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.