She frowned and said sternly, "Pretending to hurt him."

Your daughter is freakish in an awesome way....

Has she ever said what she wants to be when she grows up?

Awww, Matilda. Bless.

I looked around for someone to tell about this, but the only person who seemed to work there was the work-study undergrad who was checking out books, who I know has no power over anything.

Hil, you can also contact the recycling office. They need to know when their bins are moved anyway, so they can find them to empty them.

Matilda is quite awesome.

She frowned and said sternly, "Pretending to hurt him."

Aw, man. Small child morality. Melting, now.

Hee. Loving the Matilda story.

Beth ~ heh - well, I am famous for my detailed knowledge of tarmac surfaces. I have quite literal dreams in this area. Instead of dreaming of seeing 'online' people in person, I mostly dream I'm spending time on messageboards. Odd, because most of my dreams are utterly random. I wake up going "And exactly where was the internal logic to that fictional world, hmm?"

not here writing dissertation not here writing dissertation not here writing dissertation

Oh, another interesting ethnicity form on a job application, this one in New Zealand. The ethnicity options were "European," about five different types of Asian, "Mixed Race," and "Other." I was just staring at that one for a while, thinking, "I'm European? I guess? And do they expect no black people or Middle Eastern people or Native Americans or Hispanic people to apply for this job?"

The form for Cambridge had, I think, different categories for Indian, Pakistani, and Bangladeshi, plus one for Chinese, but nothing that would cover Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, or anywhere else in Asia. But at least that one had a "White, not British or Irish" category where I could put myself.

I'm confused.

Why do they have ethnicity forms to begin with?

Well, most of the ones in the US say that the people doing the hiring don't see them -- they're for the people keeping track of who the university hires. I don't know exactly what they do with them.

Huh. Thanks for answering.

But at least that one had a "White, not British or Irish" category where I could put myself.

Interesting. Those boxes highlight the social construction of a lot of racial origins, for me. The Girl tends to go for 'White, Other' on those forms, but she has a very mixed background including European, American and Middle Eastern heritage. Whereas I get stuck around the category 'White, Irish' as a category, without explanation of whether that's a national or racial/heritage category (I have Irish parents and a British passport). I usually tick the box that feels right on the day!

Why do they have ethnicity forms to begin with?

Equal Opportunities monitoring. We have not-bad employment regulations regarding race and ethnicity, and they are required to keep records (of anonymised data - detached from application forms) to demonstrate fair recruiting processes. They're starting to do the same with disability, and I assume they have done with gender for even longer than for ethnicity.

Two more draft chapters sent to my dissertation supervisor. She won't like them (she's a slightly less distressing version of Hil's advisor), and it'll be too late to do much about them. So lets hope the double-marking process has some effect, because my course director thinks my work is great. It's the oddest contrast. There is clearly no such thing as impartial judgement on students' work.