Golden Temple room.

Tonight was nice.

Kristin, who is back, and I decided to go to Grand Rapids and buy things from an Indian grocery store we'd Googled. We both have connections to the food now, given that I was just in India and she (to be brief) is engaged to a Pakistani.

After the soul-crushing (that's the second use of that term in two consecutive posts--coincidence?) and endless parade of expansive chain stores that is 28th Street, we turned onto Division, drove a mile or so, and ended up outside the address of a small and generally unremarkable little Indian market. Outside, a bored, preteenish brown boy and his younger brother were playing on a snow mound. "You can use that door," the boy kindly pointed out, gesturing at the discreet back door. As we walked inside, a turbaned and aproned man behind the counter looked at us skeptically before coming forward.

"You're from Punjab?" I asked.

He brightened immediately. "How did you know?"

"I just came back from six months in India. I was in Punjab for a short while. Amritsar--"

"Amritsar!" He looked overjoyed.

"I really liked the Golden Temple."

At this, he became very passionate. "The Golden Temple--" (pause), "--is the best place in all the world."

The next 10 or 15 minutes we were there were a little emotionally compacted, with strangely complex-feeling cultural truths and sentiments clawing at me. I feel like I've become trained in --1) the true chasm of cultural differences --2) the meaning of home --3) understanding what it means to be who I am where I am. In this little grocery, we silently shared our reflections of India, and his appreciation that I knew something of his home was apparent in his quick and persistent change of attitude. He put on Bollywood music. He showed us different products he was especially proud to carry. He asked questions. After we paid at the counter, he produced two apparently illegally burned soundtracks from behind the counter and placed them in our hands. "For free?" I asked. He nodded--"Some good, some not so good."

It was a tiny taste of India again, in the little shop. Touching interactions and hospitable behavior, the kind of communication that makes you want to seal it up immediately and walk out, for fear something (a realization you're being cheated, as happens on occasion) will break the unexpected intimacy of the moment.

I got home and placed my red dal and powdered coconut milk on the counter for tomorrow. In the living room with the tree, I started a Nick Hornby book about reading books I bought today (post-Hesse, light and funny is the prescription of the moment). I poured a glass of red wine that, well into 9PM and without dinner, rushed into my bloodstream quickly and gave me that feeling of vague and easygoing warmth. I put out 100 pages and felt good about it, and followed it with a bowl of French onion soup (made with vegetable broth, even).

Yes, it was enough for today.

big jumps

It's been snowing all night and it looks pretty outside, dark and white and frosty.

I lack the patience to write much of anything really, I just promised A. I'd post. Maybe this takes a long time to become natural again.

I turned 21 a couple days ago. I have literally no friends here, and with the addition of a family Christmas party, it was shaping up to be a pretty depressing day. My extended family on my dad's side are a bunch of strangers. They enjoy and feel comfortable in this town; I find it soul-crushing. I am pretty sure I know how I appear to them: the antisocial and stuck-up, hyperserious city liberal. They communicate. I sit down and pull out a book. I know it looks bad, but as my mother has said, "You can't make a family close if it isn't close." We don't get each other and that's okay.

Anyway, luckily Marla extended a hand and I ended up in a bar in East Lansing with her and her friends and consumed throughout the course of the short night two gin and tonics, one delicious beer, and one amaretto sour. With the jetlag (still!), I was pretty much falling asleep by 12:30am, and I crashed on her couch with a very antsy cat and was up at 7:30am the next morning and reading. This sleep schedule is not very good for the nightlife.

My birthday could have sucked but it didn't. I guess it depends on what you do with yourself.

One of my goals for next year (always wait for the completely arbitrary date of January 1st!) is to become far more assertive than I already am. Assertive enough to do the things I want to do--get to know the people I want to know, go the places I want to go, and be involved the way I want to be involved. If you're curious about the person you sit next to in class, ask that person to coffee. If your birthday appears destined to suck, step in and make it not suck.

Just... be involved in your life. Don't wait to be pushed. Push yourself.

I say this wishing I'd been a lot more productive today. Ah well. Looking out the window, the snow is burying today.

achin'

Debilitating headaches. Always. Since last year. In this town. The headaches. Pounding right through two Aleves. And three Ibuprofens. Can't even think. Past tiny phrase sentences.

Good news:

1. Today I got my driver's license renewed as the letter that came in the mail instructed. Very short process involving my height, weight, corrective lenses requirement, signature and two photos--the second looking exactly like the first, not horrible, but I guess I just always have a tilted smile.

2. Bought vegetarian food. This concept (food not involving meat) eludes my father, who approached me a few days ago looking confused and said, "You're going to have to help with this whole vegetarian cooking thing." The first day home, his attempt to adapt to my diet resulted in fried fish, which, of course, doesn't exactly fit. But having given over my refusal to eat seafood on the Indian coasts (the breaking of the seafood rule being an interesting story for later), I bent one more time and ate the perch, because my family had tried, and it was already cooked. The next day I gently explained that fish was meat.

3. Bought a Teach Yourself German book. I've been vaguely wanting to start German for a while now (chalk it up to ancestor sentimentality), and now I've got a resource. Hallo!

4. Got a new keyboard installed. One with a functioning 'a' key.

5. Got work for tomorrow: 8am-3pm, back in the one place I like in this town, brewing coffee and baking muffins and making money and making time go away.

begin again

Hello, blog. And whoever might be reading this. And self.

Today is the day I continue my blog. Blog blog blog, blog. At this point the word seems kind of silly to me, and the idea seems kind of silly to me. The way I've been thinking about it lately, it seems self-absorbed in a way that's funny... like those people who take lots of pictures of themselves, and then post the albums online. But I think, more important than looking embarrassingly self-absorbed is the value of having my life recorded before I forget it. And strangely, perhaps, I have trouble keeping a journalesque documentation that is private and purely for myself. I'm not sure quite how to address myself. I address myself with thoughts. To put that into writing, for myself, just seems redundant. I need to at least feel that I'm explaining things to some form of audience. Hence: blog. All the better if people have a response.

Anyway, if there is a value to something, it's stupid to think about appearing vain. Or appearing much else. Because really, who the hell cares?

So. If you didn't catch on, I just spent six months in India. I tried to keep a record, but lack of time coupled with a lack of internet--further crippled by general weariness at the idea of even beginning to capture the enormity of everythingness, from experience to perspective-shifting--meant I didn't write much. I kind of regret that, but I can't think of much time I wasted, so I don't regret it too much. India's already got a strong grip on how I'm seeing everything now, so I'm sure it'll be bleeding into what I write for a while.

Jetlag is still very much a reality for me now, and I'm working it to my benefit--I'm going in to the coffee shop tomorrow morning to help open at 5AM. 'Cause that's when I'm up. Also means that now--at 8:15PM--I'm exhausted and ready for bed. I don't know how long it'll last, but I'm not forcing any changes. I'm lady zen, at ease with the ebb of the universe.

Until tomorrow.

why?

Bad news.

that hindustani thing

From now on I'll be here: www.pinkcityaurat.wordpress.com.

Not dead, not numb, not withering, or, I Need Your Brilliance

I fell into something of an emotional pit a couple weeks ago, but I think I've managed to crawl out. After getting Quite Happy on wine yet again at the Point on Saturday night--(I'm not, by the way, as much of a raging drunk as I realize it must seem like I am on this thing. It's just that good stories and a tendency toward wanting to write both blossom from the bottle. I'd say I usually enjoy the drink maybe twice a month [that said, I have a lot of friends with spring birthdays and a fondness for campfires])--I came home and did a little drunken investigation and review and, as vague as that sounds and shall necessarily remain, stumbled upon the usually obvious conclusion that a) I am where I should be, b) I am with the people I should be with, and c) nothing else would make as much sense.

Are you with me?

It's a nice finding. Or discovery. Or self-discovery. If I need to remind myself of these things again and again, so be it. When your life feels so static, and you all but live alone in your 3-person apartment, and you can't work up an interest in your homework, and it feels like no one's looking into your little life-window--there are dips. If I could make that sound less whiny and simply bored and exasperated, you'd get an idea.

And so I welcome India, which I leave for in a barely comprehensible ten days. That's within reach, but I've yet to really understand that. In ten days I'll stumble off a plane into a world of Devanagari. In ten days I'll be surrounded in fast-paced, incomprehensible Hindi. In ten days it'll be chai and rice and chutney. It'll be saris and auto-rickshaws and beggars and Muslims and Hindus and indigestion and sand and heat and elephants and camels and uncomfortable beds and no skin showing and sudden minority status and bottled water.

Really? In ten days? And in between now and then I've got to write three papers and take a Hindi final? And take a trip to Michigan and pay a visit to my grandfather in the nursing home? And come back again? And buy what I need, and pack for six months?

But it's all so perfectly timed, you see.

I want to write when I'm there, but I'm not sure about the accessibility of internet cafes. I've heard they're numerous and cheap, though. I'll see what I can do. Regardless of the blawg, I'll be recording every breath and piece of naan and monkey siting in my wonderful, beautiful journals. Which I have yet to buy, but soon.... the beautiful journals will abound.

NOW, here's where you, dear readers (I know there are at least ten of you, I counted), come to my aid. When meeting your host family, it is considered polite and decent behavior to bring a gift. Because I am quite obviously a polite and decent person, I need a gift. I have ten days to acquire said gift. Some facts: 1) I have no idea how many people are in my host family, and it could range from a young couple with 15 chil'n to an old couple to an old Panjabi woman who always cooks rice and burnt lentils and collects study abroad students (this last one being a real example from last year), HENCE, 2) I have no idea the AGES, SIZES, or PREFERENCES of my host family. It is likely, however, that they will be an older couple (extra rooms). Nevertheless,

I need a completely inoffensive, not sizest, not ageist gift. And I want it to represent the best of America. My mind clings to what I would consider to be the strikingly awesome power of music, but when I pitch the "OMG A MIX CD" idea to people, they tend to squirm and say, "How about a Sox cap?" ...and I submit that maybe the gift of music violates the whole "preferences" quotient of this exercise.

So help! Gimme some suggestions, before I have to withstand the lasting humiliation of sitting in an aged Indian woman's apartment kitchen, watching her furrow her brows to the sound of Laura Veirs.

Quit. Whining.

Dear Americans:

Poor you. With all of the myriad problems You have to worry about, like missing American Idol because You were sent to the grocery store, and not being able to purchase everything You want all of the time because of the generally dismal state of wages/inflation, certainly You don't need to deal with the agony of rising gas prices. Certainly that's just unfair and You deserve better.

(Now, ignoring the fact that gasoline already costs nearly twice as much in Europe--)

Listen: Petroleum is used for more than Your sports utility vehicle. It runs much larger, more communal forms of transportation (like trains and airplanes). It is used in plastic--just think of how much plastic there is in the world, and how quickly it gets turned to waste. Oil is necessary to ship items all over the world--currently, it is absolutely essential for capitalism and globalization and chain stores and animal production and general material usage.

And listen: There is enough oil left in the world to sustain about 30 years more use. The end of petroleum use is near. And with it, our current way of life. Nothing has been even marginally developed to replace oil, and if there is sufficient funding in research to develop an alternative, there is still going to be the chaos of transitioning the entire economic infrastructure to deal with the changes that will take place. The longer the oil crisis is ignored, the more chaotic it will be to radically change.

And listen: As capitalism spreads, and people rise from poverty--as has happened monumentally in recent years, especially in places like China and India--there is a greater demand on oil. People are not only able to afford cars and traveling prices, but they have more expendable income with which to consume. They can buy more products--which tend to be steeped in oil. Can you blame them?

And listen: If you have any belief at all in global warming... than there's that whole global warming thing.

Think. A greater demand. A finite and dwindling supply. Pitiful research into alternatives. Crippling issues that are global in scope.

Do you really deserve lower gas prices?

Really?

how this will end.

I finished reading "The Road" by Cormac McCarthy today, and found it profoundly moving. It's extraordinarily stark, but I've been in a sort of post apocalyptic mood lately, so it matched my outlook well.

I also thought of a scenario in my philosophy class (when we talking about something completely different, but still):

You have been given a chance to glimpse the meaning of the universe. Is there a God, or any other kind of discernible intelligent structure behind the world? Where does it end, or what is the meaning of its not ending? Is there any answer to the question Why? All of these will be answered. However, because the human brain is too puny and incapable of existing with this knowledge, you will die of shock almost immediately after accessing the information. Assuming you believe that death is final and you cease to exist in any fashion upon your decease, would you still want to know? Or would you prefer to live out your life ignorant of this knowledge? Is the moment of knowing worth it?

I feel like big questions.

I also wish I weren't feeling so lonely. I think maybe my evolutionary impulse as an affectionate and social animal is stifled.

(...At some point I began to find it reassuring to blame all of my impulses on evolution and biology. It feels much less mental that way. Lonely? It's because your prerogative is to go reproduce and populate the world.)

And on that note, doesn't it seem sort of bothersome that our biological imperatives are to a) reproduce and b) survive? It's like self-consciousness is this big red herring thrown into the mix to make everything a lot more interesting for the figure writing the story. What could be a better plot twist than making the creatures meant to reproduce and survive aware of the futility of reproduction and survival?

I think there's a bigger logic outside of our logic.
And I think self-consciousness will lead to the eventual demise of things and it will be IRONIC.
And I think I will probably never fall in love again.
And I think I won't be satisfied with any job I ever have.

Is it possible to feel like this and not be depressed? Because that's the case. I guess I'm just probing darkness.

re:

A wall exists. My place? Not scaling the wall.

your 97th tear.

I am on my sister's computer (while she mountain bikes 9ish miles, which I might possibly be doing if I'd stuck to my exercise regimen back at the Uni [before stuff to do with traveling hit me like.. something that would prevent me from continuing my exercise regimen] and also if I hadn't eaten Persian kuftah balls at the Dushanbe, which are tasty but made me feel less than physically adventurous). My mother is in the other room complaining about things like her teeth (sensitive) and her ankle (swollen). Not out loud, but in her head, I'm sure.

I had been reading a Sarah Vowell book, and I could be studying, but I mostly want to ponder--a bit more... then I'll ponder tonight--about My Place. In the lives of others. Generally I'm pretty good at determining that place, but it can be difficult. When you're feeling awful, to what degree is someone who was important in your life (but now is estranged) allowed to intervene? Is anyone welcome to offer their support? Is there a territory far above and more sacred than the romantic (and the problems associated with it) where you can continue to exist, sitting quietly and listening, or offering the fact that you care, if that could help anything? Basically: Can you offer support when, at one time, you might have been part of the cause of the need of support?

I'm deeply skeptical--not only of my ability to help, but also of my ability not to be detrimental. And I wouldn't be exploring this question if it didn't seem like an extreme situation.

But I'm not sure what can help a person. Bounding back in to someone's life to declare yourself ready to listen seems condescending. Who am I to assume that nobody exists to fulfill that role as it is?

But what if I can offer something? Like the image of myself extending a cup of tea in that person's direction, instead of something more resembling a pitchfork, or a wavering glass of gin--which it wouldn't take a lot to imagine, from that person's shoes. But who knows how believable it would be. In some cases, it's just better for people not to interact. It has been decided before--probably dozens of times--that this is one of those cases. Largely because of my own actions.

Is the best option here to calm myself down with a cup of tea and abstain from involving myself, having faith that a friend can find his way out of the darkness without me, or if he can't, that I would only be a burden?

I don't know. I also don't know which of us my refusing to say anything would benefit more. But I do know that my sister has three kinds of tea, and that's something I'm going to take advantage of, right now.

I got a you.

I feel good. Because:

a) I wrote a story. I WROTE A STORY. I haven't written anything creatively in approximately 50 billion years, so I feel productive. And despite the fact that it's rough and unedited, and needs a lot of work, and it might be kind of short, I think I feel pretty decent about it. Mostly I'm just reeling because I wrote something, which is sad, but also GOOD. I also have two other short stories in my head. Chillin'.

and

b) I'm going to Boulder from Thursday 'til Monday. Totally spontaneous. So even though I can't spend the summer there, I can go there again, and enjoy it before I leave.

warning: rant. modernity, and rant.

I've been horrible at taking naps, lately.

Not because I haven't been tired--I've been tired. More because I have a strange complex in which I procrastinate terribly, but feel so terrible about it that I can't even enjoy it. I have a whole list of things in my head that I need to do, but when I get close enough to actually doing them, I have little to no energy. It's a sort of expansive-feeling exhaustion that includes headaches and stress and guilt and depression.

But I can't take a nap to relieve my exhaustion. Because even when I set my alarm clock for a strict 20 minutes, I lay in bed and first wallow through the things I'm not doing but should be doing, and then I just stumble into some non-stop rapid thought territory, which is occasionally productive but mostly just ends with me deciding that styrofoam is evil and going to single-handedly kill the planet, or that we all exist in a context that's completely apart from reality, blah blah, blah. So I get up and waste more time.

Maybe it's what I eat. I haven't eaten particularly well, lately. But then of course I think about money, and how I just spent possibly into phantom dollars for a visa and shots and prescriptions and dinners and any other thing that I touch, or do, or breathe, or exist. So I'm unwilling to go to the grocery store for what I want to buy--spinach, carrots, potatoes, tomatoes. (That's where I stop because I don't really want to buy milk or bread [did you know lots of bread has high fructose corn syrup in it?!!] or cheese or anything in a box or anything in a can or anything containing any kind of corn or BLAH.)

Um.

So, I'm sort of stuck in a cycle. Of trying to make myself feel better so I can tackle the problems and errands and life-sucking that requires tackling, but not letting myself because then I'm not doing anything. A nap feels like the most unproductive, death-enhancing option in the whole entire universe. I'm just a big mess of guilt and anxiety and Bourgeois problems (the guilt feeds on that adjective) and lameness and non-productivity.

AND I NEED SPINACH.

the great american identity crisis.

Jaipur was bombed.

You might have seen the news about it, if you got to it before it was submerged under whatever the latest Britney Spears update is, or some Miley Cyrus crap (who the hell IS MC, even?) or the fact that Angelina Jolie is having twins, or the BREAKING news of the new TACO BELL DISCOUNT MENU (I'm not kidding, by the way; in the waiting room at the doctor's office I honestly saw the new menu emerge as a news story, in which somebody was actually interviewed--I very nearly asked for a glass of arsenic, right then and there).

I saw it because I was on Google News at the right time. As predicted, my mother emailed me a few hours later (I lost my phone) in a panic, wondering what the hell was going on, wasn't Jaipur safe? You said it was safe! You said you wouldn't be kidnapped and placed in a hijab!

I don't know how to feel about it. Bad, obviously. I read the news and felt immediately scandalized. I don't know anybody in Jaipur yet, and I can't claim any personal connection to the city, but I do feel a sort of relationship to it now, after applying to two programs there, and tentatively researching its history and culture and geography. And knowing I'll be living there very soon. So I feel angry, for the 63 people killed and the 200+ injured, who were buying vegetables at a market or praying at a temple. For how futile and harmful and morally degraded terrorism is.

It's weird--terrorism just seems like a cliché most of the time, living here. With Bush standing up at a podium every 20 minutes to tell us how terrorists want to kill our children, with every heavily made-up blonde news anchor asking us, in deadly serious tones, is the world safe for Americans? Most sane people are just sick of it at this point. With perfectly normal-seeming American citizens walking into malls and universities and opening fire, without any motive except personal angst, why be afraid of angry bearded Muslim extremists? Why not be just as afraid of your neighbor?

The thing is though, if you do think about it, if it feels relevant to you in any way, terrorism has the capacity to build up an extraordinary amount of anger. I understand that people are frustrated... that they feel like no one hears them. But killing perfectly innocent people will do nothing, absolutely nothing. It's a futile action that will do nothing but irk the government (not even enrage, I don't think--you have to go after important people for that), and cause innocent people suffering. So... I feel angry. That the people who resort to these methods don't value human life enough to consider whether what they will be getting in response is worth such destruction.

I also feel strange, being an American. I feel strange that the first thing my parents, or any adult, really, wants to know is, will you be safe? Apart from the fact that fearing Jaipur now would be like fearing New York City after 9/11--I really hate this worry. I hate it. Because this situation is not about me. Jaipur is not about my safety, and my safety isn't worth any more than the safety of the 63 people who died, in their own city. Going into that city and expecting my safety to be a priority to the people there, any more than their own safety, is ridiculous. Being American doesn't mean being special. So when I read about terrorists and bombs going off and people dying, I don't want my thought to be a sarcastic: And I'm going there in a month! What great timing!

Being an American, as is probably obvious, is not something I'm particularly proud of. I don't think it's anything to be proud of. Sure, I know plenty of Americans that I feel proud knowing, but it has almost nothing to do with this country. The U.S. is not a particularly progressive country. It isn't necessarily the most ethical country. And most of all, there is a pervasive sort of institutional jingoism that is entirely unparalleled. My mother, when she moved here from Germany, thought it was funny that the flag was printed on shirts and mugs and hung from every building and praised in every classroom. Why? she wondered. What's so special about us that we need to pat ourselves on the back every time get together? And that we need not know anything about the rest of the world?

For years I've been vaguely resentful of my country, but now, knowing I'm going to Jaipur, I feel even stranger. One of the terrorist groups claiming responsibility for the attacks cited India's alliance with America as one of the reasons behind the bombings. I certainly don't think India and America shouldn't be friendly toward each other, but at the same time, I don't think Americans have dealt with the Muslim populations of the Middle East and South Asia--historically or currently--with any degree of grace. I don't feel that I deserve respect as an American. As a person, yes, as an American, no.

But I'm both... how should I convey that?

btw

An actual phrase I used toward the end of my paper, when I wanted to die or cry or sleep:

"By creating a counter forum for discussion--perhaps a discourse on why individuals turn to fascism--the majority of society can help to paint the offensive party as ridiculous, and clip the feathers of fascism, all without limiting the rights of the individuals promoting the agenda."

It's so stupid and yet so delightful; I think I'll keep it.

sometimes leaving is a joyful sign.

Lately I've been feeling... intermittently grown up.

And not in the horrifying way I used to imagine when I was fifteen and hiding in my room with my CDs and angry at several people and the majority of society. The horror of being adult then translated to a sort of numbed acceptance of the way everything was, a bland assimilation into the routine. It included sitcoms, FOX News, embroidered pillows, Free Cell, family Christmas letters, and, eventually, pink sweatshirts with kittens on the front.

I am understanding--slowly--that you can't necessarily peg people into a way of life based on these things, and therefore that you don't necessarily need to avoid them at all costs. What I was reacting to at the time wasn't embroidered pillows, but rather the frequent meaninglessness or tamed nature of the embroidered pillow. The way adulthood seemed to imply the need to delete the interestingness of the life you have for the commonness of the life that is ordained. I imagined eventually trading in an immensely cool foreign drape with some spectacular story behind it for the inevitable damned embroidered pillows.

My fear--nay, phobia--of becoming an adult is linked to my tendency to still imagine this scenario. Bit by bit, my quirks and souvenirs from life being ironed out by some horribly forceful Hand of Convention.

Thankfully, my curious feelings of growing up are not marked by a new set of embroidered pillows I bought.

This is what has contributed to the sensation:

1. If I was difficult to embarrass before, now it's almost impossible.
2. A staggering decrease in romantically-inspired angst. By forcing myself to face the reality of old relationships and invest hope in the potential for new ones, I am no longer plagued by constancy of conditions, and am no longer consequently feeling helpless. And coming to know myself in this state--remembering and reading some of the things I've said--helpless is so not an attractive state of being.
3. Expanding interests
4. Tolerance (but not in a I-will-submit-to-mediocrity-now kind of way, rather in a this-person-has-reasons-for-the-way-he/she-feels-and-I-recognize-that kind of way).

In other words, it's a much more Zen maturity than embroidered-pillow maturity. And it comes in little pockets I sometimes seem to walk into, where all of a sudden I'm immensely self-confident or understanding or forgiving. It doesn't last long--I mean really, I'm not the Buddha--but what's nice is that I remember, and so it leaves me with a way back to the wisdom. And as it happens more often, I rarely shoot into the opposite extreme.

I'm having this reflection behind a desk in the darkened bookstacks at the Reg, when really I should be finishing my Urdu homework. But have you ever tried that language? It makes the Devanagari script seem like a homey cabin with marshmallowy hot cocoa waiting for me.

I have a Philosophy of Human Rights paper due tomorrow morning, and since my mother always wants to read and subsequently "edit" my papers, I sent it to her. I had two papers due last week, both of which she lambasted me for, for turning them in before she could edit my grammar. Anyway, this was her response to my philosophy paper:

"JUST READ YOU PAPER, IT'S GREAT. lOVE YOU.

MOM"

Crazy lady.

...Happy Mother's Day.

thik hai!

I'm not that upset. I was a little upset a few days ago--but surprisingly not horribly so. Because I was going to be sad if I didn't get to go on the Pune program too.

Here are the reasons it's good that I'm going Pune-style:

1. I FINALLY know what I'm doing next year, and can stop doing acting like 2 things are going to happen simultaneously.
2. I will see more of the country this way. I will spend the first three months in Jaipur, which is in Rajasthan, in Northern India, and the last three in Pune, which is in Maharashtra, which is in Southern India. Also, there will be some extensive traveling--the last several weeks in the Pune program are spent traveling all the way South and then back up again. Kerala! Goa! Karnataka! If you check a map, I've got almost the entire Western side of the country down. I'm also experiencing Mumbai and Delhi. And, because the Pune program starts so much later than the Jaipur program ends, I have about a month in between. I don't know what I'm going to do with it--get into the Himalayan foothills? See Vanarasi? Find some sort of short-term job in Jaipur?--but it'll be excellent, I'm sure. I'm also staying a few weeks after the Pune program ends and I'm probably making my way up the coast again during that time (as I'm flying out of Delhi).
3. Civ credit.
4. I'll get to know Mark Lycett, who a) seems pretty cool, and b) will be my Environmental Studies adviser.

So I'm good.

I've also decided I'm taking a year off between third and fourth years. I don't know what I'm going to do with it yet, but I know it's there. Full of potential.

It's probable that I didn't get any money from the government because I'm such a newbie to Hindi. All of the advanced Hindi students, that I know of, received CLS scholarships for summer study, while no one in my class got one. Whatever. I'll try again next year, if I'm planning to go back. Maybe they'll take me more seriously then. For now, things are alright. No; things are good.

Oh, and--I bought my ticket. I leave June 12th (!!) for Delhi. My tentative ticket back is set for December 20th.

It's British Airlines. Because that was cheapest. And I like the British.

fail.

I didn't get the NSEP. No year-long program.

Today sucks.

well, shoot.

I didn't do several of the things I had planned to do today. Like all (most) of my readings. Or my laundry.

What I did do, though, was buy a copy of Flannery O'Connor's "The Complete Stories", because I remembered an early winter morning last year when U. and I looked at an apartment on 61st Street and when I got back all I wanted to do was sleep but instead, for some reason, I went online and found "A Good Man is Hard to Find" and read it. And I remember very well. It was completely dark in my room. And the screen was glowing. And I sat in my bed. And it was really, really good.

Good enough to prompt me to buy her collected short stories, despite the fact that I'm supposed to be saving and I have a million books I haven't read (including several I've purchased over the past couple months, like "The Brothers Karamazov" and "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance", the former I abandoned for the latter, the latter I abandoned because of all the actual motorcycle jargon I didn't feel like getting through, and nothing getting picked up because I needed to sulk for a while and then I couldn't concentrate).

But, as soon as she comes in the mail, Flannery and I are going to spend some quality time together.

!!!!!

Conversation with U. Rational discussion of neediness, shame, worry, and anger.

Our thesis:

Love must be given without expectation. Once you have expectations about what the other person "owes" you, you begin the slippery and seemingly interminable descent into neediness. Neediness is not about the other person. Neediness is about yourself--about needing the validation of someone else.

Love is about the other person. You must give of yourself with the belief that you're whole enough to give infinitely.

Enlightenment obtained. I am the Zen master.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, A.

A fire at the Point is a very satisfying way to celebrate someone's birth.

We had cheese & wine, French bread, and s'mores. T. even brought his iPod, and played what he described as the French equivalent to Frank Sinatra, and then Frank himself. You can see the city in the near distance, tall and glowing.

T. called me a hippie. Maybe because I was too close to the fire. Or because I was wearing a boy sweater. I don't know what "hippie" means anymore, but I ditch the political 1960's activism and closely relate it with "earthy". Which is a term I don't mind being associated with--it reminds me of camping, and why I feel the way I do about the people I feel that way about.

(Walking that morning for hours, to the green line stop at Bronzeville. Being afraid of the vacuum cleaner when I was 3. Vanilla soft-serve from the Cone Zone. Dog searches. Summer thunderstorms, and running through all the puddles in an oversized T-shirt. Babysitting my neighbor's children and reading Siddhartha on the couch at night. The night in Amsterdam when it rained so hard and I almost bought brown corduroys. That day it was hot and we went to the creek and swam and it was perfect. When I lost the library's copy of "On the Road", and how happy I was to find it again. The smell of my room the summer after 9th grade, when it was redone, empty, lavender, and I had early morning driver's training. My sister's wedding, being alone that night, and the phone call I got. Those sandals that I loved, from that crap store in the Upper Peninsula.)

I should write more. It's what I want to do.

I should also drink a lot of water before the AM. Wine is the happiest drunk, is it not?

I can't believe it's 11:20pm. It feels like 3 in the morning..

be prePARED.

(Hope everyone got the Lion King reference.)

In anticipation of leaving for India--whenever that may be--I've been searching through travel blogs in order to see what people have to say about specific places. I'm preparing myself; every time I read a "blah blah blah BUT I should have remembered--" or "I wish I'd known--" I make a mental check and add it to the list of things to keep in mind. I feel like a boy scout.

Apparently, the most popular travel blog domain in the universe is "[yourname]in[country].blogspot.com". Because I have a friend in China right now using this pattern, I thought I'd give it a try for India. I probably spent more than an hour just typing names in--Kate, Leslie, Anna, Anne, Ann, Mary, Jessica, Jen, Ashley, Michael, etc--and reading what came up. And the thing is, more names than not were legitimate domains of people traveling/living/studying in India. Many of them were Jaipur-based. One was even in the MSID program. It was like an instant connection to a million anonymous travelers.

Some Things To Expect:

--Occasional sexual harassment
--Constant attempts to be taken advantage of, monetarily
--Bottled water with broken seals (i.e. bottled tap water)
--People wanting their picture taken
--People using the streets as a toilet facility

I am a bit surprised by some of the recommendations I've been given, and just how extraordinarily different almost every aspect of life is going to be. Because Jaipur is in a fairly conservative region, I've been advised to leave my clothes here and purchase an entirely new wardrobe upon arrival. This advice is almost martial--it takes a tone of, "If you don't do this, you will be mistaken for a dirty slut and then harassed into oblivion."

Water. Food. Sitting positions. Eye contact. Toilet usage. The most fundamental things may need to be rethought. One thing that surprised me was the absolute ban on getting even mildly romantically involved with the locals--not because the organization takes a parental adherence to you, but rather because such an association has the potential to irreparably tarnish that person's social status in a way that's not at all intuitive to a Western mindset. Apparently in the past a village girl became associated with an American and as a result was targeted as "dirty" and not marriageable. Another story mentions a suicide. I don't know how broadly these kinds of examples apply, but I certainly won't be frivolously kissing any pretty Indian boys beneath the lovely Jaipuri moon.

[Of course... that does sort of kill the romance. But the romantic conception of two entirely different individuals with entirely dissimilar backgrounds and belief systems falling in love is less than realistic anyway. (Although that confused guy on the train was sort of sweet.)]

Anyway... it's not that I feel bad about all of this. I'm really thrilled to experience a place where almost everything is different. I would love to come back to America and see it through the scope of another country... "God, this bread is so weird."

adrenaline dreams.

Last night I dreamt I was escaping from jail--only I was actually escaping en route from an old jail to a new jail. I was on a train, and was fleeing with 3 others. We had to jump into a patch of tall grass that was growing alongside the tracks, and stay down as the rest of the train went past. Then we had to make our way through a small Vermont town with bicyclists and little toddling cars--the dream felt antiquated, like maybe it was taking place in the 20's or 30's. Eventually we were caught.

I really liked that dream. Not because it was fun, exactly--it was actually really stressful--but because it was terrifying and liberating at the same time. In the dream, I was very in-the-moment. There was adrenaline.

The night before I had a dream that I got to go to Africa. I was working on a research project, but things were getting ominous. There were seedy characters with questionable motivations. Tropical diseases were caught.

But I was also very satisfied when I woke up. Both dreams had dark underlying plots, but they were also vivid in imagery and sensation, and involved me walking in a direction, unsure where I was going. But I knew I was going somewhere completely new.

Not exactly hard to interpret, I guess.

Writing isn't considered procrastination, right?

Yeah. So I'm a little bit ADD. So I can't make it through a paragraph of John Rawls without lifting my eyes to stare at the cupboard and fantasize about Indian cupboards. So I've watched way too many episodes of Arrested Development today. So I still don't have an idea for my response due tomorrow at 7pm (I just agree with Rawls, OK?)

I completely embody that state of being where I'm so disinterested that I don't even feel worry. Relevant things just don't feel relevant to my life right now. It's like when I was in 9th grade, only I'm in the right place now. Societies collapse, yes. But the rest of this year is going to be so exciting! Also, how did it become 3rd Week? Like, whoa.

We had a party on Saturday. It was good, I think. Actually, no, I know, because I didn't get drunk (unlike the last one) and so I spent some disembodied-feeling time just watching people interact and consoling some emotionally intoxicated friends and appreciating my own taste in music. People mostly stick to their groups, but it's interesting to see the ones who drift into new groups, and the unlikely pairs that bunker down in a corner to have an intense conversation. It's also weird to see the couple of loners I don't remotely recognize, in my apartment, mixing white Russians and scanning my bookshelf. A few people were still around when I went to bed at about 3AM. The next morning things were clear and sunny (did I mention I didn't get drunk? I love mornings like that) and the apartment was surprisingly clean. No spills or vomit. We have reigned-in friends. Success.

Also, a couple people mentioned my blog, which was super-weird. Mostly because neither of them have read it, and it was like, "I heard you have an intense blog," which, I mean, how do you respond? This makes me wonder if more than like, three people read this. (I can see you all, lurking).

But more than likely it was just A. referring to it for whatever reason.

My weeks have been sort of vaguely boring without being bad. Lots of e-mail checking going on. This quarter is mainly divorced from the angsty loneliness I wallowed in (publicly? maybe) over the last two quarters. I'm back to being OK with being The Alone-ist of the Alone. To be honest, I don't even know if I could deal with a relationship. Once in 7th grade, I "went out" with this 8th grader for a week--someone I'd had a crush on for months, mind you--and grew annoyed by his nightly calls by about the 2nd day. I think I'm still kinda like that. I'd prefer to think of myself as some sort of loner superhero or something. Superheroes are always loners. I should get on that saving-people thing.

It's 12:34AM which means a) it's a very special time, numbers-wise, and b) I'm going to be upset with myself when I'm alarmed awake circa 8AM.

et oui papa

T. is over there <--- teaching A. a song in French. After we just wrote and composed a horrible, twangy country song. It feels like last summer.

Except the window is closed. And I'm in leggings. And people aren't having parties.

A. is going to Paris.
T. is going to Seoul.
U. is going to Bordeaux.
And I am going to Jaipur and/or Pune.

But for now we're all still here, already putting off our homework and skipping a class or two, and planning for a party.

I skipped everything--everything--today and instead went downtown and applied for my passport. This was only mildly irresponsible. The post office is only open Monday-Friday and closes at 4PM. Things were going to be disrupted, no matter when I went.

It was a rainy day in Chicago. One of my favorite kinds, where the steady downpour lasts all day, so every time you enter a building you're relieved and earth-smelling and almost immediately cozy. This weather makes the skyscrapers disappear into a haze. It makes gray, polluted puddles appear everywhere. The El still offers free "heat"--while waiting on the platform for the train, in the little shelter (train stop?), you can push a button and everything will go bright yellow and heat will radiate from above you. Never enough to warm you, but enough to remind you that heat exists, and what it's like. People huddled. Today was huddling weather. I felt happy.

If I were a skilled photographer, today would have been an excellent day to photograph people.

I thought of a lot of things to write about, but now they're just collected and unused: the performer on the El. The thing about Chicago. The poor financial state I am in. My mother's infinite goodness.

I had an idea recently that I'd start recording things I remember. Just getting them down, to have them reserved somehow. Like the games Kristin and I used to play in her shed, which required crawling around on a precarious 1 and 1/2 ft width board about 20 ft above the concrete floor (usually involving ancient Egypt and lots of dogs). And the horses across the street from my Oma & Opa's old house in a little German town. And the desperate indifference I felt at volleyball games at 14, and the CD player and songs I clung to because nobody interested me (and I interested nobody). And the smell of the bus on the way home and how dark it got and how somehow this bred romantic ideas in me. And the popcorn wagon. And passing out in a bathroom some early morning hour in Maryland. And Joe, the white water rafting guide. And staying home sick and trying to write E.E. Cummings-style poems in my bed. And the puzzle I spent three days on in Leelanau last September. And washing my hair in the lake with Kristin that night in the U.P. and those blue tin cups we pumped well water into and sometimes made pink lemonade in with her powder. And the baby foxes. And the stone necklace I lost. And walking to the park in the summer to get into water fights with the guy I liked. And when no one passed me the football in 7th grade gym, which was good, because I didn't know how to play anyway. And Ravendale. And plastic bag kites. And Animal Island. And talking to his friend because I didn't know how to talk to him. And painting the church. And Amour, my first actual journal, and that cat diary which was my first attempt. And the one time I ever got into a physical fight. And the old playground equipment, which was wooden and not plastic, and the Cheese, and the time I convinced my neighbor to jump over the fence and she ripped her pants. And that song about "sweet potato pie". And the time I crawled into and fell out of the basketball hoop. And the time my shirt caught on fire from the sparkler. And when I got out of my kayak to pee and then fell in and it was deep. And the swimming hole. And that story about the Elvis-impersonating three-toed-sloth. And naming the class guinea pig Ginger and the decision walking home in 9th grade that "love" was an overwhelming word and concept. And getting called a "prep" in 6th grade and feeling instantly flattered. And that time on the phone at 3AM when I didn't say it back. And the basement karaoke. And getting drunk for the first time on red wine on the back porch while playing Shithead.

It's not that I'm nostalgic. It's more that I'm stunned when I remember the variety of things that have happened to me and how many different people I've been and how I'm still kinda the same. Going through it all in my head, after the process of active remembering, it takes a long time to place myself now. What I'm worried about and how I'm hurt or ecstatic and where I'm going tomorrow morning.

I am located at the University of Chicago. I am going to India. Why?

The disappearing Sears:

??? !!! ???

Today, I got this information:

"Dear AIIS language students:

You have been admitted to the AIIS summer language program."

and then, after I was all "Sorry I gotz no mooonneeyz," I got this information:

"Dear Emilie:

Because of your ranking by the language committee, you are eligible to receive a tuition waiver, if you could come up with your own funds for airfare and living expenses."

..............!

This means I could potentially spend the summer in Jaipur. It would be roughly the same as spending the summer in Boulder. At first this was really exciting.

But now I feel really sad. Because I really want to spend the summer in Boulder. I have it all planned out in my head and I'm going to hang out with my sister and her friends and Marla and my interesting new coffee shop friends and it's going to be wonderful. There are going to be bonfires and a hot tub and I won't have to think about school. And then I'm going to see my German relatives that I haven't seen in five years and we're going the hike and bond and I'm going to eat at the Dushanbe Teahouse and buy cheap used books and bike all over. And maybe I'll start writing again.

So I don't know what to do. There's still the chance that I get the NSEP (I should find out in a week or so, now) in which case I'd have the whole year for India and would love a relaxing summer in Boulder. But if I don't, all I'd have is the autumn Pune program--and I might like to be there for longer.

I'm in mood-swing city.

Comments?

lady in WAITING.

Because nobody can keep my applications and their implications straight (and I mean, not even my mom), here's a little review on the status of my attempts at fleeing the country with little in hand for a very different place:

1. University of Chicago Pune Program

Entails: Late September thru mid-December in Pune, India (apparently very intellectual, it's called the "Oxford of India" [or maybe it's "Cambridge of India"--I always get those two confused]). I would be staying with 25 or so other UChicagoans, and fulfilling my civilization requirement by learning all about South Asian civ. Travel to nearby states involved (Kerala!). Rumored to be very FUN. Involves costs piled on top of regular quarter costs.
Status: Accepted.

2. American Institute of Indian Studies Intermediate Hindi Program

Entails: Ten-week (summer) intensive Hindi study in the city of Jaipur.
Status: Pending--but who cares? I have no funding; I'm not going.

3. Critical Language Scholarship (funding)

Entails: A couple thousand dollars from the federal gov't for the intensive study of a language abroad. Application specifically asking for funding for AIIS summer program (see above).
Status: Rejected.

4. Minnesota Studies in International Development -- India

Entails: Early-September thru mid-April (8 months!) with University of Minnesota juniors, seniors, and grad students in Jaipur. Classes all centered on international development, sustainability, public health, etc (and Hindi). HOME-STAY. Spring internship with a nearby NGO! Research project based on findings in internship, classes. All costs ~$16,000 (including plane ticket).
Status: Accepted.

5. National Security Education Program -- Boren Scholarship (funding)

Entails: Funding for entirety of Minnesota program. A promise to work for the gov't for the same amount of time spent abroad--the idea is to recruit returnees with knowledge in languages critical to national security to the State, Defense, National Security, etc. departments in order to avoid doing things like invading nations we know nothing about (or to better invade them, maybe). The service requirement is flexible, though (think: Environmental Protection Agency) and think even the Peace Corps counts now.
Status: Pending. . . . . .

It's a bit frustrating having plans that aren't set for next year, and waiting around to hear about funding, as I had to contact both the Pune program head and the MSID head to explain about such complications and why I'd rather not just fork over the $500 and $400 deposits (respectively) before finding out what I can do. Because, obviously, I'd be losing either $500 or $400. But they clearly want their deposits, and I'm clearly a bit of an inconvenience. I have to re-contact the head of the study abroad office again by Wednesday if I haven't heard from NSEP (which I will not have). I'm just hoping he doesn't want me to pay.

This is all not that interesting, maybe.

Anyway.

On a different note, these are the classes I'm taking this quarter:

1. State Collapse and State Reconstruction. This is technically a human rights course. It's taught by an African guy (!) which is new, as I rarely run into Africans on campus and this is the first time I've seen/met an African professor. He seems a little naturally shy, and sometimes I zone out a little and lose the English in his accent, but he has a lot of intelligent things to say. Every class a couple people "present" the readings by asking discussion questions based on them (I'm tomorrow!). We've already touched on the whole You're-Applying-Western-Standards-to-Other-Nations argument, which can get a little excruciating when you're talking about BASIC HUMAN RIGHTS, like not KILLING people for having other religious BELIEFS or ethnic ORIGINS. Tomorrow I'm going to make people talk about whether or not population regulations are ethical.

2. Hindi 103. 'Course. Only Jason seems to be on speed now (7 exercises for homework is just. not. realistic.) Also, we're learning the URDU script (think borrowed from Persian [borrowed from Arabic]). Which is both difficult and kind of awesome.

3. Philosophical Foundations of Human Rights. Taught by a self-deprecating British man (aren't they all?), given to lengthy anecdotes, but apparently very learned on his subject. The first class, he managed to mention abortion, Rambo, and the stupidity of children. I anticipate a good quarter. (ps--African, now British? I'm oh-so-international this quarter.)

4. Urban Ecology: The Environmental History of the City. Technically a history course. Very interesting subject taught by a wavy-haired guy (insert remembrance of "Catcher in the Rye") who's actually an archaeologist. Also seems to have a sense of humor, and be kind of brilliant. We're reading some very cool books and sort of focusing on Chicago.

Anyway, I have scads of stuff to do (all the reading might kill me this quarter)... so ttyl, lolz.

bad. feelings.

Ever since I've gotten back from Spring Break--especially ever since I've known I didn't get the CLS--I've had a very bad feeling in the pit of my stomach about the NSEP for study in Jaipur. Sure I got into the Minnesota program, but that's very different from the federal government handing me a giant check to go through with it.

My feeling worsened today when I talked to Niko, a friend who went to China on the NSEP previously. He told me that apparently only about 300 awards are available. I was imaging something closer to 1,000. This year, 16 people at the University of Chicago alone applied, and several of them also proposed India study. He also said that they like to get a variety of places represented, and I'm sure India is more overrepresented in applications than, say, Lesotho.

In fact, I think I might be going off the assumption from now on that I'm not getting the scholarship, just to prepare myself for finding out. I don't deal well with failure, especially when I set out with good feelings about myself, my capabilities, etc. If I had been rejected by U of C, I would have been inconsolable for, probably, weeks. Months, maybe.

So it's good to start early! I fail. Fail. Failfailfail.

In brighter news, I sort of have housing and sort of have a job for the summer in Boulder. Ah, foothills.

songs for late

1. Knife - Grizzly Bear
2. Throw it All Away - Brandi Carlile
3. Reckoner - Radiohead
4. It's Not Happening - The Be Good Tanyas
5. Paper Planes - M.I.A. (yes, really)
6. Seeing Hands - Dengue Fever
   

success/fail

This past week has been so weird, such a combination of successes and failures and bizarre emotional reactions that to even begin to chart them in a characteristically lengthy way would be too much for my brain. Also, wondering why this is double-spaced--whatever. Just give me tea.

SUCCESS: I climbed a mountain. Sort of. I was in Colorado, obviously, and though I think any Coloradoan would laugh at that statement in its context (11,000 feet is maybe a mountain, but a little one, and not exactly one involving climbing equipment [except ski poles, in my case]), but a Midwesterner, a Midwesterner would understand. Actually it was maybe the most physically demanding thing I've ever done--the other contender is this 30-mile hilly bike ride when I was 12 or 13. That was rough. Also, I anticipate childbirth won't be a walk in the park. But I have time to do more painful things to my body before then, like hike up a 12,000 foot mountain.

FAIL: I barely climbed a mountain. It got pretty bad. The last half mile or so, other people had to carry my things. Then the combination of altitude and pain and sun and whatever just left me with a headache and wanting to vomit and not eat anything and feeling weak and genuinely lame. I can't feel terrible about myself because of this one, seeing as altitude sickness is not really something you can help, but 11,000 feet is pretty wimpy. It also somewhat amounts to me needing to be more physically active. I wish I still had my bike. Oh well--GOAL.

FAIL: Hanging out with my sister's friends, it became obvious to me--painfully obvious--that I. Am. So. Ignorant. Now, that used to not bother me so much. The conversation inevitably turned to something I don't understand (calculus, engineering, physics) and I sort of paid attention and sort of zoned out and mostly didn't care because I was not a _____ Person. But for some reason... this time, it depressed me to no end. Because I don't want to not be a Math Person; I don't want to be an English Person or whatever the hell I'd be referred to as.. I just want to be an intelligent person who can participate in the conversation. I don't like feeling so polarized. So anyway, after sitting in a hot tub and drinking coconut rum and listening to a conversation about engineering and physics that I did not even marginally understand, I felt for the first time a sort of aversion to the "theoretical" basis of the teaching at this university, and the way "practical" seems like a dirty word. Practical means useful. There's nothing bad about that. I started thinking that maybe I'm not learning much of anything, maybe I'm cheating at education. I know things about water management and the AIDS crisis and oil scarcity, but all you need to learn about that is an ability to read. In fact, it could all be learned in my free time. WHY AM I NOT DEVOTING MY LIFE TO CHEMISTRY AND CALCULUS? I like talking about social ideas, but scientific ideas are just another kind of philosophy--just more complicated. And it's not uninteresting. I just need.. a good book. To teach me. Or a very patient person. Or something.

FAIL: No CLS Scholarship for summer Jaipur study. Odds were bad (500/4,000) but still. And I don't want to spend my summer begging people for money. More on that later.

SUCCESS...? So, while all of these Fails were mixing in my head on two airplanes and in some stupid Witchita airport and then on the dysfunctional CTA and I really just felt a lot like crying because it's been a weird, mood-swingy day or two, and I was feeling completely disinterested in humanity, I happened to sit down next to this guy on the bus who pressed a little paper toward me with Clark/Lake written on it and implored me to help him figure out how to get there. He was confused since the Blue Line randomly stopped and shoved us off the train and onto a bus and he didn't really understand how he'd get to the stop. So I helped him. I told him to follow me and asked him about himself and he told me he was from India (which was already obvious because of the accent) but I couldn't help but be completely charmed by his unassuming code of dress--front-facing, unbroken-in baseball cap; tucked-in shirt--and the little smile he had while telling me all of these things about India I already knew. He was particularly eager to talk about Buddhism and Hinduism and how he's not religious and why. At the stop, he gave me his business card and told me to call him when I'm in India. It was all just very strange, but at the same time the experience seemed to be winking at me--it was like the final fulfillment of that otherworldly night following chum-chums in Devon. I'd met a stranger. I'd made, though superficially, a connection in the city.

last summer was nice.

get lost.

Why is LOST so amazing?

Here's why:

1. It encompasses the best elements for a modern epic: tensions between science and faith; the birth of a society and evolution of positions within it (and factions); constant, shifting questions of trust; intense character development; multiple plot-lines; constant evocation of the past; danger; outside characters with vague motives; mythology and mystery.

2. The archetypes are so interesting. The Leader, the Con Man, (not to be confused with the Outlaw), the Man of Faith, the Young Mother, the Foreign Couple (with Gender-Equality-Issues), the Creepy Guy You Can't Trust, the Soldier, the Lover.

Interesting because each one's past informs who they are on the island. And you learn their past directly, by seeing it.

3. Desmond. I just like Desmond. It's A's influence, maybe.

---

If you don't see it from the beginning, it isn't worth it. If you do see it from the beginning, it's sort of endlessly fascinating. Admittedly, Season 3 mostly sucked.

So, I don't actually watch any other TV. But Lost is good because of the story factor. It's a story. I sometimes spend time just thinking of how satisfying it is as a story. It's kind of like the Twilight Zone, only modern and way more complicated.

It's the mystery factor--so few stories are mysteries anymore, and mysteries, I think, speak to people more deeply than America's Next Top Model. Because at the end of the episode, you still don't know what's going on but you're a little bit closer to finding out. Sort of like how at the end of the day, you're still not sure why you're alive but some more interesting things might have happened to pull you in a direction.

Except it's bigger than that, because you know the mystery in the story is overarchingly significant, and cosmic, and profoundly life-altering. And we will find out.

Most likely we won't find out why we exist, though. Or what's beyond the beyondest thing we know. Or what's the last beyond.

Did that make sense, without sounding incredibly prosaic?

No? Well, give me a break. I'm talking about a television show, here.

bureaucracy.

Today was horribly bureaucratic.

Here are the things I got accomplished:

1. I got taken/printed out passport photos.
2. I sent in my Jaipur confirmation materials, sans $400 deposit.
3. I deposited my check.
4. I picked up/paid for my contacts. (These last two hardly seem like "accomplishments", until you realize how unwilling I am to run boring, essential errands.)
5. I bought two books--"The Bloodless Revolution" (vegetarianism philosophy/history book [with pretty cover!] to help with ENST final [12-15page?!] paper), and Beginner's Urdu Script, because my Hindi prof believes that learning the Urdu script is essential to knowing Hindi, and damned if I'm starting next quarter without an intro.
6. I called AT&T about how our DSL is suck-city and can never connect (how dare you suggest I'm stealing someone's internet right now..), and scheduled a guy to come in and fix life.
7. I got to the West Side, I ate in a fine, stuck-up vegetarian restaurant, I came home.
8. I finished my IS project circa 12:30AM in the Reg.

Here are the reasons I wanted to gauge out my eyes repeatedly:

1. CVS is low on the cool factor and took an hour to get my passport/personal-for-family photos processed and printed. This put a dent in my errand-run and I ended up going to campus, then back, to look at/buy some books.
2. After I had the pictures my phone died and since I had a dinnerrr arrangement I had to come back to the apartment to charge the phone, and also get all my confirmation stuff around, and then I had to go back to campus to the REG--to get random information and then blah blah blah boring stuff involving emailing study abroad people about all my conflicting program/funding/deposit issues.
3. I laid down a staggering ONE HUNDRED FIFTY FIVE DOLLARS for like TWO MONTHS WORTH of contacts. WHAT?! That's more than the frigging check I deposited, which I was oh-so-reassured by. I now have to wait until next Friday to have like, ANY money at ALL. I mean, I know I have special oxygen requirements or whatever, but this is just frigging ridiculous. Think of the books I could buy! The impoverished families I could feed! My own impoverished mouth I could feed! All this I forgo for some floppy little eye adhesives? LAME.
4. The AT&T conversation was easily about two years long. Listen--I don't need to talk to 4 different people to hear the same thing 4 different times. If I wanted another opinion, I'd go to a bad doctor and then go to a good doctor. I just want some DSL, so I can check my email once in a while and see if study abroad people/scholarship people have gotten back to me, or if a prof has suddenly assigned something I have no time for. That's all, kindly AT&T folk. Send a man with a toolbox, and we're done here.
5. I accidentally broke a pane of glass in my door out to the front balcony. Seriously. This is no time to get all Popeye on the apartment; that'll probably be coming out of the $2 left in my bank account.
6. Someone I know got frigging jumped, increasing the number of people I personally know who've been attacked in Hyde Park to an uncomfortable figure. Which is desperately frustrating in a way that requires a much longer, separate post to even begin to touch on.
7. Dinner was surprisingly circa $~90, and was paid for by my friend's boyfriend whom I just met today. And none of us were satisfied with it.

Zen.
Zen.
Zen.

In other news, happier news, I got into the University of Chicago PUNE program. Which means..

(drum roll, please........)

I am going to India this fall, no matter what.

I want 2283957 times more to go on the year-long Jaipur, but regardless, I am getting out of here. Thank sweet Jesus on high.

1:55AM = sleep now? OK.

human; nature

Yesterday I ate remarkably delicious Ethiopian food. I started reading--for fun--The Omnivore's Dilemma, by Michael Pollen. I started getting around my confirmation materials for Jaipur.

I also had two very different, very strange experiences. Involving animals.

Subject A: Baby chicks at the MSI.

My dad had wanted to go to the Museum of Science and Industry. I agreed, even though I find it a bit creepy and hysterically pro-capitalism (the oil and coal exhibits are entirely uncritical, for example, showing kids how the fossil fuels can be "fun"). The miniature Chicago-Seattle train set-up was cool. The WWII German U-boat seemed really interesting, but the tickets for it were sold out.

And then there was the Genetics exhibit. It was fine, mostly. There were lots of interactive displays ("What animal fetus is this? Turn the wheel to find out!") and a little film on the Human Genome Project. Because the museum (as most museums are) was targeted mainly at kids, they also found some reason to put a couple incubators in the Genetics room. The first had several eggs that were starting to hatch; the second featured a dozen or more baby chicks, running around and bumping into each other. Both incubators were surrounded by children and their parents, gasping at the cracking shells and cooing at the clumsy baby chicks. I took a picture on my phone and started thinking about how weird it was... these animals are born to delighted human faces, no mother in sight, and then they run around a tiny octagonal room while people tap on the glass. Signs hung on the walls, explaining how eggs are fertilized, explaining the stages of development. I took a picture on my phone.

And I wondered--How separated from animals are we?

Later that night, I showed A. the picture. She nodded. "Ooh, yeah, the chicks. Did you know they kill them? Yeah, I know someone who worked at the MSI over the summer. Apparently, every Tuesday they come in and remove the baby chicks, and they have nothing to do with them. So they kill them."

?!

Subject B: Grizzly Man

I'd been looking forward to seeing this ever since my sister told me about it a year ago. Telling me about it, she looked really pinched and uncomfortable. She described it as disturbing.

For anyone who doesn't know, Grizzly Man is a documentary about Timothy Treadwell, a man who spent 13 consecutive summers in the Alaskan wilderness filming grizzly bears. But he doesn't study them. He simply loves them, in really the most passionate sense of the word. He gets dangerously close, names them and speaks softly to them. He isn't eccentric, in the Steve Irwin nature-man sense. Rather, he seems legitimately mentally ill--possibly bipolar. The disturbing part is the fact that the 13th summer, he gets too close and is mauled to death and then eaten by a starving bear. And his girlfriend goes with him. And it's caught on tape. And described.

Actually, this alone isn't the most disturbing aspect. Everything works together. You hear about his descent into alcoholism and the reinvention of his identity afterward.. his discovery of the beauty of nature causing him to give up alcohol. You see his tension with civilization as he curses wildly, lividly, everyone from the government to the park service for their wrongful treatment of the grizzlies. You see him tenderly stroking the foxes, whispering "I love you, I love you, I love you."

In the end, the documentary wasn't really about Treadwell. It was more about--as filmmaker Herzog describes--"cold indifference". Treadwell seemed to lose contact with his own humanity, seemed to want to be a bear (as many of those interviewed pointed out). The portrayal of Treadwell was sympathetic, but the real message seemed to be the brutal reality of nature.

(I recommend the documentary, by the way. It's hard to really understand unless you watch him.)

Chicks as objects, bears as family. Destroyed chicks, destroyed human.

Which really just hits home the phrase, "the cold indifference of nature."

Regardless, an angry email to the MSI is in order.

frigid-air

Apparently, by the book of MAC Property Management, there's an all-or-nothing policy when it comes to heat. Which is to say, either it's 900 degrees in here and we're all sweating and basically in our underwear and opening all the windows in the middle of the Chicago winter, or they turn the heat off entirely. It was circa 50 degrees the other day (which was AMAZING, my joy was paralleled only by that of the little bird that washed itself in the little puddle on an ice sheet on someone's lawn and the squirrel that made eye contact with me) and so, rightly, our heat was turned off. But they haven't turned it on since, and this is CHICAGO, people, which means it's back in the 20-degree range again, at least for a while. So we've closed all our windows and bundled in blankets and I took a ridiculously hot bath tonight and even drank some of the coffee T. made with soy milk. Which might explain why I'm serenely writing a very detailed post at 1AM in the middle of yet another overwhelmingly demanding week.

On Soy Milk:

So I've recently been really disturbed by milk. And eggs. And, well, I've been having vegan tendencies. It's taken me a while to come out and admit that, because of my avid fear of "becoming" something just because I have friends who've gone the same route, but I've been very interested in the topic of food ethics lately (some 4/5ish months ago my vegetarian kick became less about the environment and more about animal ethics) and what I've read about the dairy industry makes it seem no friendlier than the meat industry, really. The difference between veganism and vegetarianism is HUGE though, in terms of demands. Vegetarians can still maintain a pretty spontaneous dietary lifestyle, but most vegans I've hung out with have a very difficult time eating out, etc. I'm sure you can live just as freely, it's just about effort, but I'm a bit worried about balancing the surrendering of dairy while simultaneously maintaining a healthy diet while simultaneously not smashing my head into walls over suddenly-assigned-papers and weekly tests and midterms coming out the ass.

I'm thinking about doing an experimental vegan week spring quarter, however.

But anyway, what I was talking about in the first place was SOY MILK, which I bought the other day and tried to be really optimistic about. I tried it on my Raisin Bran yesterday morning and it made me feel vaguely nauseous in a why-is-this-bizarre-watery-yellow-crap-in-my-mouth kind of way. Perhaps it gets some getting used to. But it's not bad in coffee.

On Hindi:

Finally today I've memorized the entirety of my lines during the Hindi skit. I can recall it all independent of my cue cards. That's not to say it doesn't come out choppy and strangely emphasized, much like the English equivalent of "I love grapefruit because... it's so.... unusually tasty... when.. eaten with...... sugar?" I also can't guarantee that the tenuous string tying my brain to the progression of words won't be severed upon the impact of 10-ish all-too-attentive faces. But seriously. I've got like 4 months of the language under my belt, how spectacular and Angelina Jolie-ish am I expected to be? I'll fall to my knees and weep tears of sweet satisfaction when I'm done with the whole mess at approximately 2:00pm Thursday.

On India:

My fantasies involving Jaipur have gotten a little too intense lately, likely due to the fact that finals week is quickly approaching. Among the unhealthy things I've done in relation to the fact that I might be in India next year:

1. Fantasize about writing a "Namaste, there!" letter to my host-stay Hindustani family. This would happen in late summer, and I would discuss where I go to college, my family members, and where I live (I also imagined drawing a US map and putting a star on MI to indicate where I grew up).
   
2. Google "Jaipuri woman".
   
3. Wonder about the Hindi word for "camel", so I can talk about how excited I am to see a camel.
4. Consider googling train rates so I can see how easily and cheaply I could get to the Himalayan foothills from Rajasthan.
   
5. Activate my University of Minnesota email address and think fondly of beautiful, wonderful Minnesota.
   

Stuff to remember (SELF): The NSEP is an intensely competitive scholarship, and this year there were a record number of applicants. Consider that your fate rests in the hands of probably some greasy DCers with stinking-bad cologne and hence you probably won't get funded, and hence CAN'T go to JAIPUR and must settle for CHICAGO which still has decent masala dosa in DEVON.

I'm going to Boulder soon (!!!) for spring break to see my sister and become physically active and maybe go camping and eat at the teal-and-pink and other-colored Dushanbe Teahouse and also eat Nepalese food and walk barefoot in streams and read books and write maybe, and look for a summer job?

ALSO: I might take a class on Thomas Mann's "Magic Mountain" next quarter; read in conjunction with Nietzsche and other philosophers who informed his work. It sounds kind of ridiculously amazing, and also it fits into the IS "area and civilization studies" track and also I really feel the need to channel into my Germanness (Germanicness? Germanity?) and maybe this is how I can do it. I mean, I could have just as easily grown up speaking Deutsch. I should at least read a book from the fatherland.

This is totally what I'm going to think about during my skit, damn it.

and the god of redemption smiles upon me.

The University of Minnesota has deemed me worthy. I have been accepted into the year-long Minnesota Studies in International Development program in Jaipur. Now my hiatus hinges on funding, NSEP-style--I have to wait for at least another month.

Party tonight, was OK. I fulfilled my weekend socializing.

But who cares? Jaipur is 50% closer.

hello from my cavernous cavern.

So, I was thinking that things are basically The Suck lately.

Here are various reasons I've felt down this week:

1) The other day, I gave a man some money. I then walked to the bus stop, and watched as he walked directly to the liquor store.

2) Wednesday I did the following things: Went to a Starbucks cafe in a Barnes & Noble, got a stupid tomato-and-onion pizza-looking thing which was unnecessarily placed in a big plastic container, didn't even eat it all, got Grandma's cookies, looked at the ingredients in Grandma's Cookies, realized Grandma's cookies have "caramel color" in them, wtf?, accidentally littered as I was pulling my ID out and running for the bus. So many things depressed me in those twenty minutes.

3) I realized Tuesday that my Hindi skit is next Thursday, not the week after.

4) It's still fucking winter.

5) I now have no friends that are not in a relationship. This is not really an exaggeration.

6) I want to commune with nature, but the only nature here is snow. And it's dirty snow.

Here are the results for this year so far:

My academic life: +10
My personal life: -20

I would like some kind of personal demand on my attention. I feel like Janis Ian penning the lyrics to "At Seventeen".. pretty soon I'll be getting cats, lots and lots of cats, cats everywhere, I'll be naming them all, after the horoscopes and the world's longest rivers and tallest mountains, after Broadway characters.

I sure as hell hope I get out of the country this year, and soon.

I wanna be like you-ou-ou!

When I was little, I never saw The Jungle Book. I don't know why. I lived for Disney.

Anyway, I'm having a Jungle Book renaissance. I want to watch it. I want to read it. I realize I'm a little all-India-all-the-time lately, but I have a lot to learn and it's hard to immerse in Ye Olde Amrika. I want to go to the bazaars and drink chai and see the elephants! I want to hear Hindi enough that I can speak it with something of a natural flow. So, here in Amrika, I'm turning to The Jungle Book.

Here's something cute:

English: bear; Hindi: bhaalu (भालू)
English: panther/leopard; Hindi: bagheera (बघीरा)
English: elephant; Hindi: haathi (हाथी)

You get the idea. I'm not certain about the spellings... but now you know your Hindi jungle animals (add bandar [pronon. "bundahr"] for "monkey" and you're set)!

Yes; I go to great lengths to convince myself I'm studying while not studying.

And tonight is better than last night. I'm drinking tea and finished with today's essay/Hindi quiz/Bio midterm trio. The constant barrage of essays and midterms I've been encountering lately have left me feeling a bit withered; last night I was basically prepared to shoot myself in the face. But still, with everything I have to do over the next 4 weeks, I'm most uncomfortable about the prospect of doing a skit in Hindi in front of my class. I have 3 other partners, so isn't as if I'm alone; still, the idea of memorizing and then delivering 3 minutes worth of lines in a foreign language while also attempting to act makes me want to crawl inside a shell.

Shiver.

Course registration started today and the classes I'm looking at for next quarter are a little on the awesome side--I'll update on those when they're set, though.

I have more besides work on my brain, but I haven't got the organizational skills nor guilt-free time to make it materialize in wordform. So you get to learn Hindi.

मैं जैसे आप होना चाहती हूँ ।

अरे, हिन्दी!

जी हा, मै हिन्दी मे लिख रही है। लेकिन आप लोग समझ नही हैं।

तो अच्छा। मुझे हिन्दी पढ़ना चाहिये।

नया शब्द:

1. पड़ना - to "must"
   
2. लड़ना - to fight
   
3. ख़त्म करना - to finish
   
4. लेख - article (M)
   
5. छुट्टी - vacation (F)
   
6. सच - true
   
7. भाषण - lecture (M)
   
8. हड़ताल - strike (F)
   
9. हंगामा - uproar; chaos (M)
   
10. गड़बड़ - disorder (F)
    
11. तमाशा - show/entertainment (M)
12. तैयार - ready
13. बाल - hair (M)
    
14. बीमारी - illness (F)
    
15. परीक्षा - examination (F)
    

7th hufta

Things I'd Rather Be Doing Than Studying:

• Finishing the last 53 pages of Rabbit, Run.
• Watching a documentary.

But then, that was my weekend.

Three-day weekend; was marvelous. I feel recharged. It doesn't sound like it maybe, but I'm just experiencing the opposite of ennui since the beginning of this year. I'm in love with learning. Studying is still learning, kind of. Just a more slow, dependent form.

On Saturday, T. and I went to Devon (for the first time since the night with my magical Indian guy with the baggy.) We ate terrible sweets again (I finally tried barafi and rasgulla, neither of which I would recommend getting excited about.) We ate at the same place: masala dosa, mutter paneer, naan, sweet lime sodas. I've gotten so good at eating Indian food I barely notice the hot factor anymore. Oh, how I've evolved.

Then we went to the Kitaab Ghar, where I joyously purchased four Hindi books directed at, I imagine, toddlers. One is called "Bhudiya ki roti" (The Old Woman's Bread), one's about a mouse, one is called "Dadi ki Sari" (Grandma's Sari) and then there's a book of stories and exercises. I probably won't have time to integrate new words into my vocabulary until the summer, but I'm having beautiful visions of summering in Boulder and lying in the sun with a Hindi-English dictionary, reading my children's books.

I believe there's a function on here that allows for writing in Devenagari, which is a lot nicer than the transliteration--transliterated Hindi takes longer to translate in my head than the original text.

I will delve into that, now.

Mmmn.

I am swimming in a sea of couples. They're everywhere. I feel like 80% of the people I know are couples. Normally that's all well and good, they're seemingly in hiding, until February 14 when suddenly they're out en masse, crowding out restaurants and all other public places, accidentally shoving their roses in my face, awkwardly and uncasually dipping their bread in olive oil and holding hands and just generally making themselves noticed.

I do not like a holiday that makes singles feel unspecial and couples feel tense and obligated.

Does the Y-chromosome still exist? I'm not sure; I don't think I associate with any anymore. And I would feel a lot better if I could just flirt.

...and, as usual, the most fervently celebratory, holiday-acknowledging individual in our apartment building is the Argentinian lady on the first floor who solely speaks Spanish.

Ooh, class of.. that one time.

I'm having the sort of week you have after a really exhausting week. Which is to say, I'm being lazier than I should be.

Recent addictions: anything chocolate in sight, Google news, Barack Obama speeches.

Tonight I fell into a myspace hole. I started looking at friends of people's friends, and found a zillion people I went to high school with. Some of them have had babies. Lots of them have gone Greek. By all appearances, not a lot of them have changed much.

It's kind of funny. About half of the people closest to me I met in the past year; most of the rest are my family. Looking at the websites people have, and the statements they make about themselves, doesn't make me feel closer to them; it makes me feel even more distanced. At least before, when I've looked back without knowing, I could pretend to have gained some kind of solidarity with my class. I'm sure we're not all as wildly antithetical as I imagine.

Well, OK. I'm not sure. But it's not as if I want to go back and try to make relationships exist where they don't. I've grown accepting of the fact that while my best friends here look back on high school nostalgically, this is the first place I'm going to feel that way about.

It's just interesting that people can be so radically different. All because of what they're taught, what they read, what they get exposed to. Durkheim and Marx and DeBeauvoir should be required reading for every living, breathing, literate soul. If you don't understand the words, buy a dictionary. I did. The anthropologists and the linguists and the zealots and the historians and the environmentalists and those of the counterculture and the scientists and the poets--if you don't drink it in, open yourself up and give them a chance, how do you have any idea what you really believe? That's how things become bigger than your life. That's how you transcend your problems.

But I guess I'm not one to preach. I had an epiphany about a month ago and since then have felt like I exist in a different way. But I'm still shirking my homework to read the news every 10 minutes, and read fiction I shouldn't have time for, and "Stumble" the internet for gorgeous photographs and lots of random crap, and eat too much chocolate when other people are happy with just enough rice, and etc.

Wait, where am I going with this? I don't know.

But I should finish this chapter on AIDS, anyway.