potentially more than you want to know

my name is joy, and this is my shiny new blog. for the last few years i have stalked multiple blogs, transitioning from lurker (sweetney made me delurk) to serial commenter (by now she might wish she hadn't). this year i decided it's time to get bloggy with it.

i am mom (or mummy) to jack (3.5) and wife to frank (38)

in my professional life i am work at a university (untenured, mind) and conduct research on digital literacy in the humanities and human-computer interaction. i also oversee a lot of website development. i place emphasis on the "oversee," because, as you will see, my css skills are just atrocious.

why the gingajoy psuedonym? i have a PhD in English (no fucking shit). this means at various stages i have been/will be a job whore. hollywood's got nothing on academia, peeps.
(read: i don't want to be googled and the phrase "job whore" to come up with my real name and bad grammar)

ginga (pronounced "sing-ah") is a brit slang term for a gingerhaired person. mick hutnall and ron weasley would both be categorized as "gingas." so would i.

i am a woman who came of age as a feminist in the so called "postfeminist" era. this meant that has 19 year old, i visciously defended madonna as an uberfeminist, who showed us that the ladies could wear lipstick, act like hussies, and be liberated. 16 years on i am slightly more cynical, which means i can now covet stilletoes while at the same time deconstruct their patriarchal legacy.

Other random facts (read on, or not..):

i hate to read certain books to my son because they bore the pants off me. these books include, but are not limited to:

• thomas the tank engine (and percy, henry, and all those other goddamn engines. i do *quite* like "lady.")
• curious george (the series. talk about thinly veiled postcolonial fantasy*)
• babar (the series. *see above)
• spider-man (the series) and especially hurry up, spider-man.

i am about to be 35, which is halfway to seventy. whoo hoo!

i am english (hence "mummy"). i live in the U.S. (hence the explanation).

because i am an ex-pat living abroad, i fetishize multiple things british and pay exhorbitant prices for products like marmite and salad cream. this is the equivalent of spending time in Tuscany, and actively seeking out and then paying through the nose for miracle whip.

as a teenager, i was obsessed with this person, and this synth pop group. so each time i go to bed, i pray like aretha franklin.

i grew up in canterbury, england and went to "geoffrey chaucer comprehensive school." my grandfather was a beefeater at the tower of london. no shit neither.

i got a BA in english here

i did not read a word of the canterbury tales until i came to grad school in east lansing, michigan, where they made me read it in fucking middle english.

i belong to a knitting circle (stitch n' bitch). right now i am on a mission to knit scarves for everyone i know...

i tend to drink, eat, and swear too much at times. but according to my friends, all this makes me a fascinating person.