because he was in his office the whole time and nobody called him with any question about the time." Soooo typical. nobody in this place communicates with anyone. I mean, I was a secretary at a state school, not known for being a paragon of administrative cooperation, but at least we all communicated a little. Even our exam times: at my old job, as the Spanish Department secretary, I got a sheet sent to me with the location, time, and room number of all the exams for my department, at least a month before the exams. Here, a few weeks before, the day and time are posted on the web, but the rooms aren't set until the week before, and they're not posted on the web, but physically posted in a building on campus, but NOT sent to the department secretary! There's no reason why they couldn't pick the rooms six months before is they had it in gear, and even less reason not to send the info to the various departments, let alone post it on the web. except that would require someone to organize it, and it would only benefit us lovely students, not the prestigious professors or the god-knows-what-they-do administrators. wotta joke.

May 11 00 ha ha hee he. obviously a little frazzled. because the Sizzla show was the FOLLOWING friday, so you won't hear about it yet.. exam is tomorrow so just a brief thingy today.

Saw a Preston Sturges comedy last night: "The Lady Eve", starring Barbara Stanwyck and Henry Fonda. Pretty damn funny, I have to say, in this bizarre stylized way. She's just the queen of snappy dialogue, and the sexual innuendos are pretty great. how many times can Fonda say he's been "up the amazon"? haw. Fonda is pretty non-sexual, though, he's just so uptight. That's part of the charm, I guess. There are a few direct cinematic jokes on it that are pretty good. Also there's a lot of physical humor, because he's so bemused by what Stanwyck does that he keeps falling over things. Which I have to say is pretty much always funny. generally, physical humor is funny. falling over=funny. Especially uptight white guys in tuxedos falling over.

It's also great in that old war-of-the-sexes kind of way, where she's totaly in command of the situation, and he has no idea what's going on. She falls in love, of course, which is not in her command, but she doesn't stop running things for most of the film. You go! makes we want to watch Double Indemnity again.

May 10 00 Who is checking this site from jamaica? email me and say what's up..

Last months trip:
I can't remember what I did on Thursday the 13th of April now.. after exams I'll pull out more stories if I can.. but on Friday April 14 I went to the semi-dilapidated looking Edna Manley School for the Arts. There were some interesting-looking projects going on, but a definitely lack of infrastructure and money. The phone system ended up being especially minimal. But I was there for an all-day set of workshops on Piracy in the Music Industry, and although it started about an hour late (because almost nobody showed up on time), it was pretty interesting. Overall I've noticed that roots-music folk have dominated these organisational things. I don't know about membership, but I think I need to track that info down, has some interesting implications, considering what kind of music seems to make the money nowadays, locally and abroad --locally dancehall is way more popular, abroad, not so sure, at least with the caribbean community elsewhere I think still dancehall. the yout, you know. Anyway the event wasn't super-well attended, but a lot of emphasis was on teh new governemnt anti-piracy campaign (as far as pirated music is concerned) and the government demonstrating their seriousness about it. Set up a special police detachment to deal with it, launching an awareness campaign: "All tief is tief." See, this doesn't really get at my interest in intellectual property. does it have to be private property? But it was good to see how the debate is going on in Kingston, anyway.

Then that night I went with Iriela to see Sizzla and all his crew perform in August-town, which is Bobo Ashanti dread territory, also Sizzla's neighborhood, Basically he put on an all-night block party. it was intense. Lots of ambivalence for me. Later I'll drescribe it in detail..

May 9 00 More recap from Jamaica.

evening of April 11th-second half of JAFA workshop.
The last section was a guest speaker, also a member of JAFA, Yesika Zevulana. This woman stood up, dark, broadfaced, with dreads that surely must have reached her knees, which she had tied atop her head so they cascaded asymmetrically down, and a bright-colored outfit sort of like a salwar khameez (sp?), overtunic and trousers in a light, purple-and-white tie-dyed fabric and a scarf/shawl too. She is a singer, and artist, an herbal healer, she was an all-around businesswoman. Has a shop where one can buy music, herbs,hair products etc. Spoke about her life and describing her self-motivated energy. Entrepreneurship only hints at what she does, plus she linked it with all kinds of spiritual, self-sufficiency ethics. It was amazing. Spoke for a bit on being female and the need for financial independence, and her more general need for balance between the male and female, that if you hail Haile Selassie you must also hail the Queen of Sheba, that there is a goddess for every god. I don't know how to evoke how inspiring it was, though. Most of the ideas were not new to me, and many were simple ones, but it was her presence, and her conviction that made it so affecting. And then, in the questions and comments that followed, a man who had been sitting at the back, wearing a brightly patterned outfit (sort of like kente cloth, yellow patterned trousers, shirt and hat), spoke for a minute on respect for womanhood, and how each man is king, but there is no greater honor than to serve a queen. He was, I realised, holding Yesika's little baby daughter, and he had continually brought glasses of water (unasked) and a bowl of food to Yesika as she spoke. I don't know how to describe this best either, but I got chills. Again, the total conviction.
There is a lot of chauvinism, sexism and its other side, chivalry, about here, or it's more overt than I'm used to. Lots more chivalry, though, than in the states and London. Outside cities there is still some remnant of that in England (depending on ethnicity somewhat, as well as presentation), and I remember that from travelling in Europe some. But it's really more overt in Kingston. The chivalry makes it easier to be a female traveller: if you conform to certain standards of femininity, people take care of you, or give you more respect. It's too bad it's not what's inside that counts, or that women don't get respect automatically, but in the short-term it was too tiring to challenege it all the time. After the first week, I wore only my long skirts, pretty much, I got less sexual harassment as well. Folks on the street like my tattoos, although I don't know what middle class folk think. Haven't met too many except at the university and government organisations, and I was more covered up.

April 12th (JA)
This morning, chatted more with the lady I'm staying with. It really doesn't feel like a hotel, what with us sharing quarters and all. boundaries are blurry. Some of it is harder, because I feel bad askeing her to make dinner when she's just come in talking about 'sometimes you feel like you hate to cook'. even though she said at first that dinner was an option. Ah, I'm too spineless. As a result, I think I'll be losing weight while I'm here (this isn't such a good thing)..Anyway learned lots about this woman, who is just great. She's taken a shine to me as well, I think. "My little white daughter." Also found out that she's Bunny Lee's cousin, and she gave me his number. She said she'd call him and let him know I 'd be calling. If I could interview him that would hive me some serious historical oomph. This is the man who wrote Cherry Oh Baby!

May 8 00 Quiet, sickish weekend. Friday night went out to a local event, whree I swear the organisers were not a day over 20. It was intriguing, a first-night of what they want to be a monthly, just down the road from me. the highlight was the absolutely deserted Hip-hop room, where a DJ named "Cuban John" played the best hiphop set I've heard in a long while. This was because it wasn't a 'trainspotty' set, as I think they say here, meaning not just tunes which broadcast how hip and knowledgable you are about supposedly obscure hiphop. ther's a weird british fetishism of supposedly 'oldskool' hiphop, which seems to be confined to a few wellknown artists from the past. Anyway this guy played tune after tune with good lyrics and interesting beats, including the fascinating track with a cuban/reggae/ska flavour (full band ) interspersed with a good hiphop vocalist. It was so good it was hard to leave, but at 4:45 we pulled ourselves away and crashed all morning. Saturday was a bust, studying wise. too sleepy. That night I was supposed to have a gig at a squatparty, but it was all lastminute stylee and the venue got busted, dammit.
This morning went to brick lane, starting at the junk sale/ bagel shop end, filled with hipsters and families and cockney guys hollering at you about their lovely fresh fruits or three-for-a-pound packs of underwear. there's always a shifty guy standing around somewhere selling superglue, five for a pound. As DJ flack said when he was visiting: when would anyone need five packs of superglue? Tried on two pairs of jeans, in a room filled with furniture for sale. troops of people kept walking in, not noticing (I hope) me standing there with my shoulder bag over my underwear-clad lower half. They fit ok, but not quite what I'm looking for. Farther down brick lane, past the rockabilly pianist (who's always there), there was some kind of bangladeshi festival on. Crowds and crowds, and a live band or two playing what was obviously the latest hits, because after each song began a "whoooo" went up from the audience in recognition. A total mob scene, with bemused european hipsters forging their way through slick-haired nike-clad bangla youngsters, bearded gentlemen with skullcaps, ladies resplendent in sarees and jeweled bindis often with a few little kids in hand.

May4 00 There have been some really funny searches to this page. "Task Analysis for a Restaurant Dishwasher" to "BEST MODELS OF CORSET IN JAMAICA, pantomine (i must have a typo somewhere), redhot heroes, trinidadian nudes, jello john malkovich, physics of space travel, and FIXING scratched lens. hmmmm

continuing installments recap-ing Jamaica:

More Tuesday April 11th:
After Orange street Irie-la said she was going to the Jamaica Association of Female Artists monthly meeting. I asked if I could tag along, and she seemed to think that would be okay. It was incredible. We showed up and it looked like things had already started, there were lots of women and some men present. however, people were mostly chatting to each other. One of the things that struck me about these women (and continued to strike me about other artists and activists) was the seriousness with which they took their appearance. Not necessarily in a mainstream way (although if they went that way they also dressed to the nines), but in the creativity, there is a kind of literal-ness about it that I find moving, and identify with (I'm often very literal myself). Reminds me of the way rasta-talk is literal, saying "overstand" instead of "understand" because one should not put oneself in a subordinate position. Anyway, gorgeous fabrics and headdresses, and lots of women with dreads of different styles, many wrapped up high with some cascading down. very royal. they were waiting for the president of JAFA, who had called to say she'd be delayed. After a bit, the woman who was the treasurer got up and announced that she had been asked to coordinate a choral performance by JAFA members to perform at a church service the past sunday to honor the beginning of the Jamaica Federation of Musicians (JFM) Musicians' Week. (this week! lucky me!) She played an audio tape of the performance. It was a little ragged, and they got into a discussion of how difficult it was to coordinate, and the importance of only making commitments you can keep. Familiar ground for anyone who has tried to organise. the organiserwoman looked familiar, and then I realised it was JC Lodge! (her biggest hit was "Telephone Love" in 1988.)
And then the president showed up (she had been delayed). She is a lawyer, I believe, as well as a musician. She also looked amazing, in an outfit few lawyers in the US (or UK) would wear, a tight white dress (I think it was short), low-cut, and sleeveless, and white separate sleeves baring her shoulders. She led the rest of the meeting calmly, with authority and sensitivity. they had a discussion of piracy and copyright issues (my thesis topic, hello) which I took avid notes on.

The last section of the meeting was equally intense, but will have to wait for later as I should study now.

May 2 00 more backstory, posted from the library while I snort and hack:

Tuesday 11 April:
This morning, had a taxi call for me at 9am, before that Brenda made me a tasty breakfast (fried eggs with mysterious spices, toast, coffee). A young man drove me across town to the university, which is nice. people walking all over, lots of stucco buildings of one-to-three stories. Students are definitely middle class, well dressed. There are some open-air classrooms (just roofs and end-walls, and lots of windows with angled shade-making shutters and no glass. The computer room here in the library is air-conditioned! In the library made email connection with a woman from Boston who is a reggae dj, dj Iriela. She's been in Jamaica for a few months, making a documentary on the music. This hookup is heavensent, need I say? I feel much better having talked to someone at the University. I reached two people, one in Sociology and one the Dean of Social Sciences. The second was fairly brusque, although friendly, and not optomistic about my chances for data. The Sociologist was great, very approachable, with many suggestions of people to talk to. I tried to contact three otehr faculty members, who were never ever there. Not at the times they said they would be, nor at other t imes. My only problem now is hunger. I never found a campus dining hall, so only had breakfast today, plus peanut m+ms and a pack of ginger cookies. I'll do better tomorrow.
Had a long, lovely email from LDL. Made me blush and smile with my hands to my cheeks. Partly giving aftermath and analysis of the dreadful goings on my last night in town, with maniacally drunk and high people invited in by his roommate making all kinds of disturbances. But he invoked ancestral protection for me, among other sweetnesses.

3:45 pm. Chillin' in Techniques record store and recording studio while Iriela finishes interviewing Lone Ranger. One side of the shop is all 7"s, the other is full of car-speaker parts, some cassetes and beauty products line the back wall. It's mostly men and boys in here, in tshirts and jeans or longshorts. One woman, long straightened hair and pale yello miniskirt-top combo with white hotpants underneath, and one older woman in a long skirt and loose Tshirt w/short, mussed hair. the miniskirted woman seems to work here, leaning on the counter by the cassetes. Chatted for a minute with a gentleman who runs Dub Traffickers, "I'm a 3D performer: dub, drum, and dance". Dub Traffickers is a poetry business. He's cuttin serious moves with a business metaphor, including a market research survey on dub poetry. Interesting stuff, smartgur with sharpeyes inna sweetface. Earlier on, we had shared Iriela's cushy airconditioned cab from the Dub Traffickers building, Zacarama, also housing a bar and venue, and the Rastafarian Centralization Organization, where my jeans-wearing had necessitated (apparently) a lecture by the president of the RCO on how I should be wearing a skirt. Iriela pointed out it's what's in here (head, heart) that counts.

So then Iriela decides we need to shake up the interview, so I pick up the tripod, she holds the digital videocam and RassRod and friend walk along too, and we walk up Orange Street interviewing (the unaccountable camera-and-mike-shy)Lone Ranger and his friend. This is downtown kingston, lively and hot. I'd been pretty much constantly warned against walking here alone, by Jamaicans and brits. There are crowds of people sitting around on ledges and stoops, lots of dark dusty shops with food and clothes, many of them are barred storefronts with a window to speak through. Nobody heckled us (like they had earlier when I walked 2 blocks alone: which was quiet at first, but then a chorus of "whitegirl. white. pussy. pussy. bitch. white bitch." inspiring me to calmly wander a little further on, then cross the street and back); camera changed the vibe, also so many of us, i guess. Passed Prince Buster's Studio, saw inside Leggo studios, walked up to Rockers International. Then we waited for the taximan, with a break for vegetable patties and spicy-sugary cucumber juice.

MayDay 00 some reports from my trip, while I wallow in flu-like symptoms and attempt to study for my exams:

Monday 10 April: Arrival in Kingston yesterday was overwhelming. hit me for the first time as I got off the plane. headed through customs, the warm sticky heat, and being a total minority too, have to say, in the country, not just the part of town. no emotion rose, but a kind of tingle, a heightened awareness, also of my dislike of the few other white americans, my wish for disassociation. o well.
walked out the door and looked upon a car park and "taxi" pickup, and crowds of men, standing around, as well as women and men leaving for wherever they were bound. two or three men called to me "Ras'.. taxi? Taxi!" Said no thank you, wondering if there was a place to change my money. well there wasn't. I saw a sign for a cash machine but my card didn't work. first moment of tiny panic. though i'd been told most folk take american dollars. walked back to the first taximan who had hailed me, he assured me american money was okay, then called to a young man (teens) in an orange neon safety vest that I think said taxi on it. I told him the address of the hotel. he signalled to a guy driving a van/minibus with KING on a decal across the top of the windshield. he took me in and there. on the way he pointed out the sights, the cement factory, the wheat processing plant, the prime minister's house..
eventually we found the place. 7 West Lyndale Close, northern/western kingston. Later found out the area is called Hughenden. driving through onestory houses of stucco walls. Sunday evening, not many folks out, lots of dust. There's a drought on, no rain here since january, and everything looks a bit deserty. also the blue mountains loom along one side of the city, seeming close and far, and a good directional reference point.
So I pay him and step down, and a woman in a housedress runs out, saying hello baby! after ascertaining that the taxi drivier didn't rob we, she gave me a hug and a smacking kiss on the cheek. then we step through the porch and open door. a white man with mosquito-bitten legs is asleep on the middle of the floor on a pile of pillows, snoring in front of a huge color tv (with obvious satellite feed), his belly spilling over.
And then she shows me where I'll be sleeping. Where I met her in the yard, i could see through a metal gate with a padlock to the front doorway with a curtain onto a dining room. To the right was another long curtain, and through there a big bed with pink frilly covers, a bedroom, very frilly and femme. A vanity with lots of makeup and creams etc. on it, and a chandelier lamp. hmmm. come to find out this is the owner's own bedroom, which she is giving me because the other rooms are full! I protest but she insists they often sleep out anyway because it's cooler. While I stay, they sleep on the rug in the living room. this intimacy makes for a strange blurring of boundaries, especially on waking up and wandering out in the morning..The other rooms are somewhere at the back, in attached houses too, but I haven't seen them. So she cooked me dinner (rice an peas and salad), and I curled up on the porch with a book and read. tired, spacey. after dinner I took a walk round the neighborhood. paved roads, not much of sidewalks, not too many cars on a Sunday evening. here and there people (mostly men) hanging out at the walls or driveways of houses. People tend to say "Ras'" or "Rasta" to me as I walk by. I usually nod, or smile and look down/to the side. Men in cars (including my taxi driver) have a habit of slowing down as they pass any female. nothing usually said. Maybe a taxi thing mostly? So far I haven't seen a lot of rasta-looking folk. a few here and there. It's only 5percent of the population. The neighborhood seems mostly residential, but then you realise that every 5th or 6th house has a little sign somehwere: NONI Cola FOR SALE, or "Tailoring done here" or "Fancy Beauty Parlor" or some such.

the downside to the owner's room is that she has a cuckoo clock, that chimes on the half-hour and cuckoos the hours. She said she'd take it out but I said no matter. I may change my mind though. Also there's no fan yet, which makes it a little too hot inside at night. I'd rather sleep on the floor, I think, except for my fear of crawlies. Haven't seen many though, except a little gray lizard on the wall high up. There's a drought on, so the water is turned off at night. Only cold water anyway. That's okay considering the heat these first few days, around 90 and rather humid in the day, not much better at night.

Later on, more chats with the owner of the hotel (Hollywood Villas, recommended in Lonely Planet), I find that the sleeping man on the floor is her husband, he's from Luxembourg. She met him in Europe, while she was a nightclub singer and dancer. Speaks five languages, very friendly and generous. She showed me a fabulous photograph of her from her performing days, in a gold spangly bikini-type outfit with full feather fans and a headress, woo-woo! She's a great lady and full of energy and fun. I think she must be in her sixties but you wouldn't know it.

April 26, 00 back at last! Well well my sweeties... sorry to neglect this place for so long. I actually have some back pages to put up, but my parents' computer had some glitches so I couldn't upload anything.. my apologies. It's been a hectic month. From london-boston.. time with me sweetie, then boston-kingston (Jamaica), now back here in boston for a few-few days.

So *whew*! Thinking about big tings, big tings. Where will I be living after the degree? Hmmm? First thought was to return to boston while LDL finishes his degree, but I'm not sure that would be best for us. He's not sure either. See, i have way more options than him, now which means: tension, sometimes, frustration. But i dunno if staying in london would work, because I don't like the long-distance thing. Even with sweet visits like coming up for air or down to dream. Another possibility is to work abroad, either Fulbright style, or for another international agency or ngo. Keep moving, get a taste of the madness...

Thing is, Btown is utterly, utterly played out for him, less so for me, I could gave another act.

So spent 2 weeks in Kingston, searching out lawyers, professors, musicians, journalists. Went to a heavy-vibe show and a more relaxed one, walked around alone and accompanied. Took some risks, saw some sights. My first time in the caribbean, and i did no resort action, two beach days +1 trip to the Bob Marley museum were the only touristy things I did, but they were local beaches full of locals, even. And hardly any tourists go to Kingston. Most folks I talked to were suprised that I spent any, let alone all of my time there. But it seemed right to me. Later this week I'll post my journal entries of my arrival and later experiences.