. . . . . entries for 28.2.11 . . . . .
I miss being able to write with reckless abandon. It doesn't work out very well in science papers, unfortunately.
Something that doesn't seem to stop hurting, no matter how much it happens: feeling for someone intensely, then realizing that, in quiet pain or joy, I am no closer to them. I would be closer if I mentioned a triviality that tied us together without a shred of empathy. That person does not know and how could it be proper to say aloud, "my heart is heavy for you and us" or "you gave me hope" or "you made me doubt" or "you changed my life"?
I feel wired all wrong for everything.
. . . . . entries for 27.2.11 . . . . .
The hope that everything is okay, the willing yourself to believe it: what normal people do to survive every day.
The knowledge that most things are not okay, the forcing yourself to understand it: what I do to talk myself into living the rest of my life - and the knowledge and understanding are not enough, not enough, without action and honesty and putting your whole soul into the earnest pursuit of knowing and doing true things.
Whether in the enviro realm, in love, in school, in family - wherever I am, I want to be this way.
If I have doubts, know that they are not malicious, but they come from a sort of depressive realist who could not bring herself to bother with anything without both harboring and intensely vetting those doubts to arrive at some higher hope, a hope longer-lived than herself. And if I doubt you - if I notice changes in familiar, comfortable and comforting exchanges we once had, or if the things you say to others seem, to me, to reflect on me - please do me the enormous service of humoring me and, if I am wrong, helping me to understand why.
I understand that this probably drives you insane at times. Even I do that hoping-and-willing thing, when I want to hold onto the good parts of the way things are. But when those doubts flutter, I feel like my heart could give out because they are so real and intense to me.
Like now, I suppose.
. . . . . entries for 24.2.11 . . . . .
It stings to be reminded that I haven't been invited to interview anywhere else - sort of. (I've been reminded since my fellow prospies have been talking about their other interviews.) On the other hand it makes me think maybe I'm really supposed to be here, like this is the very place, because only they saw me and thought "ah, yes, this one looks good." I wonder. I suppose we'll find out, won't we?
So far it seems like the other prospies are nice, and the grad students who organized the visit are too. We have Things With The Department from 8:30 tomorrow morning until, um, late. And we're touring the imaging center on Saturday.
Mysteriously, I don't have a roommate. I was sort of looking forward to yammering with one, too. Oh well.
. . . . . entries for 23.2.11 . . . . .
I don't think I'm smarter or prettier. But younger, yes. I am that. Younger and, in places, either more flexible or more fragile - I can't really tell anymore.
But don't think about that. I'm sure you don't need it.
"think instead of the snowflake on her cheek"
"It's been a long day, but that's all right." -a wise thesis experiment participant
Unless it goes no lower, unless this is the lowest of all low points, I just won't be able to do it.
I can't afford to feel this way.
Another good potential opening line: "My only especially important life goal is to give more to the world than I take. Other life goals include owning a large, affectionate pound cat, dressing my boyfriend up as a musketeer when we go to ren faires, and living close enough to Nature rightly understood so that my kids (if I ever have any) will be able to walk there and think of it as a quiet, comforting older family member, the way I still do."
. . . . . entries for 22.2.11 . . . . .
Regarding the word "intellectual":
If you ran the experiment and ran the stats, the same heterosexual woman with and without the word "intellectual" attached to her as the very first word of all the words, who would stir more interest in some general sample of heterosexual men - no, let's say, some sample of men in whom she would express at least some interest, if she were to screen them? I know what my hypothesis would be. I know that my having hypotheses about you probably irks you. Welcome to one of my (many and diverse!) professional and personal predicaments, possibly for the rest of my life.
But anyway, I thought, you know, no one's perfect. Most Americans are implicitly racist against Black people; most American women exhibit "depressed entitlement" (or maybe men exhibit "inflated entitlement" really); I'm guessing most men have a few discouraged neurons light up when they read the word "intellectual" attached to a lady. If they read "nerd" or "dork" (something with a self-deprecating and playful tinge like that, you know) I'd imagine those same men probably wouldn't have that reaction. That is because, honestly, I think most people, even explicitly feminist people, are probably implicitly sexist. (Maybe except for when they're in an extremely explicitly feminist context - there's a little research on that.)
Sometimes "benevolently" sexist, in the case of, say, anything apparently chivalrous. Women are supposed to be a little meek, a little more gentle, a little more charitable. Women can like ideas, that's quite all right, so long as they don't go parading around with their minds drawn like swords, symbols of pride and utter self-reliance. So long as they soften it, blunt it, apply it mostly to frivolous things.
It's awful, but again, I'd bet that most people (not just men) think that - although many, if not most, would never admit it, possibly not even to themselves.
One of those archetypal feminine traits involves being helpful in forgiving and dulling the brasher aspects of masculinity. I'm reminded of a friend's formulation of Islam and orthodox Judaism's rules about the separation of men and women, women covering their hair, and so on. Men are stupid jerks, he said. Or, as an addendum, if a woman were kneeling to pray in front of him, his mind would be a few light years away from God. It's not that women are inferior. They just need to help men out. Help them be better. Be forgiving, be understanding of the fact that they just can't control themselves. Compromise a little.
In this conversation: forgive a man for being a little afraid of a woman who will challenge him, who is not disposed to help him restrain himself by exhibiting gentle, modest restraint, who perhaps reads, who does not need him but wants him, and who wants him to be self-possessed and genuinely, purely egalitarian and, himself, intellectual.
I guess there are some situations, or some spheres of life, in which a lady shouldn't have to compromise. I respect that. I understand, now that I've mulled it over, the urge to cut out every man who would view "intellectual" as too great a hurdle to jump over, or for whom "intellectual" would eclipse too much of a woman's actual personality. But I am just not much of an uncompromising person, and I am not so certain of what I want that I would latch onto one thing to want and say "this - nothing less."
The iron law of signal detection (or of ideal mate detection, in this case) is that you're pretty much going to fold a few times when you should've called and vice versa: there's going to be some error in your system unless you have the very rule that gets everything right. Is "intellectual" that rule? Will it eliminate all the ones you want eliminated and keep all the ones you might keep? I don't know. But it sure does seem as though you might lose a keeper that way, to me. I would rather have to forgive a guy for being a little awkward around a girl who outdoes him in coffee shop conversation than forgive myself for letting that guy, with whom I might have fallen in love, go.
So I'll say where I went to undergrad and laugh it off because this school contains about as many tools and aberrations of the admissions process as it does genuinely brilliant and goodhearted people destined for benevolent greatness, and I figure I'm really somewhere in between. I'll list my favorite authors but make sure Terry Pratchett is first (and he's first anyway). I'll be a nerd, I'll be a dork, I'll be brainy, I'll be bookish. By hook or by crook, everyone will get the idea. But hopefully without the shadows of elitism. Hopefully with emerging impressions, instead, of the humor and realism and self-doubt that I need to push my intellect along through this life; I don't want anyone to harbor illusions that it waltzes around everywhere on its own, knowing, asserting, debating, condescending, or anything else. It needs a little help.
And I thought of saying "but don't get me started on the word 'environmentalist'" but really, don't get me started on the word "environmentalist" - not as something that I would never give up to represent myself, but as something that is so deeply problematical to me, because it is so familiar, that I could never use it as the foremost representation of myself. That's another blog entry entirely.
Here's a good one. I am agnostic - about everything. I am changing. I am complicated. I am searching. I am uncertain. And if you are not that certain, shining person that an intellectual (or environmentalist, or feminist, or whatever) woman would dream of meeting, that is okay. I am no certain, shining person myself. I am just me. But it is exceptionally nice to meet you and I would love to get to know you better, just organically, without any imposing words attached at all.
. . . . . entries for 18.2.11 . . . . .
It's exceptionally beautiful here today, and the first and bravest buds are peeking from twigs and soil, and most girls seem to be wearing skirts or shorts and, for whatever reason, many of the men seem dressed for interviews. Maybe this is one of those Princeton weather witch days, and that explains it.
And this, too, shall pass - the pleasant weather, my presence on this campus, the surface-level pleasantness of many of the things it produces, investment bankers not the least of which. This place and all the places where its long arms reach are not sustainable. And we need something better than Ph.D. students trying to figure out how to figure people out enough to move them away from all these doomed places - something better and more and faster. Whatever that is, I'd like to be part of it, if possible. I hope I can find it in a hurry, but even my short-term goals are not living up to my own expectations these days: don't flip out so much you abandon your own thesis. Don't leave the things you care about in a shambles just because you can't find the energy to overcome your inertia and move (especially since you are happier moving anyway). Survive. The minimal goals of modern life that have replaced the minimal goals of a prior era: feed your family. Protect your people. Survive.
What I wouldn't give for a society that took those old goals back and made them first - but as "your people," or "your family," "all people, forever."
Thesis stuff makes me really really really anxious.
. . . . . entries for 17.2.11 . . . . .
First day of subjects: coulda been better, coulda been worse.
. . . . . entries for 16.2.11 . . . . .
I start running subjects today! And I swear I would have been better rested for it if it hadn't been for the fact that I have endearing e-friends. Hrgl brgl. E-friends are strange friends.
. . . . . entries for 14.2.11 . . . . .
"leapt, but not landed"
"always one foot on the ground"
"ich sehe, dass du denkst; ich denke, dass du fühlst; ich fülhe, dass du willst, aber ich hör dich nicht, ich -"
. . . . . entries for 12.2.11 . . . . .
No UMD for me.
"Now is not the time to shrink from the challenge of saving our only home in the universe. Now is not the time to pull into ourselves, retreating into either a survivalist or an escapist mode. To the contrary, this is the time for titans, not turtles. Now is the time to open our arms, expand our horizons, and dream big. Big problems require big solutions. World-historic problems require world-class leadership. To prevail, we will need tens of thousands of heroes at every level of human society." -Van Jones, The Green-Collar Economy
I thought my thesis wouldn't have an epigraph, but it is possible, just possible, that this may be its epigraph anyway.
. . . . . entries for 10.2.11 . . . . .
Gack. Well, looks like I'm not getting called back for TFP? Hrgl.
. . . . . entries for 7.2.11 . . . . .
Oh. And I'm supposed to get IRB approval today. So that's cool.
I was having some kind of ominous dream this morning when a series of VERY LOUD CRASHES or thuds or something woke me up. It seemed almost to have significance in the dream so it really freaked me out. Then I proceeded to have more dreams involving some kind of dystopian world in which each person possesses an apple and, when that apple is eaten, they die, among other really unsavory details involving I think some surveillance and murderous intentions and industrial-austere surroundings.
Anyway, not a good sleep for my mental health. Kelsey heard the crashes too though, so at least I didn't hallucinate them or something.
Interview in DC tomorrow, lots of Stuff I Should Have Done Over the Weekend to address today. Pretty normal beginning of the semester, I suppose. Except we went on an awesome cocoa crawl yesterday. That was quite exceptional. (Note to those interested: Lindt won out in our book for best everyday sort of cocoa - plus they melt truffles in steamed milk, and really, what could be cooler?)
. . . . . entries for 1.2.11 . . . . .
IRB feedback: frustrating progress is still progress?
Also, first day of liberation ecology class = so cool. More details when it isn't past 2 AM, maybe.
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:.
April 2002
May 2002
June 2002
July 2002
August 2002
September 2002
October 2002
November 2002
December 2002
January 2003
February 2003
March 2003
April 2003
May 2003
June 2003
July 2003
August 2003
September 2003
October 2003
November 2003
December 2003
January 2004
February 2004
March 2004
April 2004
May 2004
June 2004
July 2004
August 2004
September 2004
October 2004
November 2004
December 2004
January 2005
February 2005
March 2005
April 2005
May 2005
June 2005
July 2005
August 2005
September 2005
October 2005
November 2005
December 2005
January 2006
February 2006
March 2006
April 2006
May 2006
June 2006
July 2006
August 2006
September 2006
October 2006
November 2006
December 2006
January 2007
February 2007
March 2007
April 2007
May 2007
June 2007
July 2007
August 2007
September 2007
October 2007
November 2007
December 2007
January 2008
February 2008
March 2008
April 2008
May 2008
June 2008
July 2008
August 2008
September 2008
October 2008
November 2008
December 2008
January 2009
February 2009
March 2009
April 2009
May 2009
June 2009
July 2009
August 2009
September 2009
October 2009
November 2009
December 2009
January 2010
February 2010
March 2010
April 2010
May 2010
June 2010
July 2010
August 2010
September 2010
October 2010
November 2010
December 2010
January 2011
February 2011
March 2011
April 2011
May 2011
June 2011
July 2011
August 2011
November 2011
January 2012
February 2012
March 2012
June 2012
April 2013
May 2013
June 2013
.:skin:.
turtles! turtles! by araglas
(heavily modified by yours truly)