Crazy crazy crazy and procrastination

I seem to be procrastinating on my thesis by submitting conference abstracts today.  I wrote one while my car was getting a warrant, it was due today, then I saw another conference that looked good so I submitted the 'back to the kitchen' abstract for that one too.  The first conference is the Sociology Association of Aotearoa New Zealand conference in Akaroa from the 3rd to the 5th of December, the second is on the same dates (that's where the crazy comes in) in Nelson.  It's the Women in Psychology conference.  I'm not really in psychology, although I did take an under grad paper called 'women in psychology' taught by my grandmother, so I will see if I get into that one.  Might be an interesting trip to Nelson and Christchurch/Akaroa in the same couple of days.  It's an interesting form of crazy I seem to have developed, maybe I will get it seen to by the psychologists at the conference.

Here is the abstract I wrote in a rush today:

The Nourishing Revolution:  Exploring a new social movement

Problems with modern industrialised food have recently gained public attention.  Concerns have been raised about ecological damage, animal cruelty as well as personal health issues such as the dangers of pesticides.  Modern processed foods have been linked to the rise on obesity and diabetes among other conditions.  As a response to some of these concerns, new social movements have immerged and grown.  The Weston A. Price Foundation represents one such movement, with the aim of promoting and educating people about their concept of traditional nourishing foods.  The foundation’s principles differ from conventional food discourse, particularly in their promotion of the consumption of natural saturated fats and raw dairy products.  This paper will explore the movement, in relation to my research, as a form of food praxis.  It will focus particularly on the use of the internet blogging to communicate and form communities supporting the philosophies of the Weston A. Price Foundation.

I might be able to change it if I need to, before it's officially part of the conference proceedings.  I'm not sure if my mind is working well or not so I don't feel like I'm in a good place to assess it right now - comments are welcome!  

I'm now procrastinating by finding funny images to pepper this post with.  It's silly really, because I'm quite enjoying the writing I'm doing at the moment about all these wonderful food blogs.  It's fun and light and doesn't involve much extra reading or theory (because apparently I'm supposed to have done all that by now!).  


I had a very rushed trip to Wellington in the weekend, which I'm still recovering from.  I really enjoyed meeting Johanna from Star-cooked and talking food and blogging and sustainability.  That is one of the great things about blogs, they draw interests together and are a great medium for allowing like-minded people to communicate!  I really like the way that blogs often have overlapping interests and also the way that they usually incorporate aspects of people's lives, their views, their stories... it makes them so much more interesting than dry academic stuff!  I wish I could meet more of you wonderful food bloggers!

Soup for brains

My head is currently swamped with too much everything - I've barely even cooked a meal in the last week which is quite unusual and also troubling.  The first part of B Semester is over and there's a two week break with no tutorials, so I get a break from that but not from my thesis and the due date (November 5th) is looming.  I broke out of my cooking strike today and made my favourite Thai soup: Tom kha gai, loosely adapted from this recipe.  I used free-range chicken and added in lots more veges - something my diet has been lacking lately.  I also made a start on pumpkin soup that I make with lots of fish sauce, coriander and coconut cream, but my wrist is sore from attacking the giant pumpkin, probably something I could have done better had I been very angry or frustrated at the time.

I'm currently trying to find blog posts to analyse for my thesis, but there are so many good ones it's really hard to choose.  I want to get a good selection so that I can look at a wide range of themes; personal and political, scientific and lay discourses etc...  Aside from the blogs I'm trying to get my thesis into better shape - re-organising it so that it makes more sense.  I still have a few sections that need to be written, although Sandra and Johanna have been helping me with their fantastically usable comments about women in the kitchen and food blogging and empowerment and so on.  I'm probably at a stage where I need to have a big break and let my mind compost all the information that seems to be coming at me from everywhere, but I'm starting to get anxious about deadlines so I'm going to try to get at least a passable amount of writing done.  I find that when I sit down and work I make heaps of progress...