gwytherinn.com

Thanks Tiv!!

Interesting, I was thinking 212. They do have a DC branch but the job will be in NYC. The interview will be with one in person and another one in phone conference from DC. Thought that was kind of interesting.

I think it went well! I think it was kind of obvious that I don’t exactly want to be there forever, and am looking at that as a foot in the door kind of thing.. which may be a mark against me… I skirted around the “what attracts you to this position” in a way that didn’t really seem satisfactory to them. But regardless, still think it went well in my opinion.

They said they’d be making a decision by the end of next week.

I will have to get back to you on the book suggestions… I will look through my library..

I know there is a book I had been meaning to get a long time ago that also is specifically about female suicide bombers…. I will have to look it up. Read a memoir about a woman growing up in a polygamous Mormon family compound, if you consider that extremist.

I love finding books.. I will be back!

All right… I’ll admit that I’m a little hung up on what your definition of extremism might be.

So far I have books that deal with:

Women growing up in certain types of Muslim and Mormon cultures, and living during the cultural revolution in China.

Almost all are memoirs at the moment. So I’m not sure if I’m on target or not but I feel like I’m not. =/

(Warning: Some of these links are extensive reviews. I am weird, I don’t like to read too many in depth reviews of a book before I buy it - I usually read them afterwards because I like to hear what other people have to say, and I feel like something is lost if I read to much about it already! Maybe you’re like that too, just wanted to put in a warning.)

Ok… I’ll admit I think the pool of books just narrowed considerably…. I have two so far. That would be Army of Roses: Inside the World of Palestinian Suicide Bombers by Barbara Victor. This is one we had stocked in the store a long long time ago, and I had always planned to buy. One day I decided to do so and it was gone!! (cry) So I went to look it up and found it was out of print… much dismay. You can buy used copies, but I never pursued it.

I actually almost picked up this last week at The Strand. Still debating whether I should have. Women and the Contested State: Religion, Violence, and Agency in South and Southeast Asia. It’s an academic book, and it’s expensive because it comes from a University press. I’m regretting not buying it at the moment, but when I was flipping through it I couldn’t really justify the purchase.

Still looking. I am coming up with a lot of books of women in say, violent situations due to governments and politics. I read Emma’s War by Deborah Scroggins, that was very good. It has a lot of background on the situation of Sudan and is both a journalistic account of the things going on at the time as well as being a biography of Emma McCune, an aid worker in the area. I only wish I could be so fearless. There’s also the recently released memoir by Cathy Wilkerson about being in the Weather Underground called Flying Close to the Sun: My Life and Times as a Weatherman. I really want to read that at some point, and after reading the publisher’s blurb it actually looks like it is more along the lines of what you are looking for, sans the religion. (Also, a friend works as an editor for that press…. who knows, she may have edited it!!)

Ok, I will throw these in for good measure as well. I love reading memoirs by women who lived through the Chinese Communist Revolution, I’ve read a couple of very good ones. I know it doesn’t really fit, though perhaps if you replaced religion with government, maybe. They were all very much a part of things and participated in the Cultural Revolution in various instrumental ways.

(Ok, I’ll admit I’m being lazy and linking you to amazon.com now, despite Red always telling me not to!)

Red Azalea by Anchee Min - The book that started it all for me.
A Leaf in the Bitter Wind by Ting-Xing Ye
Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China by Jung Chang - Monumental 600 page tome of three generations, her grandmother, mother and she. While this was a very good book, it’s also VERY emotionally draining and exhausting. It is tragedy after tragedy. It seriously never stops. Oh, and according to this review here: “It wasn’t just a popular success appealing mainly to women (as is sometimes sniffily assumed), it was also acclaimed by literary heavyweights such as Martin Amis and JG Ballard.” (I wrote an incredibly long, fragmented rant about the devaluation of “women’s” books, women authors and readers one day that centered on the treatment of this book.)

I guess lately I’m just learning to be more wary of where I get my information from, and I know the first book is disputed on amazon.com by some reviewers and says she really doesn’t have any clue about Palestinian culture. I used to just take the things I read in books at face value regardless of the source, and I’m learning this isn’t exactly the best thing to do. So I’m also wary of passing things on to you that aren’t truly “representative” as the people who are experiencing them would say they are. I know, this is a huge tangent. I just wanted to express that.

I am blinking after editing this comment and realized the whole thing is pretty much a huge tangent. It started as two paragraphs. O.o

And I’m so glad you’re getting something out of the links I bookmark!!

“The little bookstore” = <3 Interesting though, maybe I was mistaken about Army of Roses being out of print. And now you have to give me a book to read! Speaking of which, you probably are more up on the news than I am and know about it already, but I saw this today. Ugh.

Two women blow up Iraqi market

“Involving women in fighting violates cultural taboos in Iraq, but the U.S. military has warned that al-Qaida in Iraq is recruiting females and youths to stage suicide attacks because militants are increasingly desperate to thwart stepped-up security measures.”

“I had a ramble about the other asymmetric methods they’ve used, but the list got too long.”

Huh?? I think you were talking about the news article. And now you’ve piqued my curiosity. ;x

Ugh….. that is some really crazy stuff. Asymmetry is being used in terms of… an irregular tactic in that it breaches taboos?

Actually, it kind of could have something to do with job hunting, which I’ll get to, but regardless this has been a really interesting exchange!

Haven’t heard back, no news is good news to me at the moment. I applied to two more jobs. (Would have been 3, but I am under-qualified for the 3rd. Job hunting continues tomorrow.) Both are positions that are pretty much titled “project assistant.” I found the first one, which is actually for a new project being implemented by a think tank and is called “Targeting Violent Extremism.” I will admit that the organization seems kind of shady to me, and they are not transparent at all in their dealings.

BUT… the job really sounded like heaven to me. It’s pretty much aiding the project in any way, shape or form. I like having a variety of things to do. As well, I like doing the organizational type of work that sets things in motion. I really like to know how things work from the inside out. Basically, I like being everywhere at once, knowing everything that is going on and being able to fix problems and help things move along. So I think it would be really cool if I got a chance at that job.

And as much as this has never been quite an unknown thing to me, I think I really just put some important pieces together about the kind of job I’d really love to do.