Comeback Kid

I can't believe it's been three weeks since my last entry. Just goes to show how thoroughly unproductive I've been since December. From the time my mom arrived in Cambridge to my groundhog days of sleeping-TV binging-meeting with friends (to the point that I've started hating reading restaurant menus) to my return to my old homes Ateneo and GMA this past week, I've done zero work for my PhD. My "potato couch" existence (L. Garcia, 2002) led to such malaise: Every night would entail four zombie hours of tossing and turning in bed before I'd fall asleep. And each of these spells would become an extended Nip/Tuck episode--the one where the Joely Fisher character imagines how her life would be different had she chosen to marry Christian instead. Of course my PhD career is part of this issue: I started imagining whether I'd be Anderson Cooper's personal assistant at AC360 by now or my Oscar predictions article would already be published in Entertainment Weekly (instead of my current limbo status of having to wait for FOUR months for a reply from my fave media journal). I started missing being harassed, playing chimay to diva clients, and cleaning up other people's mess. And I miss scandals! While I probably wouldn't appreciate being called to office on Christmas Eve, the ABS-GMA ratings brouhaha would have had me happily rolling up my sleeves.

I miss you, Angel!

Anyway, I'm just thoroughly happy today for having accomplished my first real academic task in the past five weeks: creating my lecture slides for my guest-lecture in Political Communication class. Of course, I still have to get around to doing my own research, but as a notoriously fastidious teacher once said, "it's the little things."

But if Hillary can stage a comeback, so can I.

And to kick-start my comeback, let me speak into the air one more time and plug a great new media studies discussion website MEDIAPOLIS. The brainchild of my former student Tin Aquino, Mediapolis is a critical and responsible space for dialogue that strives for a new media politics. It is a space where scholars, students, producers, consumers, you and I speak the unspeakable and engage with the challenges of a multiply mediated society. Let us engage rather than wallow with the despair of mediation. Time to get off the couch! :)