Sunday night potpourri
Dear readers, I haven't abandoned you; not really.
It went a little like this: GRE, frenzied housecleaning; arrival of parents; back at work after ten days away; rushing to finish work projects and dig through 1500 emails across three different computer systems. That simply hasn't left much time for blogging.
Added to which, I've just been a little down and a little restless lately. I blame, in part, the time change and extra darkness and the weak winter sun. Partly, it's grad school apps, and wrestling with questions such as: should I really apply to UCSB, as K has been pushing, merely because it's the most viable program closest to LA? (decision: nope) Should I take up my professor friend on his generous offer to push my application into the admit pile in a program I wasn't otherwise considering? (decision: nope) What do I do if my hoped-for reference writers continue to ignore my emails? (unresolved, but as K points out: it hasn't been that long)
Plus, my Statement of Purpose has been provoking unwanted introspection. I've reached the point where I can write a half-dozen disparate life narratives, each faithful to the facts and yet each radically different from the next. Whither truth? The recent burst of work-activity isn't helping in this regard, either. There's nothing that can quite prompt "how did I get here?"-type thoughts like finding oneself knee-deep in editing the sixty-page human rights report for Tonga.
It's no surprise, then, that through all the static the sweetest sound is the siren song of adventure. Thank god that a more practical self sneakily bound me to the mast with attachments and responsibilities: K, the cats, and way too much cheap Asian furniture which is now dinged and cracked but which I can't bring myself to discard. Grad school is a reasonable adventure. Working on a freighter in the South Pacific disguised as a boy is not. Intellectually, I know this. I know that I should be getting my kicks by planning a spring bike trip through Quebec, and not by verrrry carefully reading over the "call for volunteers" cable for Cotonou (and not telling K about it). I understand that it's warm and sunny there. Also, that Benin is the birthplace of voodoo, which is kind of neat.
A normal person, I know, would take the above input and say to themselves "I need a vacation." But (a) I just had one, and (b) that isn't quite it. I've never had an exotic vacation that wasn't, on some level, like watching TV. The interesting stuff only happens when you get beyond the "I'm just visiting" mindset. Followed shortly thereafter, of course, by the equally irresistible impulse of "I want to nest."
Arrrgh. I need two lives.
It went a little like this: GRE, frenzied housecleaning; arrival of parents; back at work after ten days away; rushing to finish work projects and dig through 1500 emails across three different computer systems. That simply hasn't left much time for blogging.
Added to which, I've just been a little down and a little restless lately. I blame, in part, the time change and extra darkness and the weak winter sun. Partly, it's grad school apps, and wrestling with questions such as: should I really apply to UCSB, as K has been pushing, merely because it's the most viable program closest to LA? (decision: nope) Should I take up my professor friend on his generous offer to push my application into the admit pile in a program I wasn't otherwise considering? (decision: nope) What do I do if my hoped-for reference writers continue to ignore my emails? (unresolved, but as K points out: it hasn't been that long)
Plus, my Statement of Purpose has been provoking unwanted introspection. I've reached the point where I can write a half-dozen disparate life narratives, each faithful to the facts and yet each radically different from the next. Whither truth? The recent burst of work-activity isn't helping in this regard, either. There's nothing that can quite prompt "how did I get here?"-type thoughts like finding oneself knee-deep in editing the sixty-page human rights report for Tonga.
It's no surprise, then, that through all the static the sweetest sound is the siren song of adventure. Thank god that a more practical self sneakily bound me to the mast with attachments and responsibilities: K, the cats, and way too much cheap Asian furniture which is now dinged and cracked but which I can't bring myself to discard. Grad school is a reasonable adventure. Working on a freighter in the South Pacific disguised as a boy is not. Intellectually, I know this. I know that I should be getting my kicks by planning a spring bike trip through Quebec, and not by verrrry carefully reading over the "call for volunteers" cable for Cotonou (and not telling K about it). I understand that it's warm and sunny there. Also, that Benin is the birthplace of voodoo, which is kind of neat.
A normal person, I know, would take the above input and say to themselves "I need a vacation." But (a) I just had one, and (b) that isn't quite it. I've never had an exotic vacation that wasn't, on some level, like watching TV. The interesting stuff only happens when you get beyond the "I'm just visiting" mindset. Followed shortly thereafter, of course, by the equally irresistible impulse of "I want to nest."
Arrrgh. I need two lives.
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