Rachel Not Rebecca » grad school

Maybe I Could Get Into Rutgers?

Rachel Not Rebecca — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 19:20:10 +0000

So, yesterday, Smoker Boy from Friday texted me with “What’s your schedule like? I would love to see you today.” I had ignored his text on Sunday, and knew that I couldn’t just ignore this one, because it would be immature, or whatever. It took much wringing of hands and gnashing of teeth before I was able to dash off a two sentence email to him. I also immediately set up a filter in gmail so that his emails would skip my inbox and also be marked as read.

I am having coffee with a boy tomorrow, although not one of the two boys I actually REALLY wanted to have coffee with. Although, this guy is very polite, seems nice, and I can eve forgive his use of “lol.”

It’s already 2:30, and I spent most of the day working on ONE letter, because I am meticulous like that. Or slow. Anyway, that application has been submitted.

Back to this boy I’m seeing tomorrow. I’ve spoken to him half a dozen times. Conversation is ok — we manage it. We haven’t really covered anything groundbreaking, just typical getting-to-know-you stuff. This whole internet dating thing is weird. I know, I’m the last person who should say that, given my brief, but busy phase as a message board floozy.

I got distracted from writing this by a question about Carl Schmitt on Message Board of Note. So I got to talk about Carl Schmitt! Which is exciting, because I never get to talk about that, and I forget how much I love Carl Schmitt, and it almost makes me want to go back to grad school and get my PhD JUST so I can write a dissertation on Carl Schmitt and american foreign policy.

Half-Thoughts.

Rachel Not Rebecca — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 16:59:58 +0000

Work = busy. I have no time/brainpower to put together a coherent entry, so I thought I would copy/paste some bits and pieces of drafts I have started and not published over the past month. I cannot even guarentee complete sentences.

-Doing all this political minded readnig lately makes me want to re-read Allan Blooms The Closing of the American Mind. If you are in academia, or even just thinking of going into it, I cannot recommend it enough. A professor gave it to me right after I transferred to Skidmore, after hearing about my experience at Hampshire College. It is definitely one of those books that made me question a lot of what I thought I believed or helped me clarify a lot of things for myself. The problem with re-reading anything is that I have about 1,001 books that I haven’t read, and should read.

-My life has also come to spending a Saturday night having dinner with my parents and their friends. But that was actually ok, because my Pseudo-Cousin Aimee is in the same position as me. Of course, she’s just out of college, so she can move back in with her parents and not look like a loser, but whatever. We didn’t used to get along for more then 10 minutes at a time when we were younger, so it is nice that we are friends now. We bemoaned the patheticness of our Saturday night and watched old episodes of Degrassi. I freaking LOVE Degrassi and their were episodes of Season 4 that I had never seen.

-For one, I would have gone for international relations as a sub field instead of political theory. Political theory is a horrid little sub field. They (the royal they) have decided that all the Important Questions have been done to death and now the field has just kind of turned on itself and there is a lot of political theory on how to do political theory, or why to do political theory, or if we should do political theory. And to some extent, you are limited by what is trendy in your field at the time. I wish I had known that better when I applied.

-I am somewhat obsessed with weather phenomena. I love big storms. So I hate it when BIG STORMS are predicted and wind up being nothing. We were supposed to get massive rainstorms here due to Hurricane Ida moving up the east coast, but it has failed to affect North Jersey. Down the shore, it is of course flooding, because idiots build their houses on the sandbar. Here it’s just gray and a little bit rainy.

-Going through the draft folder in gmail, I came across a conversation I had with David on The Morning After. (No, not that kind of morning after) “I did something really stupid,” I started. He named off a few things, because he was sure it involved a boy. (Usually, when I do something stupid, it involves a boy) It didn’t involve a boy.

Thursday, Your Stocking Needed Mending

Rachel Not Rebecca — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 13:39:00 +0000

I didn’t stop for coffee this morning and therefore did not realize that I did not have my wallet until I got to work. Grrr. Not only do I desperately need caffeine, but it’s also annoying to not have my wallet – I’m going to have to borrow a couple dollars for lunch, because I don’t have food here.

I think I am buying my car this weekend. I will be glad to get it over with. Initially, I wasn’t going to buy until early May, but my hand was sort of forced to do so early. I am okay with that now – I think I am okay money wise, even with needed a new laptop. I think, anyway. I am not very good at budgeting.

I talked to Sarah, a girl I went to grad school with, briefly yesterday afternoon. I was telling her about my essay and bashing our preceptor. She still works at UChicago, so she is literally right down the hall from him, which is weird. The year at UChicago still feels like a dream to me at times.

Anyway, this is yet another entry that I’m writing, where I really have nothing to say, but I hope that by forcing myself into regular blogging, the brilliance will come back to me. If I ever had it to begin with.

Stupid Grad School

Rachel Not Rebecca — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 19:50:00 +0000

I logged into my UChicago webmail account today, because I got a warning email saying I lose it in December. I want to go through and forward anything I might want to save from there.

Scrolling through my in-box just made me cringe and brought back all the uncomfortable feelings of being in grad school. I can’t put words to them exactly, but it was not a pleasant feeling. I could only get through a couple pages on the inbox before I had to sign out.

The whole thing still feels like a dream. Not a nightmare exactly, not even a really bad dream, just a really, really weird dream, where you wake up, and you think you’re pretty glad that none of that is actually your reality, because it just doesn’t feel right.

Protected: MAKE THIS MONTH END.

Rachel Not Rebecca — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 03:40:00 +0000

Protected: Hanging Over My Head

Rachel Not Rebecca — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 07:11:00 +0000

Protected: One Year Later

Rachel Not Rebecca — Sat, 08 Sep 2007 05:19:00 +0000

Catch Up

Rachel Not Rebecca — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 15:31:00 +0000

Hurray for the east coast. I have had delicious pizza and bagels and thus life is good.

In my last days in Chicago, I managed to have some fun. I had a drink at the Lounge in the John Hancock building. I jumped in Lake Michigan with all my clothes on. I met up with Adrienne for lunch. Adrienne is a high school acquintence of mine whom I’ve known via Onstage tech and decathlon. Adrienne is one of those people whom I’ve always wished I got to know better.

Final thoughts on MAPSS?

Well, it wasn’t the worst way to spend 9 months.

Scene: Chris, trying to convince me that my thesis is not a failure.
Me: Yeah, yeah, whatever. I’ll say it again ‘An MA in 9 months is way more productive than getting knocked up’
Chris: Yeah that only takes a day. Or like, 10 minutes!

Well, I did get a boyfriend this year, so at least I’ve accomplished something
-Sarah

I am not qualified for any job my MA could get me
-Eric

Who is this “Chad” person?
-someone’s thesis advisor

What’s wrong with the people in your program? They always look so depressed
-CIR person

I don’t know anyone who’s said ‘MAPSS was a great experience! I’m so glad I came!’
-the conclusion of last week’s conversation

Damnit, I should have done CIR!
-me

MAPSS lies
-the general consensus

I’m Bitching

Rachel Not Rebecca — Sat, 16 Jun 2007 01:46:00 +0000

I am so unnecessarily bitchy and angsty right now. I hate Chicago. I grew up in suburbia and spent a year in NYC, but I am annoyed by my comparatively “street smart” skills. I’ve always been told I look pissed off all the time; just my normal facial expression, and that that’s why I never get heckled. But I’m sick of living in a neighborhood where I can get mugged or assaulted by a 16 year old. If I’m paying this much rent, I don’t want this type of neighborhood.

I hate this apartment; it’s a rip-off, and its directly over the trashroom so by the time its pick-up day the smell permeates, and it faces a giant Soviet style apartment complex that is full of sketchy tenants who are loud at night.

I hate what Uchicago has done to me. 9 months ago I was happy. I wouldn’t qualify myself as unhappy right now, but I’m all angsty and unsure about the future and that nonsense, and its like WTF was the point of an MA program, when all its done is left me behind my peer group in terms of job experience?

Anything Can Happen

Rachel Not Rebecca — Tue, 17 Apr 2007 01:08:00 +0000

So after discussing the logistics of yet another move (blech) it’s official. I’ll be back in New York/Jersey at the end of June. No, I do not have a job or an apartment. However, last time I decided to move to New York I didn’t have either of those things, and it worked out pretty well.

It’s a weight off my shoulders to know; that’s one less decision to make. It’s the obvious thing to do really — Chicago has never felt quite right.

Getting that rough draft in really confirmed it for me — I’m almost done with what I came here to do, and now I’m ready to go home.
And as I learned in the final weeks of my final semester at Skidmore and as I saw again in my last few weeks in the city, a lot can happen in a short period of time, especially when you’re living towards an end.

Now to catch up my IR reading, write one awesome final draft, and get my ass back for the Second-Great-Job-and-Apartment-Search. Actually, properly speaking its the second great job hunt and the third great apartment hunt. And while I’m sure I’ll be cranky in the process (ug, job hunting. In July.) its going to be worth it.

Sex, Lies, and an MA Degree

Rachel Not Rebecca — Wed, 07 Mar 2007 18:28:00 +0000

I wrote a long entry on all the things I missed about New York, specifically about this summer there yesterday, but then deleted it, because I was being unneccesarily maudlin. I realized that “this-time-of-year” is quickly approaching. I don’t know how I feel about that; I don’t see any ‘other shoes’ that are in danger of dropping, but one never knows.

I’m in the middle of writing final papers. I have a lot of words down on the page, but still need to do a lot of editing. In my Machiavelli paper, I think I quote Schmitt and Agamben almost as much as Machiavelli. My liberalism paper is kind of silly, but again, words are on the page, its just a matter of ordering them. I talk about sex a lot. And I’m meeting my goal of turning in 15-20 pages of my thesis next week, because I will graduate in June if it kills me.

As I very crudely put it “An MA in less than nine months, this is way more productive than getting knocked up.”

Panic, Retreat, or Both.

Rachel Not Rebecca — Mon, 19 Feb 2007 23:14:00 +0000

So I am waiting for my laundry to be done, which is my excuse for why I can write in Livejournal instead of reading Mill or writing about Machiavelli. Because I’ll just have to get up and retrieve my laundry eventually, which would interrupt what I’m doing, which would distract me ANYWAY, so there’s no reason to even try. Even though I really need to get started on my final papers. Ug, eighth week.

My eyes are burning because I used a ton of bleach in an attempt to clean my kitchen floor. This apartment is going to kill me. I bought a mini-humidifier but it is still 19,000 degrees in here, so I have to do a routine of open window/freeze/close window at least a few times a night. I am still dehydrated. I keep refilling my water bottle. I spent the morning taking lots of notes on Diderot; nothing like French liberalism first thing in the morning.

Today was kind of awesome because David Dyzenhaus was the lecture for political theory workshop. I know that means nothing to anyone else, but I just got his new book, and I’m totally using him in my thesis, and I got to ask him a relevant question. As I’ve mentioned, I had never heard of Carl Schmitt before I came to U Chicago; it was my precept who recommended the class to me. So I told him on Thursday night I was really glad he recommended it, because Concept of the Political was one of the most provocative things I’ve read, and because this is how I got my thesis topic, and because Schmitt basically goes into a lot of critiques of liberal democracy that I’d already had, but had never quite been able to articulate. And my precept was like “Oh great, I’ve turned Rachel into a Nazi.” Hee.

It occuried to me today that, given my LJ whore-dom, I should start a Schmittian blog and start posting pieces of my thesis. Not because anyone would read it, but because I can’t for the life of me get a paper written, but I sure can churn out blog. Maybe I should just get together with the Long Sunday people.

Okay. I’m going to go waste 20 minutes looking up articles on eReserve, get my laundry, and maybe, just maybe start my Machiavelli paper.

Yes.

Rachel Not Rebecca — Fri, 16 Feb 2007 18:30:00 +0000

Life feels very, very, very good right now.

Last night was the MAPSS dinner. They sat us by precept group. I got to talk to my precepter a lot. Last quarter I was very anti-him, but I have, as I mentioned, done a total 180, and he is awesome, and I am so lucky to be in this group.

We made toasts. We bonded. We did a little bit of sharing TMI. (I told the “how I got into political theory because of a boy” story.)

Sarah, who is apparently right about everything, joined our table later on in the evening. She has predicted that I’m going to get a PhD, wind up in academia, etc based on the way I talk about things. (She also predicted the conclusions of this weekend. Cough) That would solve the problem about what the hell I’m going to do with my life, but we’ll see. No Plan. Did you know political theorists are being phased out? And only about 6% of jobs in political science go to theorists, and most of those are for nonsense like “Logic” and “Game Theory.”

We went to the pub afterwards and I had good-good conversations with people I hadn’t talked to much before. I talked to one girl about NYC and how we both want to move back there, etc. I talked to a girl in my building about how we stop working at 10 PM (we live in the stupid central time zone, shut up) to watch the Daily Show.

Life is bizarre and good, and awesome. I will still say in a heartbeat that I miss New York, and I miss Astoria, and I miss the life I had there. And I still want to be done with this program and have some certainty about what the hell I’m doing next year. But, since I’ve been told I need to learn how to live in the present and not worry so much about the future, I’m going to really try to just enjoy this, for this.

Papers, Etc.

Rachel Not Rebecca — Thu, 08 Feb 2007 18:05:00 +0000

How the hell is it the end of 6th week? I’m actually somewhat ahead of the game, since I have my thesis proposal on file and paper topics figured out for final papers. Because I can’t get out of my Schmittian mindset, I’m writing about “the exception,” as used by Machiavelli. Because Machiavelli basically says, it doesn’t matter what the law says, so long as you have arms to back them up, and then the prince (the sovereign) doesn’t have to follow the laws anyway, so long as he maintains the regime. And I think I’m writing about the tensions between love and equality as seen in Voltaire’s Candide but that is up in the air.

And also, I’ve done all this talk lately about “Abandoning The Plan.” I’m probably not applying for PhD programs after this is over. It’s a struggle for me just to complete this program because I don’t care about it; my heart isn’t into it. In hindsight, I chalk it up to one more thing I thought I was “supposed” to do, and realize I was definitely on to something when I bawled and insisted I did not want to go when I found out I got in here.

Another stark reminder that I should listen to my instincts, at all times.

STRATEGERY*

Rachel Not Rebecca — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 23:34:00 +0000

And after three days of thinking my thesis was headed towards hopelessness, something clicked. I changed one word in my hypothesis and the way I framed my whole paper and suddenly it all makes so much more sense. I still have to rewrite the proposal and meet with potential-faculty-advisor on Monday, but I feel good about it.

This weekend will be spent seeing Sebastian, who is visiting as a potential PhD student, cleaning my apartment, and writing the perfect paper proposal so I can go into my meeting on Monday and kick ass.

And my presentation in my Machiavelli class earned praise. Maybe I’m not so stupid after all.

Now I’m going to the Campus Pub with my precept group to toast to the fan club, among other things.

*(I changed my hypothesis from “…Carl Schmitt would be critical of the war on terror….” to “….Carl Schmitt would be critical of the STRATEGY of the war on terror…” That’s obviously an oversimplification, but that’s what my thesis is about in laymans terms. Yes, I want to kick my own ass for referencing the war on terror.)