. . . . . entries for 31.3.09 . . . . .
I am really really REALLY worried that my computer has the April Fools bug. It's been lagging way too much.
My computer is wheezy again.
Mysterious forces have colonized the psych stats lecture hall. There is a large flock of people, mostly female, currently sitting outside on the 300 floor, waiting for the forces to move out. They are camera-flashing and dark in there. Weird.
I am drowsy, and pretty concerned about my ability to focus tonight.
Also, I didn't totally bomb my SOC/ANT paper - or perhaps I did, and it's just that lots of other people bombed it worse. Hrm.
OMG, YES!
. . . . . entries for 30.3.09 . . . . .
I just made my course selection advising appointment with the PSY department administrator.
Also, here is what I think I am taking in the fall:
Fundamentals of Neuroscience
Abnormal Psychology
Social Psychology
Advanced Creative Writing (Fiction)
Medical Anthropology
There's some other stuff on the list too, for swapping in case of filling-up or whatnot. And yes, there are five courses here. Medical anthropology is expendable, but is an EM, which I need, and might actually count for some PSY requirement or other. And it is possible that I won't get into creative writing, and will have to scrap creative thesis ambitions.
Hmm. I wonder how I'll do the whole enviro/psych thesis thing. I mean, I know, but I don't know that my prospective thesis advisor will buy it. :P
I am in WWS/ENV. This is my list of possible final paper topics.
Regional ecology stuff:
-Mongolian rangeland degradation projections, management, adaptation, impact costs
-Same thing for coral reefs
-Brazilian biofuels, cattle farming, and deforestation
Climate stuff:
-American meat production and consumption impacts on global warming, along with analysis of policy options to mitigate climate effects of meat industry, possibly with comparative focus on CAFO-produced versus organic/free range/grass-fed meat
One of my "I almost want to make a wikipedia account" moments: this page needs editing, and correcting. As if such a poem, by such a man, could be about its "beauty in its natural setting." A lot of Transcendentalism is in that poem, a ton of it, the best parts of it.
There is potential for great, terrifying fiction in this. I wonder if anyone's written it.
I can only imagine all I'd be able to accomplish, were I the focusing type.
. . . . . entries for 29.3.09 . . . . .
When I just heard rain, I was kind of annoyed. I thought I might go to a library and try to pick up a book for my SOC/ANT presentation. But then it started thundering, and some pretty badass lightning was involved too, so I sat and watched for a while with Kelsey.
And now I'm back here, with tons of junk yet to do. HUMBUG.
Aaaand the Nasslit website. That too.
Holy cow do I ever have a lot to do today. PPN cover, SiS edits, reading, reading, reading . . .
. . . . . entries for 28.3.09 . . . . .
The great thing about being taught by postdocs is that they teach you exactly what they know, what they're doing, what they live. My postdoc instructor from last semester is writing a paper on the class and the broader trends in environmental education that surround it, and Mischa has assigned us to read a draft version of one of his papers.
The terrible thing about that last bit is that my reflex, being an editor these days, is to press the "track changes" button and start reading for things to criticize. That would be a bad thing to do in this situation.
Today I slept a lot, finished reading Watchmen, got my head on somewhat straight about Nasslit webmastery, and spent three hours editing for SiS. I have tons and tons more to do before the weekend's out. Better start doing it. Ho hum.
ps. it's Earth Hour!
I need an external hard drive. Hrm.
This jewelery company, eco-friendliness aside, is adorably dorky.
. . . . . entries for 27.3.09 . . . . .
You can tell a selfish, needy person by his or her desire to keep talking about one thing when different things need to be said, or done. He who cares for others knows when to fall silent.
. . . . . entries for 26.3.09 . . . . .
Best candidates so far for W in Wilf: weirdo, wench.
The quad officially has a sweet-ass new quad with private bathroom in Wilf! Also, Wilf is a great name. It's like MILF, but who knows what the W stands for?
Despite my uneasiness with Emerson, my desire to name my hypothetical future daughter Rhodora is stronger than ever.
Part of The Problem - not Emerson's The Problem but mine, and the mundane one, not the spiritual one - is that high school was entirely about potential, demonstrating and developing potential, and college seems so much more about fulfilling potential, being, acting, rather than looking ahead and sighing fondly at possibilities. I still like that optimistic feeling of, for a moment, resting on one's laurels; I still want to stop and look at where I am and what I've done, but I can't. There's no time, and no one cares if you're a bright young person with great ideas. They only care about what you put on the page, what parts of the rubric they can fill in, what you actually do that is relevant to them.
Which is life, I guess. I just wish someone had led me into it more slowly. And if this is too sudden - was, by now, I should say - then imagine all those others who vault into adulthood so much younger. Am I spoiled, or spoiled rotten?
I have a couple of pages and an outline written. I may or may not include a section somewhere on Transcendentalism's impacts on movements that came after it. I'm not quite sure how such a section would actually fit in, though; I suppose if a place presents itself, I may give it a try. It would be something of a tangent.
My paper is meta, which is appropriate, because the class itself is quite meta.
I am not that worried. Should I be worried that I am not that worried?
. . . . . entries for 25.3.09 . . . . .
Weirdly, no, not yet. I did earlier but I got my eerie late-night second wind. Not that such energy is suitable for focusing, but then, what energy is?
I understand why Ivy Leaguers are notorious for illicitly obtaining Adderall.
. . . . . entries for 24.3.09 . . . . .
"A Moment's Rest" from the FFXII soundtrack is, without question, my favorite mp3 right now. It is not complicated, it just is.
Emerson reminds me of Kierkegaard.
I am worried about my paper getting too into the social movement thing. I will try to stick to close readings of the texts, history, and lit crit, I guess; but class today, on Latour, just made me think that Emerson was trying to shake boundaries. It makes sense, in light of what else they did in terms of abolition and suffrage (and, you know, Civil Disobedience), to view Transcendentalism as a restructuring of faith that reaffirms the objects of these movements.
But that is not really exactly what I started looking for. I think Nature and Walden will be full of what I am looking for, though - stuff about relationships and boundaries between humans and objects.
I feel a bit as though Emerson is constantly, artfully, comfortingly lying to his reader. But it is a lovely lie. I bring this up because I thought of Rhodora, and whether or not I could count that as Emerson recounting a revelatory experience, as he describes it in The Over-Soul. Granted, I have stared so much at the latter that I haven't finished reading it, so maybe I'll learn enough more about Emerson's "revelation" that I'll be able to make a sound judgment on Rhodora.
So I went to Labyrinth, intending to pick up my own personal Walden, which I did - plus Civil Disobedience, a la Penguin Classics. Outside on the sale rack was a large, prominent paperback copy of The Dragons Are Singing Tonight, which is one of my favorite books from childhood. So I bought it too, for a buck. Awesome. If ever I have kinder, they will read silly poems about dragons to expand their vocabulary.
The book also contains some groan-inducing parallels to my current pixel dragon addiction. o.O . . . oh well.
I hope I can find the Dinosaur Alphabet Book and the Extinct Alphabet Book at home, sometime or other. Also very important books to hoard and cherish.
. . . in sum, I guess I am just regressing back three years, to Ms. Moore's class, when everyone was constantly pissy about Thoreau. Except me.
Man, I'm reading this piece, The Machine in the Garden, which is lit crit of American Transcendentalists and Romantics, and it's flying by, I know how to read it, I get it. That is such an unfamiliar feeling to me now. I haven't even really read lit crit in ages, but to understand it is so natural. To think it is so natural, too - maybe that's why I'm such a slow reader at other things, at least in part.
If I weren't so chained to the idea of Being Useful, I'd consider being an English major.
Man, why do I feel like just reading The Over-Soul and Nature would be enough to write this essay and possibly several more?
I should get Walden out of the library, or, better yet, buy my own copy to scribble in . . . oh I love the idea of having a copy of Walden to scribble in. I love it. I might have to do it.
ps. It is my sister's birthday. Bombard her with happy thoughts, please. Thank you.
<3 MINXPOD!
"In sickness, in languor, give us a strain of poetry, or a profound sentence, and we are refreshed" -R. W. Emerson, The Over-Soul, 1841
Yes, you falsely modest cad of a prophet. You are quite right.
. . . . . entries for 23.3.09 . . . . .
At least there's always mental breakdown to resort to, right?!
If ever there was a place to walk with the FFXII soundtrack in one's ears, pretending to be on the way to save the world, this is surely it. Just like being stuck inside an FMV, some kind of retro-Zanarkand, all its residents so busy, so set up to miss the beauty of this place.
I am a pretty wildly dysfunctional Princeton student, and things don't get easier. I don't know how I'm going to do this.
ps. ow.
I got a B+ on my POL paper. Not bad.
"Let's commiserate!" has become way too common a phrase in my vocabulary.
Economic jargon is so euphonious. I love reading it and hearing it, even if it makes no sense, or I have no love for the concepts themselves. Especially, say, the word "price." Just say it. It's such a clean, crisp word.
Kelsey observed:
SOC/ANT
SOCANT
SO CANT
SO CAN'T
. . . . . entries for 22.3.09 . . . . .
ps. SOC/ANT 319 is the most esoteric and ridiculous class I will ever take. I kind of like it but kind of hate it at the same time.
This paper I am reading, ostensibly on the moral qualities of a road running by the Pyrenees (already nuts), has gone on about background of "co-ordination" (agreed-upon rankings of moral quality, only not really moral in the commonly understood sense) and so forth for five pages now. Maybe it's just the translation, but Jesus H. Christ it's hard to make sense of in light of everything else we've read. It's as though very similar concepts are present, but none of the language or references I'm used to are there.
Do you know what I mean - do you know what I mean?
Caffeine's effect on me is somewhat mindboggling. Sometimes it keeps me awake - usually in a slow infusion, like tea. Sometimes it just makes me hyper and unable to focus; not so much awake as elsewhere, and that elsewhere is sometimes sleepy even as its heart rate accelerates and its hands shake. WTF, body. Be srs.
"Descola (1994: 330) suggests that social relationships provide the conceptual model for human-nature relationships" (O'Rourke 2000)
I feel quite educated, because I know that Descola later decided that he was wrong, and was oversimplifying a turn on Radcliffe-Brown. TAKE THAT, O'ROURKE.
Maybe she resolves it later. I like what I've read of this article, and find it happily relevant to my paper.
I hate stress, and the way the human body deals with it.
Updates: I wrote my SiS article, edited another one, wrote a poem, submitted four pieces (including that poem) to Nasslit, read a bit for my massive paper, and studied a bit for microeconomics. I did not really do very much, but I at least did some stuff.
. . . . . entries for 20.3.09 . . . . .
I feel so very full of fail.
Apparently my appointment was not actually rescheduled for today, so I technically missed one last week? Even so, the doc saw me today, re-wired me, and so on. I have to not clench my jaw. He did not say this explicitly, but he did imply that my teeth need room if I want the whole stupid sneaky tooth thing to get fixed in good time.
I could have opted for some crazy color on my braces. But I didn't. Still boring, blend-in silver.
Right before being woken up (by Ting's alarm, of all things), I had a horrible stress dream. For some reason, I was supposed to perform in a concert, but I got too sick. Yianni (also in the concert) diagnosed me and told me I'd have to sit it out. So I told the conductor and walked out, in the direction of my dorm, only to realize I didn't have any of my Important Stuff - prox, key, wallet, so on - and I had no clue where it was. When I got back to Buyers I saw my wallet on the ground and was overjoyed. I ran over and picked it up, only to find it missing everything but - I think - my credit card. It was crushing because it was clear someone had swiped everything, it wasn't just an innocent error.
WAY TO START MY MORNING HUH?
There are 1,111 pictures of me on facebook. Good grief.
I'm going to bed. This article will be done after orthodonture tomorrow.
You know, you know - there are people who are more writerly than I, in the sense that they are much more diligent about writing themselves, developing themselves to their reader, than I. I occasionally have expository outbursts on here, but they mostly go with emotional outbursts. This blog is an unpolished thing. It has so much in it - different things than a site full of essays and paragraphed reviews of culture would contain, and perhaps neither more nor less. It is to be read differently, and perhaps in more different ways.
I did love dialogue and quips, last year. I did love those works that were snarky genre-orphans. But I think my blog isn't that - it's just what blogs used to be, before the "blogosphere" happened. It's just old-fashioned, if old-fashioned is . . . what . . . ten years old, these days.
I am perplexed. The stuff that smells like bergamot oil in the junior slums appears to be regular old honeysuckle - or, at least, it smells pretty standard now that I have a sprig of it apart from the bush.
I never did write all that poetry I meant to write over break.
I am lame,
I am lame,
I suck at this game.
. . . . . entries for 19.3.09 . . . . .
PWNED. If it goes all the way, that is.
At the same time I saw that, I noted that my New York Times widget on Dashboard now includes an unsightly ad. Apparently these are tough times, even for the Times.
. . . . . entries for 17.3.09 . . . . .
Word does not know the word "salinized." Its suggestions for correcting my "error" include:
Stalinized
solemnized
satirized
sanitized
WORD:
LEARN A BOOK.
OR POSSIBLY A CATCHMENT
OR SEVERAL ARTICLES ON AGRICULTURE.
THANKS.
Your Animal is the Otter |
 You are a supportive, caring person. You value human life, and you think each person deserves compassion. You are optimistic and inspiring. You see what people need to feel complete, and you help them get it. You bond easily with others, and you are especially close to your family. You love to share, learn, and play together. Security is important to you. You are calm, as long as you aren't threatened. |
All of my Zodiac-ish things seem to kind of be right about me. It's somewhat eerie.
It would be funny if I ended up being an involved and productive member of the campus community after all, eh? Especially if it happened by accident.
. . . . . entries for 16.3.09 . . . . .
My suspicion is that I'd be better off accepting my innate yet soft self-righteous tendencies - accepting, say, my belief that there is a boundary past which one ought not cross, no matter how prettily rational and ambitious the goal - than doubting them, doubting myself.
I wish to be done with doubt forever. But I doubt that's in me.
At least I can begin by believing in the most important things.
. . . . . entries for 15.3.09 . . . . .
"Note to self: write a poem about resilience. Several different scales in the same poem. Panarchy meta. Hysteresis. But without the big words. At least mostly."
Yeah, that too.
In addition to the necessary things, I would also like to write poems, especially a poem about fuel, and burning - and another one, too, in particular, about skies opening.
I am home with the parents, and the Frank is on the road back to school with Mama O. I really do not know when next I will see Frank, or for how long.
What must Erin do? . . . email IUCN; write for SiS; work on SOC/ANT paper; establish a Nasslit blog; sleep; avoid excessive brooding.
. . . . . entries for 14.3.09 . . . . .
I has a Frank, but no paper (at least not for a couple of weeks).
Home tomorrow!
. . . . . entries for 12.3.09 . . . . .
I has a Frank.
I has a paper to write also, unfortunately. :P
. . . . . entries for 11.3.09 . . . . .
Ah . . . it's the beer-pizza PPF day in microecon. OH BOY.
I wonder if people whose last names are Marx are more likely to become social scientists than non-Marxes. :P In a reading for POL this week, by Anthony W. Marx, Marxism is mentioned in the very first paragraph. You kinda gotta think it gets to people.
. . . . . entries for 10.3.09 . . . . .
I just looked at the final exam schedule. I have a test on the SUNDAY of exam period, and another on the MONDAY MORNING following. And a take-home due that Monday at noon. FML. Just a little.
FML's also go for Kelsey and Ting, who have 9 AM Saturday exams. Princeton just hates our quad I guess.
While I am bad at this game, I take solace in the hunch that many others, equally bad, are just good actors.
Blast the vile substance of your choice at midterms week.
. . . . . entries for 9.3.09 . . . . .
Google "Princeton University English Department." Then try the East Asian Studies department.
I cordially invite you to try this for departments at other Ivies. So far we haven't found anything, sadly.
Fact: I did not know the distinction between the meanings of the words "jealous" and "envious" until I had it pointed out to me by a British frosh friend of mine. Fail. But at least now I know. So when I see the word "jealous" used incorrectly, I think, "oh brother." But that was me. Like a week ago.
So it feels a bit like blood isn't getting to my left hand properly. Kind of pinchy in my left forearm/wrist, and my left hand is noticeably colder than my right.
I think it's a sign that my body is done with this shit. :P
Presentation down, tons of stuff yet to go. Harumph.
I am that weird kind of tired that comes with a funny feeling in the head and the limbs - not soreness, but a kind of styrofoamy discomfort.
If I really speed through my presentation I can do it in five minutes. Maybe.
"Oh! Why'd you do that?"
"What, did it smell bad?"
"No, just now I'm going to dream about chocolate!"
"There are worse things to dream about. Death; rape; genocide; kissing boys you don't like in real life . . ."
. . . . . entries for 8.3.09 . . . . .
Barack is part of political reality now. Partisanship remains; it may even be stronger. We watch and wait to see if his stimulus package works, if he can win over shaky moderates and conservatives, if he really is what we all have believed in and hoped for.
But another movement of hope has months yet to go, time for us to watch and wait and press forward. This one is not as well televised, but its website is pretty good.
Wouldn't it be incredible if a machine like Obama's campaign could be born for this? Isn't it time?
The sidebar is taking over again, for lack of my rant and accompanying Magritte painting. :P Oh well.
I meant to blog earlier, though, to the effect that my afternoon/evening was a bit strange, but not in a bad way. I am now one half of the editorial board for Science in Society, the other half being the editor-in-chief. Woo.
Erin's to-do list for Sunday, in probable order:
-Do PSY homework.
-Do powerpoint for WWS.
-Read/respond for SOC/ANT.
Weirdly enough, I do not think this is an impossible amount of stuff to do.
Mr. Ferraro: you should know that I miss you. Even just talking to you. This "busy" thing is abominable. I can't wait to see you on Wednesday.
. . . . . entries for 7.3.09 . . . . .
It is a beautiful day, and tomorrow will be beautiful too. I wish I didn't have to spend so much of today (and tomorrow) working on stuff, but eh. Regardless of whether or not I'm out frolicking, the weather just makes me feel better.
. . . . . entries for 6.3.09 . . . . .
I could almost punch a certain someone right now.
P/D/Fing, possibly even dropping (but that would come later), micro. No compelling reason to worry a lot about it at this point. I have to do that at the registrar's office though, which is a pain. I shall sally forth to it after precept today, then postering, then . . . whatever comes next. Possibly dinner. And there will probably be a diner jaunt tonight as well.
Must work, though. WWS/ENV presentation and paper will not write themselves.
. . . . . entries for 5.3.09 . . . . .
At least I've been rejected before.
Key found at the foot of my bed. o.O Certainly worlds better than not finding it.
This arose from a mysterious incident of my failing to get up when my alarm went off the second time this morning. I must have turned it off in my sleep. So Kelsey knocks fifteen minutes before our class starts and asks me if I'm up. Never have I been out of bed and out the door so quickly - until I realized I didn't have my key, at which point I went back to look for it, couldn't find it, and ended up not exactly late but not exactly on time for class.
I think my professor really wants me to stay enrolled. I think - and Kelsey agrees - that he laced his lecture with not-entirely-subliminal messages to this effect, including "I hope you come back next week" to the class in general, at the very end.
But that damnable paper . . . I mean, not that it's a good reason to get out of the class, but the prospect of writing it is pretty daunting.
Better check my email for further developments on all that.
Blogreaders, if you have ever doubted the completeness of my dysfunction, put those doubts to rest.
Where the hell is my key?
. . . . . entries for 4.3.09 . . . . .
I think I am not going to drop or p/d/f or audit SOC/ANT. I think I will just tough it out. And I will think positively! I can pull it off! Why the hell not, after all?
Oh brother. I hope I didn't just royally screw up my ability to make my own Princeton website in the future - although I'm not sure I'd ever have reason to.
Afternoon to-do list: drop off Nasslit copies in faculty advisor's mailbox; email SOC/ANT professor; fiddle with Nasslit website.
This guy is awesome.
. . . . . entries for 3.3.09 . . . . .
Holy cow do I ever need to clean my room. At least I started some laundry.
The paper for POL is essentially done. I might need to throw in more dates and citations; we will see how my energy level and tolerance for sitting at the computer are doing in three hours or so.
. . . . . entries for 2.3.09 . . . . .
Man, I think I'm starting to get heartburn. Do not approve.
I know it's bad if the left side of my sternum hurts, because my heart is there. But what does it mean if the right side hurts?
. . . . . entries for 1.3.09 . . . . .
You can tell I have a lot to do because I'm blogging a lot, in short snippets. :P
It's weird realizing someone has de-friended you on facebook. Not super-weird, in most cases - it's usually not someone you're all that close to - but when there's a relationship of "yeah, I care enough to want to keep track of how you're doing, even if it's just the occasional minute on your page," and that goes without warning, it's odd. I wonder why it goes.
The political vocabulary of the Philippines is a riot.
Adviser duly emailed about the resilience/totemism dilemma. Hopefully he will have some words of wisdom for me.
"the killing of multiple fowl with a single projectile"
I kind of love my EEB prof from last semester. And it looks as though maybe research stuff could still happen.
. . . should I drop a class? I will at least think about dropping a class. Probably SOC/ANT. While I find the subject matter interesting, it is a ton of work, and it will probably never help me with degree requirements. And this research - I wants it.
While I accomplished practically nothing school-related today, I did paint a very beautiful mug. The painting helped get out the geist a bit, too. Subject: two of Vincent's paintings fused together - the Reaper, and the more ubiquitous crows descending on a field. I will post pictures when I retrieve it from firing.
come home?
.:people:.
{ting}
she looks like the real thing
{mari}
out and about
[kelsey]
THIS IS AMERICA
{yianni}
stop being depressed
{alisa}
other
[shannon]
close and far
{frank}
islands where no islands should go
[cassie]
eating knowledge
{colin}
my dm
[emily]
shoulder to the wheel
[brian]
nostalgic for fantasy
[nicole]
industry insider
{elle}
angry enviro
[matt]
never heard of miyazaki
[pirate dan]
are you reading this?
[olga]
distracted
[messiah dan]
messiah/believer
{max}
approach focus
[natalie]
wait a minute
[susan]
solitude
{greg}
manbeargreg
.:past:.
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.:skin:.
turtles! turtles! by araglas
(heavily modified by yours truly)