<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?><oembed><version><![CDATA[1.0]]></version><provider_name><![CDATA[the feminist librarian]]></provider_name><provider_url><![CDATA[http://thefeministlibrarian.com]]></provider_url><author_name><![CDATA[Anna Clutterbuck-Cook]]></author_name><author_url><![CDATA[https://thefeministlibrarian.com/author/feministlib/]]></author_url><title><![CDATA[Weekly Update: Brain dead&nbsp;edition]]></title><type><![CDATA[link]]></type><html><![CDATA[<p>It&#8217;s that point in the semester (I&#8217;m sure all students and former-students will identify) at which the end of term seems both impossibly far away and alarmingly at hand.  Projects develop glitches. The panic-o-meters on everyone around you start to rise and your own barometer cranks it up in response.  <a href="http://www.boston.com/news/education/higher/articles/2008/03/19/many_college_students_stressed_out_poll_finds/">&#8220;Many college students stressed out, study finds&#8221;</a>, the <span style="font-style:italic;">Boston Globe</span> reported this week, in a classic &#8220;No duh! Don&#8217;t we know this already?&#8221; headline. What is always amazing to me is how normalized and individualized the state of being stressed out&#8211;physically and emotionally&#8211;is.  We <span style="font-style:italic;">expect</span> to spend our educational careers overworked and frazzled, and inability to get things done is always seen as a personal failure, not as a systemic problem of a social system that requires students to work part- and full-time as well as attending school in order to make ends meet. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, we haven&#8217;t entirely lost our sense of humor.  Here&#8217;s a little something that&#8217;s been circulating on the internet for all my political-junkie friends out there.  My friend and colleague Laura Cutter forwarded it to a bunch of us after our history class last night:</p>
<p><span style="font-weight:bold;"></span></p>
<blockquote><p><span style="font-weight:bold;">The George W Bush Presidential Library is now in the planning stages.</span></p>
<p>The Library will include:</p>
<ul>
<li> The Hurricane Katrina Room , which is still under construction.</li>
<li> The Alberto Gonzales Room, where you can&#8217;t remember anything.</li>
<li> The Texas Air National Guard Room, where you don&#8217;t have to even show up.</li>
<li> The Walter Reed Hospital Room, where they don&#8217;t let you in.</li>
<li> The Guantanamo Bay Room, where they don&#8217;t let you out.</li>
<li> The Weapons of Mass Destruction Room (Which no one has been able to find).</li>
<li> The Iraq War Room. After you complete your first tour, they make you to go back for second, third, fourth, and sometimes fifth tours.</li>
<li> The Dick Cheney Room, in the famous undisclosed location, complete with shooting gallery.</li>
<li> Plans also include: The K-Street Project Gift Shop &#8211; Where you can buy (or just steal) an election.</li>
<li> The Airport Men&#8217;s Room, where you can meet some of your favorite Republican Senators. </li>
<li> Last, but not least, there will be an entire floor devoted to a 7/8-scale model of the President&#8217;s ego. </li>
</ul>
<p> To highlight the President&#8217;s accomplishments, the museum will have an electron microscope to help you locate them. When asked, President Bush said that he didn&#8217;t care so much about the individual exhibits as long as his museum was better than his father&#8217;s</p></blockquote>
<p>Happy Spring Equinox to you all and hope this finds you all well.  I always enjoy your emails and calls and correspondence (I actually still receive letters by post from a number of you!) and will be in touch when I can. </p>
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