Susan Jacobson

LOST is on hiatus until February, when the last season begins. The hard core fans of the show are rewatching all of the episodes from Seasons 1 through 5 in anticipation of the final season. This week most of the Internet is watching the last episodes of Season Three, including "Tricia Tanaka Is Dead," which includes this classic scene. Enjoy.

PS: Do you think Vincent is an agent of Fake Locke?

I arrived in London early on Saturday morning. Took the TUBE from Heathrow!!! (Saved $20), checked my bags at Paddington, and headed for the British Library where, after about an hour, I started to fall asleep. Gathered my things from the locker room, took the Tube to Oxford Street, picked up a few things, got my bags from Paddington and checked into my hotel, which was surprisingly OK. My room was very clean, had a good TV and a big window - but was only about 64 square feet, INCLUDING THE BATHROOM. Took a nap and then went to Boots, where I bought a full contingent of No. 7 and procured some goodies for friends back home....



After strolling around Hyde Park, shopping Harrods and revisiting the British Library I went to see Trollius and Cressida at the Globe on Saturday. The play was OK, but the Globe is always fun because they try to re-create how the play might have been presented during Elizabethan times (at least to a certain extent). I was out of the loop about great theater currently in London, so the Globe is a good fallback. I am now in Cardiff, but I may leave on Saturday instead of Sunday so that I may participate in Proms in the Park on Saturday evening. See a bunch of photos I took during my two days on Flickr, or see a few ( under the cut. )

* Land in Heathrow 7am
* Take Heathrow Connect to Paddington
* Check bags at Paddington
* Take Tube to British Library
* Work on presentation
* Take Tube to Oxford Circus
* Walk down Oxford Street to Paddington
* Pick up luggage
* Check in hotel
* Find a yummy restaurant near Queensway
* Sleep
* Get up and walk across Hyde Park to Harrods
* Mull around Harrods.
* Have lunch at Harrod's fabulous middle eastern restaurant
* Take Tube to Westminister
* Walk across Westminister Bridge
* Think about riding the London Eye for the nth time.
* Have dinner at that pub near the Globe
* See Trollius and Cressida at the Glob
* Walk across the Millenium Bridge
* Tube or cab back to hotel
* Monday: Take the train to Cardiff

We'll see how much of this I actually accomplish.

I spent $100 at Trader Joe's today. I usually spend about $60. I noticed that some of the things I usually buy had increased in price about 20 cents. At the same time, I found myself *mesmerized* by the music that they were playing, and I kind of swayed to the tunes as I walked down the aisle. And, for the record, I was completely sober.

Coincidence?

• Edited Journalism and Games paper and sent to senior faculty member
• Edited “End of Journalism” paper
• Watered garden. Harvested tomates.
• Booked plane ticket from Newark to London ($662 – paid for in advance by Temple)
• Booked hotel in London for 2 nights ($200)
• Booked train ticket from London to Cardiff ($60)
• Booked private room in Hostel in Cardiff for 6 nights ($150)
• FAXed conference fees to Wales ($300)
• FAXed book chapter permissions and contract
• FAXed confirmation for Innovation Philadelphia’s Creative Economy panel
• Changed incomplete grade
• Submitted expense report for Mexico (I’ll get about $350 back)
• Went to gym
• Took a taxi home in honor of today’s productivity

This is Bobby. He is up for adoption on PetFinder. He is the sweetest, best-behaved little dog I have ever met. He came to meet me today, and we went for a walk with his foster moms. He would be the best dog ever, and if you are in the market for a little dog, you can read about him here.

And then...we went to meet Elmo.

Elmo was not pleased when he laid eyes on Bobby.. He puffed himself up to twice his size and hissed softly at the little dog. After a few seconds of staredown, Bobby blinked and turned around - a sign of submission. But Elmo was having none of it. He slowly slinked towards Bobby, never taking his eyes off of him, and emitting a high-pitched growl. Finally, Elmo lunged for Bobby. We pulled the dog away and I tried to put my leg between cat and dog, but Elmo simply scratched through me and lunged again. His foster mom had to pick up the dog and make a beeline out the door, but not before Elmo scratched her on the back of the leg.

Sigh.

I love my kitty dearly, and he is definitely the king of the apartment, but I never expected him to behave like this. He is very friendly when any humans come around - all of the maintenance men pet him. He sits with the guests in the living room when I have people over. People pet him and coo at him and he loves it! He was Not Pleased when his brother Clarence came to live with him, but they worked things out pretty quickly and there was never any blood shed. Now they sleep together and groom together and life is good, although Clarence does annoy him from time to time and gets a warning bite on the ear. But no blood, no fights to the death.

So it looks like I will not be getting a dog any time soon...

OK - So I am behind in posting photos from Mexico City. I got a little turista on Monday, so I fell behind. It was my own fault - I unthinkingly used the bathroom tap water to brush my teeth. I give you a photo of the Pyramid of the Sun to tide you over. I climbed to the third level, which is the dark line right near the top. I get a little vertigo coming down steep inclines, and the last bit to the top was a bit too challenging for me, although the Dean climbed it. I will post photos from my adventure later this week.

Mexico City is interesting. It reminds me of Beijing in many ways, except I think that there is more wealth in Beijing. The conference is held in Mexico's former Institute of Foreign Affairs building, which has these marvelous wood details. Right next door to this fabulous building is an abandoned skyscraper.

I arrived in Mexico City without incident. My hotel is located directly on the Zocalo, the main square in Mexico City. The enormous Cathedral, which I think is the oldest Cathedral in Latin America, is across the street, and the even more enormous Presidential Palace is across the square. My room is small but very nice, with hardwood floors, Colonial details, and a stone bathroom.



I spent my first day shopping. I went to the Bazaar Sabado in the neighborhood of San Angel. It was very nice - lots of artwork and handicrafts. The neighborhood is very nice, one of the nicest in Mexico City, I think. I had lunch at an indoor market where I watched them make corn tortillas by hand. They were delicious! The margarita, on the other hand, was disappointing. I had another margarita later at my hotel and it was the same. An awful, cloyingly sweet drink. I'm sticking to beer for now. I perused the dozens of Centro Joyero - Jewelry Centers - near my hotel. I found some joy in the Joyero when I realized I could purchase my dream turquoise-and-silver bracelet for just $130. Today I am meeting the dean and we are going to climb the pyramids at Teotihuacan. ( Read more... )

I had a really lovely July 4th weekend. My friend Laura came down from NYC. On Friday we went to Lolita's, on Saturday we putzed around West Philly, and on Saturday evening we watched the fireworks from the comfort of my apartment with the good company of some of the Cat Ladies of West Philadelphia. The fireworks view from my apartment was pretty good. They were maybe a little closer at full explosion than this photo indicates, but my skill in photographing fireworks through a glass window is limited. The organizers had promised that the fireworks would go off at 10pm, however, and it was not until 10:45pm, which was annoying. On Sunday we went to the gym and then had lunch at Estia, my new favorite restaurant in Philadelphia. Then Laura went home and Alex and I took Mable and Lola out for a beer at Dahlak.



The garden seems to be exploding with its own kind of pyrotechnics. The grape tomato bush is a huge thing overwhelming the other two tomato plants and a basil. I need to get string and stakes to generate some kind of order and prevent its luscious fruits from rotting on the ground. Everything is still green, tho.

I am ordering some of haleyluna's fabulous photographs to hang in a montage in my living room. The walls are kind of bare, as you can see here. The photo above shows what I am thinking. Let me know what you think of my arrangement - I am placing the order just after July 1. You can see Haley Luna's fabulous photography on her Flickr account.

I ordered a new leather sofa with recliners on both ends to join my rather lonely-looking futon in the living room. No, it's not the Raymour and Flanigan walrus. I bought another one from a local dealer for half the price and maybe two-thirds of the comfort.

I told my mother I was quoted on the front page of the Philadelphia Inquirer on the subject of Michael Jackson and TMZ. "Oh, I read the Enquirer at the beauty parlor," she told me. "I'll look for your article."

I now have a home office! Thanks to notshakespeare and his manley tools, I have tiers of shelves perched above my desk, holding important papers, organized by project. This is my dream method of organization, inspired by this image from The New York Times, and it's much easier for me to work with. See the before picture here. I can't thank notshakespeare enough, and if you want further evidence of his talents, you can see him performing in Battle Hymns, a concert with the Mendelssohn Choir and the Leah Stein Dance Company on Saturday at the Armory.



EKoD, meanwhile, has found happiness on a Calligaris chair....

I am spending the summer in Philadelphia for the first time - ever, I think. I have been away most of the previous summers since I moved here. So I have been casting around for uniquely Philadelphia experiences. The Garden Court Victory Garden is one such experiment. On Sunday, daphnep andkemidra came over to help me weed my spastic little garden, and we ended up clearing an area about five times its size. On Wednesday we went to the barn with lxbean and brought back several containers of horse poop compost, which we dumped in anticipation of spreading this weekend. Julie ordered beans and squash and strawberries and melons and many other wonderful crops that will soon be planted there. Afterwards we had dinner Julie's with burritos, wine and Dan's amazing chocolate chip cookies fresh from the oven.



On Tuesday I volunteered to be a poll worker at Penn's historic Houston Hall, site of the first student union in the United States. It was a long 6am-8:30pm day, ugh. It was a primary election where the most exciting office up for grabs was District Attorney, double ugh. The polling place was near the freshmen dorms at Penn - after the students had gone home for the summer, triple ugh. We had a total of NINE voters. Democracy in action.



On Monday I went to Washington, DC, to see a presentation on The Future of the News Industry at the Brookings Institute. I hopped the cheap-but-ooky Chinatown bus at 9am and arrived just in time for the presentation. They served lunch, which was very nice considering the economic climate in general, and the economic climate of newspapers in particular. Senator Benjamin Cardin (D-MD) is proposing legislation that will allow newspapers to transition to a non-profit 501c3 status, former Time Magazine editor Walter Isaacson proposed a micropayment scheme for news, like iTunes, and Michael Kinsely proposed micro-economies of news not unlike micro economies that spring up around video games.( Read more... )

So I finally planted my plantlets today. kemidra and I went to the Clark Park Farmers Market today where I bought a bunch of tomatoes and herbs from the University City Garden Club. I returned home, donned my gardening gear, and went out to do the final preparations on the garden. I hoed out another adjacent area of weeds. I hoed and cultivated and turned and generally "aerated the soil," removing probably another 50 pounds of rocks and weeds. I added the bag of MiracleGro on top, and then I dug holes for each of my little plants. The soil is very clay-like and has lots and lots of rocks. I also saw quite a few earthworms, which I am guessing is a good sign. I cut a few in half with my hoe (sorry). I tried to plant everything pretty deep and put the MiracleGro on top.

Unlike my neighbors, I did not bother with neat little rows. I just tried to space the plants according to their needs. I have heirloom, beefsteak and grape tomatoes that need 1-2 feet between them. I am going to Home Depot later this week to get "tomato cages" so that their area of growth is contained.

The heirloom tomato came in a cardboard egg carton-like container. I planted it into the ground in its container, but I am thinking that maybe I should have taken it out? The other plants were in plastic containers and came out easily. I planted the watermelon, although it looked pretty dead.

I think next year, with advanced planning, I will go out early and kill all the weeds a few times with RoundUp. I think I will also get a self-contained garden bed and fill it with MiracleGro.

When I moved into Garden Court Plaza I was told I could have a garden plot on the giant green roof over the parking lot. So Friday morning I went to inquire and was told I could claim any area of the garden that was "abandoned." "Abandoned" turned out to mean the area inhabited by three-foot dandelions and garbage.



So I went to Home Depot and bought a pair of $3 gloves and a $7 "cultivator," or hand-held hoe. I also bought a couple of little white picket fence things so I could mark off my efforts. Not having any clue what do to, I just went to work, hacking away at a 2-foot-by-2-foot area, pulling up weeds and soil and rocks and trash. A neighbor clued me in to the secret tool stash, and I tried out some big rakes and shovels.



I did a little research online - AFTER I had hacked away at the land - and returned to Home Depot for a bag of MiracleGro to replace the soil I had removed along with the weeds. I also bought a small bottle of Roundup, the weed killer. I sprayed RoundUp on the area around my little patch (take that three-foot dandelions!). I called the company - they said I could plant vegetables three days after I spray. I'm going to get some plants from the UC Garden Club next weekend and plant then. I bought a brave little watermelon plant from Home Depot that is waiting as well. Clarence has already taken a bite out of it.

It's the end of the semester. In addition to grading ongoing projects and preparing for the final exam and final project presentations of my students, I have attended a bunch of journalism-related events. We hosted an American Press Institute workshop on social media this week, we had the Journalism Department Awards ceremony, I attended the Tyler School of the Art's Interact 7 show, and we hosted BarCamp NewsInnovation this weekend, which was a rousing success. On Sunday my colleague Chris Harper was kind enough to present my paper "The End of Journalism Education" at the Media in Transition conference at MIT.

Still and all, I cannot stem the desire for travel that ravages my heart. Because the Temple London program was so successful, Temple is going to offer a Spring 2010 semester in addition to the Fall semester. Words cannot describe how much I would like to go back to London for the Spring 2010 semester, but... I am scheduled to co-teach a course with the Fox School of Business in database journalism, the department is planning to implement a new phase of our converged curriculum, I really should not be quite so greedy, and I really should spend some quality time in Philadelphia. It has been one thing after another ever since I moved here in 2004, and I don't feel like I ever properly settled in. So this summer I am going to focus on staying cool in my kickin new apartment.

It's not like I'm going nowhere this year. Right now I am planning to present a paper on "Game Culture and Digital Journalism" at IAMCR in July. Buuuuuuut, IAMCR is in Mexico City this year, home of the swine flu outbreak, so I'll have to monitor how things develop. I am also planning to take 10 days for the Future of Journalism conference in Wales in September. I hope to make some BFFs at Cardiff University, where they publish both Journalism Studies and Journalism Practice, two of the leading journals in my field. They also host Fullbright scholars, and I learned just enough about the British academic system during my stay in London to at least try to make an inquiry.

I'm hosting Stitch N Bitch this Thursday at 7:30pm. Drop me a line if you want to attend and are not on the regular e-mail list.

The Huffington Post put out a call for citizen journalists to cover the Tax Day Tea Parties in their cities. I attended this afternoon's event at Love Park. It was pissing rain, as the Irish would say, but that did not deter 200-300 diehards from dressing up and getting rowdy. You can see the audio slideshow/video that I quickly cobbled together with Flash here:

http://unix.temple.edu/~susanj/tea/phillyteaparty1.swf

kemidra met me there, and we went to Trader Joe's.

The cats seem to be as happy in the new apartment as I am. Every morning after breakfast they puff up their tails and chase each other around our spacious new digs. Afterwards they collapse in exhaustion on the bed.

I went to IKEA this weekend to get a lamp. The bus to IKEA/Home Depot/Walmart/Super Fresh is literally half a block away from my apartment. I went to both Lowes and Home Depot and neither of them had the shelving units in the size and color I wanted. After much research on the Internet, it turns out that only IKEA has the size and color, but I have to go in person to the store to order the materials. I may go this Friday or Saturday - if anyone is up for a trip to IKEA, let me know.

My home office is coming along. I bought a super-cheap printer and have already done more work more efficiently than at my previous apartment.

It has been a week since Elmo, Clarence and I moved into our new apartment. I am mostly unpacked. The cats have acclimated. EKoD spends a lot of time in the crate I moved him in with - it's his secret fort. Both kitties have found that shiny wood floors make cat toys more fun - I hear jingle balls at all hours, and I find stuffed mice in odd places.

I need furniture. I am scouring Craigslist for a dining table with chairs that extends from five feet to eight feet. This summer I plan to purchase a new black leather couch. I want drapes like these for my living room.

Help Wanted: Install My Elfa Shelves


I am going to purchase Elfa Shelves to go above my desk. I was inspired by this photo in the New York Times. I want two rows of five-foot shelves over my desk. As far as I can tell, I would have to get four thirty-inch shelves and place them together. I will order all of the shelving materials, but if anyone who reads my journal wants to make $100 to install them, let me know.

From Photos from Ballintoy

So I'm not going to Northern Ireland this summer. The program I was tentatively scheduled to teach in did not make its enrollment. I am very disappointed, but truthfully it will probably do me good to spend an actual summer in Philadelphia. To cheer myself up I booked a room at a hostel in Wales for the Future of Journalism conference in September. I plan to spend about 10 days in the UK, including a couple of days in London. I am also waiting to hear whether I got into IAMCR, which is in Mexico City this summer.

Unpacking proceeds apace.

The cats and I made it to the Garden Court Plaza without losing anyone on Pine Street. Lori of CityKitties came over Thursday evening to corral EKoD into a crate kindly donated by daphnep. I had put a small litter tray in the crate for EKoD, but I realized - after he was inside - that the crate was too small for both him and the litter tray. So I waited until just after midnight on Friday and took him over to his new apartment. I put him in a closet with food and water and opened his crate. When I returned at 7am with Elmo, he had managed to escape from the closet and was cowering in the bathtub, where he stayed for the rest of the day. Elmo came out to greet and get in the way of the movers, the building maintenance men and the cable guys. Everyone pet him. One of the cable guys wanted to use the bathroom, so I warned him, "There's a cat in the bathtub. Just ignore him." He thought that was funny.

The fabulous Mambo Movers took 3 hours and $400 to move all of my furniture and about 50 boxes. I left a few things behind in my old apartment, thinking I could just haul them over myself in a couple of trips (the old place is just 2 blocks away). Big mistake. By 8pm I had run about 10 of these trips and I was complete wiped out. I called Krystal, my subtenant, and asked her if I could finish moving and cleaning before noon on Saturday, when she was moving in, and she said it was OK. So I got up at 6am and started again, finishing just at 11am. Hoo boy. I would have called for reinforcements if I had known... but I did not realize how much crap I really had.

Everything is still packed away, so I took these photos with my cameraphone. ( See some extra special features of my new apartment. )