Friday, October 29, 2010

I'm SORRY. Gosh.

I now understand why the only good blogs are run by professional bloggers: it is because it is IMPOSSIBLE to have a life interesting enough to blog about, while also living one's real, boring life and then finding the time to separate the two and distill down into an entry, all on a regular basis and with pictures and other media. So I'm SORRY, but it's HARD.

Part of the problem recently is that the "Holy-Jesus-I-need-to-find-three-separate-paper-topics-in-the-next-week-and-a-half-while-also-finding-time-to-sleep-but-fuck-it-who-has-time-to-sleep" panic has set in. I have accumulated, squirrel-like, my own private library of sources, which I now have to read, comprehend and synthesize into three distinct arguments, all before next week. Unfortunately, I am still in the reading phase.

Word.

Still, things are becoming slightly more clear, and I get to focus on my favorite harpings: the state, natural law, power and oppression, with a little soupçon of religiosity and the wilderness thrown in for good measure. If my papers were a person, they would look like this:


Which may be the reason they've been a bit hard to pin down.

The upshot is that I haven't been doing much, other than reading and thinking about the state of nature, and...am I right in assuming no one much wants to hear about that? I think I'm right. SCREW YOU GUYS, I'M RIGHT.

Erm, sorry. I guess what I'm hoping is that you will stick with me until the panic subsides and I decide I can leave my room and have fun again. This will be soon, I promise! If for no other reason than that if I don't I will completely and irreversibly lose my mind. And move to the forest with the personification of my tragically unfinished and madness-inducing papers. I shall name him Chuck, and we will be happy together, living off of the fruit of the Tree of Ignorance.

Sunday, October 24, 2010

A good day

One of the problems with keeping a blog is that I have to do things worth writing about. This is troublesome because my life consists of reading, reading and more reading, with the occasional perusal or gloss thrown in. And as much fun as it is to read about people reading...it's not fun at all.

When I woke up this morning, I realized that it had been fifty hours since I last left my building. Fifty. Um, that is like one jeweled turban away from Gray Gardens.


So I decided to take a few hours, leave my reading behind (which wasn't that difficult, since I'm supposed to be reading his royal detestedness, Alexander Pope) and--gasp!--leave my room.

It was great! I love the wider world! I had the girliest, swirliest afternoon, full of lollipops and unicorns.

Ahem. Sorry.

First I went to a store called "I Love Candy". Yup. And boy, do they ever. This place was great, all pink and white and sugary smelling and probably a little sticky everywhere, but I kept my gloves on so that I wouldn't get sticky and...I'm back to Gray Gardens again. Anyway, good times. I didn't buy anything because I'm po', but I thought a lot about what I would get if I could. And the girl behind the register was clearly thinking about what she would say to me if I stayed in her shop any longer without buying something, so I left.

Then I went and tried on fancy dresses. Everyone has their New Year's Eve stuff out, because apparently it's a big deal here, and all the dresses were so sparkly and sequiney, and full of ruffles and I...just lost my last male reader. Anyway, it's a good thing my friends and family are avowedly casual in everything they do, because if even the remotest hint of a fancy party had been available to me, I would have bought me a pretty, and my food budget really can't be slashed any closer to the bone (literally).

And then I went to Starbucks with my Lee family Starbucks card and ate a cookie and had a flat white. Are they making these in the States yet? They are ALL THE RAGE in Scotland, and they are DAMN good. Yay for sugar and caffeine!

And then I came home and was getting myself all grumped up to get back to my reading and make my stupid, nasty canned soup dinner, and JUST LOOK WHAT SHOWED UP ON MY DOORSTEP--


Pizza Hut! A spectacularly generous soul from home (who may or may not have been forced to listen to me complain about how terrible my life is for the last few weeks) ordered me dinner! Kind benefactor, your magnanimity will never be forgotten. Look what a real meal it made!

The sprouts are for my mother's sake.

So, all in all a great day. Doesn't get me any closer to not failing out of grad school but...one step at a time here, people.

Oh! I almost forgot. I need a Halloween costume and I would LOOOOOVE to take suggestions so that I don't have to put any thought into it myself. So, if there's something you've always wanted to be but were too afraid of social disapproval to do it...now's your chance to vicariously live the dream!

Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Meteorology

Sweet merciful Mary, it was cold today. I didn't realize this until I was well on my way to class, and had to just suck it up and hunker down inside my coat, but that gave me a charlie horse in my neck because apparently I'm a little bit tense these days, and so by the time I got to the classroom not only was I shivering violently, but my head was cocked at an alarming angle. Which may have weirded some people out.

Anyway, when I got home I looked up the temperature and it was 6°C. And that meant nothing to me, so I converted it and people, that is 41°F. Forty-one. With a "comfort level" (aka, wind chill factor, for those of us not living in lala-land) of 37°F.

But do you know how the web site described the forecast? "Sunny. A bit nippy."

SCOTLAND. It feels like 37° outside. THAT IS COLD. "Nippy" is when you go outside in a t-shirt in the morning in May to get the paper and you rub your arms a little bit on the way back inside. What we have here is not nippy. It is only five degrees above how you would feel if you were water and you were freezing. Just putting things into perspective.

But then, perspective may be lost on the Scots. Isn't there a scene in Braveheart where the English are torturing William Wallace and cut off his nuts and ask him how he feels now, thou Scottish vartlet, and he tells them, "Weel, it doo sting a wee bit, but nae as poor as swiving yer English lassies" or something like that?

Maybe I haven't actually seen Braveheart. But that is TOTALLY something a Scot would say.

Sunday, October 17, 2010

One more...

People...I am one page view away from ONE THOUSAND views!

That is all.

"And shite on the bastards below!"

So, this could get long.

Got back last night from the city of Inverness, the "seat of the Highlands," where the flatmate and I decided to do a mini-break. We had one goal: to see Loch Ness. Goal accomplished!

We left at 6:30 Thursday morning, wending our way by train through the Scottish countryside. I was supposed to be reading Pamela, which is about protecting one's feminine virtue at the cost of ever having any fun, EVER, and since my only knowledge of the Highlands comes from Outlander, I had a hard time concentrating on my work. It took most of my energy to keep from hurling Pamela across the train and screaming, "To hell with ye and ye're right gittish virtue, ye English bink!" But I forbore.

Once in Inverness, the flatmate and I wandered around, walking along the river and exploring the various shops. We checked into our hostel and walked around some more. And then some more. And then more. And then we realized that Inverness doesn't really have a whole lot going on. Then we went to the pub.

The next day was Loch Ness day! That, my friends, is a beautiful body of water. No Nessie sightings, but I did see a grouse! We also explored Urquhart Castle, which is right in the middle of the loch. The water is incredibly dark, because of the peat I think, and it was really amazing the way the hills ran down into this deep, black basin. And we went to the gift shop; not going to lie, I loves me a gift shop. I almost bought a whistle shaped like a haggis, but I realized that a. it cost a week's worth of groceries and b. no one likes being whistled at.

That night we went out with some people from the hostel for a couple ginger beers (with lime slices...yum!) and ended up at a live music place called "Hootenanny." And boy howdy, was it. You haven't lived until you've watched a crowd of drunken Scots line-dancing to an accordion and fiddle version of Greenday's "Time of Your Life." LOVE.

Not so much in the eventfulness court until the following evening, when we boarded the train back to Inverness. The train pulled out of the station and, before we knew what was happening, we were SURROUNDED by the drunkest, loudest group of football fans...all men, and all singing fight songs about how much they hated the town of Dundee. Which hadn't played in the match. They were some good songs, though. This one is my favorite. Anyway, I don't think I can describe the din they produced in the train car; the conductor made one token effort to shut them up, then decided to offer seats in first class to anyone who didn't want to listen to this for three hours. We decided to stay, for the cultural experience, and each of the lads was apologetic in turn for his countrymen.

And so now I'm back, back to school, back to the grind, back to f--ing Pamela. Which, really, would have made it a much more interesting book.


Trip views below!

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

L'anniversaire

Today is my one-month anniversary in Scotland! I realized it last night while desperately avoiding finishing Robinson Crusoe, and this seemed like a momentous feat. To celebrate, I decided, I would make a Scottish meal.

Because I don't really know anything about Scotland other than the most blatant stereotypes, that's what I went with. I trundled over to the grocery this morning and picked up a haggis. I had a choice between MacSween's brand, for £2,87 or MacKilney's, for 99p. I think haggis may be one of those things where the price is actually an indication of the quality. Like a diamond. I went with MacSween's.

I also picked up some IrnBru, which is the national (non-alcoholic) drink. It's ostensibly orange soda, but they must only be referring to the color, because it tastes like tutti-frutti bubblegum.

Then the flatmate and I made tatties (potatoes), eggs, mushrooms and tomatoes, Well, she made those things. I made the haggis. Want to know how you make a haggis? The important thing to note, and which is noted IN LARGE BOLD FONT ALL OVER THE WRAPPER is that the haggis is actually already cooked and you just have to heat it. So I boiled my haggis. On the hob. It kinda looked like a bomb.

And, finally, dinner was served:




Happy one-month anniversary, Scotland, and I'll raise my tutti-frutti glass in a toast for many happy days to come.

Sunday, October 10, 2010

Casperella

This weekend was all about food. Literally. Following my consumerist debacle on Friday, I haven't left my room except to eat at others' expense. Incidentally, the title of this post comes by way of an Irish lass I've met here..."Casperella" is what she's named her phantom food baby. It seemed appropriate.


Friday morning actually began with my first full British breakfast. The flatmate and I went to Jenner's, a department store on Princes Street, to partake. I love Jenner's. It is chockablock with old ladies.

The doormen wear kilts.
 
So about breakfast...the Scots, they likes their meat. You know how in diners in the States, menus list "Bacon, sausage, ham, steak" and you're supposed to choose one to have with your meal? Well, here the list is "Bacon, sausage, cumberland sausage, black pudding" and you don't choose. Also, full breakfast typically includes half a tomato and one dessicated mushroom cap. I have no idea why. Still, it was pretty damn good.

Black pudding = better than it looks

Then Friday night, ye olde Friendshipe Friday, was hosted by the group's resident Canadian, and she made a full traditional spread in honor of Canadian Thanksgiving. I was never able to get a clear understanding of what Canadian Thanksgiving is supposed to commemorate, since it certainly isn't Puritan/Indian relations (we own that shit, yo). Harvest, maybe?

Whatever, it was DELICIOUS. She couldn't find a turkey so she made three chickens, and then we also had mashed potatoes (which apparently contained milk, butter and cream cheese, making them without a doubt the best mashed tatties I've ever had), gravy, stuffing with chorizo and mushrooms, parmesan greenbean casserole, cranberry sauce and rhubarb pie (the pie was supposed to come with cointreau whipped cream, but apparently the liquor caused the cream to curdle, so basically we had alcoholic buttered pie. This is in no way meant as a derogatory statement). And since everyone who attended brought a bottle of wine and the evening's entertainment consisted of popular Canadian bands ranging from Celine Dion to Avril Lavigne, a good time was had by all.

Nom.

Of course, the pressure is ON for American Thanksgiving to kick Canadian Thanksgiving's ass in a month. Given that it's America and Canada, this should not be difficult. Up high!

Saturday was another flat dinner and my Palestinian flatmate's turn to cook. She made some type of meatball and vegetable dish, a great salad, and dolmas. Then we had cake, because it was my other flatmate's birthday. Then more people came over and we had more cake and jello shots. Then...I don't really remember what happened after that.

First course

Second course

Third course...floor.
And I spent the entire day on Sunday in my room, reading for class. Well, "reading." Well, thinking about reading. Or...napping. Still, I may have come up with an idea for a paper and/or dissertation! I'm sure I'll be subjecting you all to it shortly, but for now I'm keeping it all wrapped up inside. Get excited!

Friday, October 8, 2010

Whoops

So...I accidentally spent £60 at H&M today.

I'm having a hard time justifying this, so if anyone wants to leave me a comment about why I am not the silliest person alive, I would appreciate it!

Thursday, October 7, 2010

Real brilliance (versus what can be found in tumor-inducing air fresheners)

Wow. Wowowowowowowow. I got my mind abso-freaking-lutely blown today. By book-larnin', no less! One of my classes is (broadly) about the representation of Enlightenment ideals in contemporary literature. For next week's class, we are supposed to read Robinson Crusoe (snore)...but ALSO Horkheimer and Adorno's COMPLETE AND TOTAL REPUDIATION of those Enlightenment ideals, in their "Concept of Enlightenment." Apparently they wrote this in the midst of German fascism, so they're not exactly disinterested. BUT THAT'S COMPLETELY THE POINT, ENLIGHTENMENT THINKERS.

Ahem. I'll stop shouting.

I can't sum up just how amazingly productive this reading was for me, or how frustrating. But let me just say that I may have finally broken through my fear of theory (feory?), as well as come to a better understanding of the argument that destruction is a form of creation. This is HUGE for anarchist theory, and the part of linguistic theory that most terrified me. The idea is that once you begin to understand something, to know it, you've already begun UNknowing it, because you've filtered the essence of the thing through your interpretation (specifically using names and language), thus changing it. So once you understand that green thing outside your window as a tree, it's not a "tree" anymore. From my natural viewpoint, this leads inexorably to nihilism and death.

But you can also consider that in this inevitable unknowability of the thing is the possibility that it can be anything, so that your creative options are limitless, especially within a world in which nothing can be definitively known.

There's also Horkheimer and Adorno's discussion that the first and most important tenet of the Enlightenment was the admonishment to know yourself, so that you are destroyed as soon as you become self-aware. Terrifying, right? But there's always the option to un-know yourself, if only you can break free from a society that has drunk the Kool-Aid saying that the unknown is terrifying, instead of empowering...the (insidious) legacy of the Enlightenment.

And that same legacy that keeps you from considering the creative possibilities that exist because you don't know them yet, also keeps society enslaved. So in a larger sense, our human need to know, in order to quell the fear that not knowing means not existing, has enslaved us to the very things that we purport to control through knowledge. And so if you take steps to destroy what you know--*cough*government*cough*--the creative possibilities are endless. THIS is a system that rewards experimentation, instead of enforcing stagnation, because it permits and EXPECTS that the second something is created, it begins to be undone.

Guuuggggggggggg. That was the sound of my brain liquefying and running out of my nose onto the paper and forming a heart.

Also crashed a lecture in the law school about "Compassion and Public Reason." Fruitful, for discussion of political versus social spheres, the juxtaposition (or incapatibility) of freedom and necessity, the idea of compassion as a collapsing of rational space and, most especially, the idea that those with freedom can speak for those with unfulfilled necessities (but that maybe they shouldn't).

If you've made it this far in the post, thanks for putting up with me. I know that I am the only one who finds these types of entries interesting, and part of me feels bad for posting them...but it's also my goddamned blog and I'll write what I want. Humph. But I promise, more widely interesting entries to come.

And, because you've made it to the end...enjoy.

Tuesday, October 5, 2010

Also, my Chinese flatmates think I look like Julia Roberts. Just saying.

People, I have been on FIRE the last couple days. In my morning class yesterday, the professor said that my comments had really gotten to the crux of the matter...not once, but like three times. THREE cruxes! And this is the professor I insulted, no less (fyi, that turned out okay, but I am really tired of bringing out my apologetic email template).

Then, in my afternoon class, I was commended for having "quite eloquently" expressed reservations about interdisciplinary study. SHA-ZAM. Later, the professor was making a point and asked who had mentioned "political correctness" in their reading response, because it really got to the--wait for it--crux of the debate. AND THAT WAS ME AGAIN. But I didn't say anything, because a lot of the people in that class were also in my morning one, and I didn't want them to hate me because I'm beautiful (in the mind). Not too much.

But people, here is the thing. It's not me. I think there is a chemical reason for my sudden academic domination, a sort of intellectual PCP that I've discovered, and it is manufactured by AirWick.

Before you ask--I am not huffing. Jeez.

So my room smells really, really weird. It's not me, it smelled this way when I got here. I think it might be the paint. A few days ago, I bought a gel air freshener in an effort to cover up what I couldn't eradicate (and my mother thinks she never taught me how to manage a household). It is supposed to smell like mulled wine, but I think it would be better if the packaging listed the scent as "NOT mulled wine" because really, that's the only thing I'm sure it doesn't smell like.


Anyway.

This ish is STRONG. My entire room now smells like not mulled wine. But more than that, I think the gel molecules are beginning to fuse with my brain cells, resulting in some kind of mutant genius.

BUT I THINK WE ALL KNOW HOW THIS ENDS:

Monday, October 4, 2010

Existential crisis

Well, that title might be a little overdramatic. Here's what's happened.

Over the summer, in a quest for program funding, I wrote an essay for a competition run by The Independent Institute. The essay prompt used a quote from a 17th century Austrian economist and theorist named Frederic Bastiat, claiming that "everyone wants to live at the expense of the state; what they forget is that the state wants to live at the expense of everyone." The idea was to accept Bastiat's statement as fact, and propose ways to convince people to remember that the state was living at their expense.

I found out a few days ago that I received honorable mention for my work, which, while not carrying any monetary reward, carries a special importance. As I was reading Bastiat, and learning more about The Independent Institute, I came to realize just how biased this competition and the organization were towards conservative, thinly-veiled libertarian ideals. Considering that I wrote an essay using Bastiat to justify a socialist anarchist society based on a sense of mutual responsibility, I either pulled off a major ideological coupe, or I was misunderstood. I tend to believe it was the latter.

But my difficulty comes with the knowledge that I was the first to misunderstand. Out of ignorance to Bastiat's larger context in his own time, and to his growing influence among radical conservatives in the United States (apparently he's a frequent guest at tea parties), I read and used Bastiat to justify my own political thinking. This was acceptable in the context of the essay competition, which asked its writers what they thought needed to be done. But it is not acceptable in the wider academic world.

My classes have been discussing responsible scholarship, and the need for historians to understand and adequately account for the social/political/economic/universal context of the works and events that they aim to study. My peers have been very enthusiastic about this kind of hyper-awareness, but after my experience this summer, I have some doubts as to whether I am capable of that kind of juggling act--or if I even want to engage in it. Maybe I've finally gone and become too obsessed with dead white men for my own good, but I seem to long for the days of Whig history, when scholars spouted off what they believed, and the past could either justify it or go hang. Petulantly, I have a difficult time understanding how that could be such a bad thing, as long as we're all aware that it's happening (the main problem of "Whig history" seeming to be that no one knew they were writing it). I can handle that kind of scholarly introspection, admitting that I have a personal bias and that the bias has probably influenced my handling of the historical evidence more than might otherwise be appropriate. It's this other, hyper-moral kind of scholarship that seems so bloodless--and so impossible to carry out.

Like I said, I think it's either a little early or a little late to be having a crisis of faith in my (ostensibly) chosen professional. Bu maybe I also need to consider that what I value in thinking and scholarship does not hold a place in the current understanding of the field. Maybe I need to go into politics.

Saturday, October 2, 2010

Flora

For lack of anything better to do, I went to find the river Leith today. I figured, if I just kept heading downhill, I was bound to run smack into it...I don't need your stinkin' guidebooks! But as it turns out, rivers are shy and elusive creatures, apt to hide when they hear you clomping along toward their delicate banks. So I didn't ever find it.

I did, however, find the Royal Botanical Gardens. And once there, I found that I was starving, and that I had no money, and they had no ATM. So I did a quick tour of the gardens (beautiful) and went to find food (miraculous).



Then I did my grocery shopping. This may be the first trip I've made where I haven't brought home anything bacon flavored. I think it means that I'm growing as a person. And now, as shameful as it feels, I am going to take a nap. Mmm, the afternoon nap...God's gift to the professional student.

Friday, October 1, 2010

Packagey-wackegy

My family is better than yours. There, I've said it, the tension can now be disbursed.

I got a package today from my Eugene family. I say that it's from all of them, and I'm sure their well-wishes and positive energy went into the box, but from the second I opened it, I knew it was really from my grandmother. Actually, I think I may have received the physical avatar of her personality and thought process. My grandmother sent me herself (not that it's listed that way on the customs form).

Voila my grammy:



And how does one itemize a grandmother? As follows:
- one travel towel
- one pair long underwear
- one handmade mug
- a french press (!!)
- one pound Starbucks coffee (THANK YOU; I knew all along I was kidding myself about the instant being acceptable)
- one package M&Ms
- two granola bars
- assorted first aid kit supplies (including some things that seem to have been stolen from a hospital circa 1987?)
- handfuls of Starbursts
- one bag almonds
- one very sharp knife (in case I get stuck under a pile of books and need to chop my own arm off?)
- cough drops
- chocolate drops
- chicken buillon cubes (?)
- one package chopsticks (??)
- mint tea

I cannot believe she managed to fit everything, which in itself is the biggest sign that this package is my grandmother in mailable form (well, that and the stolen first aid supplies). Thank you, thank you to my family!


On a separate note, it just started POURING, but the sun was still out, and so I stuck my head out the window and just LOOK what I found!



And then a policeman walked by and told me to "poot thae top hae' of ye baac innit," which I think meant not to lean so far out the window, so I stopped. But wasn't that a bonny wee rainbow?

Tonight is "Friendship Friday" among the people I've met here. The name emphasizes friendship, which is great, but I think that's only because there's no word for "alcohol" that starts with an F. Tonight's subtheme is sangria, care of our resident Spaniard, and I can drink again (finally), so I'm looking forward to it. And maybe I'll be able to drunk-blog again! I've missed that...