SAD lamps and fun students

Have I recently sung the praises of the nurses at my University's Health Services? They are wonderful. And they keep a close eye on me, because I'm there every week. I've been getting the same nurse for several weeks in a row, and she was concerned last week because of how tired I was (she was mainly worried that I was getting the flu, and worried that with my egg allergy I couldn't get a flu shot). This week, she was checking up on my tiredness and my moods, and I mentioned Chris's SAD theory. She agreed with him, and told me that Health Services has a SAD lamp I can use! (And it's a really good one.) They charge $2/session, and reccomend that I use it for half an hour, three times a week. I'm really glad, because that's more the kind of money I'm in the place to spend, and this fall and winter I can try it out and decide whether it would be a good long-term investment to buy my own. And I can just go to the University on Mondays, Wednesday, and Fridays, and start off my day by doing my reading under the SAD lamp.

That's just so fantastic.

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In TA news:

1. This portrait of Louis XIV is fantastic for getting undergrads to recognise the codes that they normally interpret in photos. They went from "Giggle giggle it looks like Louis is a cross-dresser because he wears long robes and shows his legs while wearing high heels," to analysing the meanings of men's and women's legs in our society, to figuring out what men's legs, elaborate robes, and all that on an absolute monarch would have meant in Early Modern France. This group of mine is so funny. Somehow, they're really aware of their own biases, which makes them oddly post-modern (last week we discussed bias and historiography, and this week we're onto gender and codes?). However, I need to get more of the students in this group to participate. The other group agrees more and more students participate, but the discussion is less lively and they're mostly wanting to make their points and get out of there.

2. I had a fascinating discussion with one of my students from the medical history course I TA'd. She's from Zaire, and we discussed how little Canadians know about Africa. According to my student, most Canadians she meets assume: a.) that she's not black but perhaps Spanish (because her skin colour is fairly light), b.) that she must be from a rural background and/or have escaped political turmoil, and c.) that if she's from Africa that she must be from South Africa. It was really cool talking with her, as we tore apart popular images of "Africa." We also had fun discussing the ideas from medical history, and especially the idea that the prof proposed that our society is currently are more focused on preventative medicine and better health than just fighting disease. That conversation was especially interesting because we were sitting in a medical clinic waiting room, and I had just gotten my allergy shots, decided to start using a SAD lamp, and am about to get a chiropractic adjustment. We decided that I'm the poster child of the new medicalisation.