Rachel Not Rebecca » i am so smart

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.

Trivia(l) Pursuit(s)

Rachel Not Rebecca — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 14:38:30 +0000

Brent, Joe, and I went to Trivia Night locally last night and I had a ridiculous amount of fun. First, I laughed more in one night than I have in a month. There was competition for lamest confession and discussion of 90s music. Then Trivia began. We scored perfectly the first two rounds. And then we bombed the third round (stupid questions such as “Which slipper did Cinderella lose; her left or right?” and questions-we-should-have-gotten-right-but-second-guessed) and didn’t do much better on the fourth. We were resigned to losing, and then the final bonus round was geography (blue category!), so we bet the max, and we won.

From my description you can see that trivia is Very Important and that this victory made me (well, us) way happier than it rightly should have. In the car ride home we were still discussing it, and future team strategy, and I was like “Guys, you do realize that we’re the only ones there to tonight who are STILL DISCUSSING THIS.”

But I wouldn’t have it any other way. It feels good to be a team again (Joe and Brent were on academic decathlon with me in high school) and to make ridiculous references throughout the game that no one else would get but us.

I didn’t fall asleep until around 2am, for the second night in a row. I am definitely feeling that this morning and the coffee is doing little to dull it. I have ice cream stashed in the freezer here, and I’m tempted to break it out. Work continues to be filled with crankiness all around.

But I am in a better mood than I’ve been in all week – maybe even all month. Getting rejected from the Libertarian Fellowship certainly left me in a funk and I’ve also hit the wall in terms of available things to apply for in DC. It’s frustrating, because I know I’d be perfect for several of the think tank positions I’ve applied for – there are just other people who would be even more perfect, and they’re probably already in the DC area. I’m that at the point yet where I could realistically (or would even want to) just quit my job, move to DC, and hope for the best with the job search and the powerlessness has left me irritable.

But being around two of my favorite people on the planet, who understand me better than anyone in the world, has done wonders for my spirits. At least for today. And allegedly, that’s the only one that should matter.

And yay, Friday! I may actually be social this weekend (an acquintences birthday tomorrow evening) and then, what the hell it is already February. If I start talking about how time is flying, and how I’m going to be, omg, 27 in May, I’ll just ruin my good mood, so I’m going to stop, and go do something productive.

Day 21 of Month 11

Rachel Not Rebecca — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 17:49:36 +0000

November needs to end, so I can stop writing about the first thing that comes into my head, and actually have a chance to write something decent.

I’ve been up for almost two hours, but I’m still groggy from the Benadryll, probably, even though I only took one. I don’t know how my body can handle a super powerful anti-anxiety drug that knocks me the hell out (I don’t take it every night) but can’t recover from Benadryll.

Writing about work on a blog that could be discovered is a surefire way to get yourself in trouble, so I will just say that it was a trying week and yesterday was a bad afternoon. I know where its coming from – everyone is dealing with unreasonable demands and ridiculous deadlines. It’s not going to get any better anytime soon though, so it doesn’t seem worth delving into.

I’ve given myself an assignment to get caught up on general foreign policy news this weekend, because my knowledge is general and out dated. On one hand – I work full time, and while I don’t have much else going on right now, the Libertarian Fellowship people don’t know that, so I think it should be understandable that I don’t have the same level of knowledge about current events as someone who works in the think tank field. On the other, logic is hardly ever a factor in these things, so I better study up.

I really hate having to say “the war on terror” when I talk about my interests, because everyone is sick of the war on terror. People were sick of the war on terror two and a half years ago when I was writing my thesis. I didn’t even want to GO there, but Carl Schmitt, that rapscallion, he made it impossible not to. And I think that my work, and the work that I want to do is valid, and relevant, and hell, even important, but using the phrase “war on terror” seems to cheapen it. It seems dated. But I don’t know what other name to give to the general, overall U.S. strategy/foreign policy stance(s) in the post-September 11th era (another reference that I am loathe to make. I don’t think the event should have changed out policies like it did, but that’s another rant altogether.)

My cat is curled up at the end of my bed, fast asleep. He seems to have the right idea.

Protected: Seven Shades of Awesome

Rachel Not Rebecca — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 07:43:00 +0000

Apologies

Rachel Not Rebecca — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 14:15:00 +0000

I think I want to be able to be pretentious without actually being a jerk. I just want the option. Then again, I’m still training the University of Chicago-speak out of me, so maybe I should be careful what I wish for.

For all my love of Russian history, Carl Schmitt, and obscure European wars, I do like my brain candy. I watch Degrassi – The Next Generation marathons. (I blame Jill-IAN on this one) I like People mazgazine. I’ve seen the movie Chasing Liberty about 1,000 times.

I didn’t think things like this were problematic until I dated HWSNBN near the end of college. He was fairly well read, a news junkie, and looked down on my more ‘shallow’ habits. I felt I had to hide them, and perhaps that is where the obsession with being well -read/ educated/”sophisticated” came from. I encountered it again, earlier this year, when I was spending time with this guy who was extremely well-read, and he was just too…much.

So while I’m in the process of getting back into reading, I am also vowing to broaden my horizons on the music/movie front. Maybe, just maybe one day I’ll wind up well-rounded

Fin

Rachel Not Rebecca — Tue, 05 Jun 2007 21:02:00 +0000

I had my last final yesterday afternoon. I am signed off to graduate. I am DONE with grad school.

An MA, in 9 months, just days after my 24th birthday? Means I have the whole rest of my life to do things completely unrelated to my over-educated degree!

Nuclear Weapons and Impatience

Rachel Not Rebecca — Tue, 15 May 2007 18:32:00 +0000

Notes pool is going…okay. 2.5 articles and one chapter to take notes on for strategy, 2 articles for NSP. But 5 chapters additional chapters and 3 articles to put into other-people accesible form. And do so to aformentioned untaken notes as well. And then there’s all those OTHER things I have to read. There is lots of nuclear-ness. There is lots of mention of Russia/Soviet Union. Naturally. I will get this stuff done. I hope.

Obviously the staying up till all hours to read caught up with me because I went to bed at 9 last night. And had very lucid dreams about trying to remember which nuclear weapons strategy theorist said what.

I want my thesis grade. I am very, very impatient. I should probably eat something.

I just need to make it until June 8th and than I will be a real human being again and not a grad student.

I Am So Tired

Rachel Not Rebecca — Mon, 14 May 2007 15:12:00 +0000

Up till 2:00 reading Waltz & Sagan.

From now until May 31, nuclear strategy owns my life. Then, until June 5, my life is owned by US-Asia relations, more nuclear strategy, and conventional warfare/Iraq.

I’d like to claim that my life will be owned by nothing after that, but I’m go to be a ball of anxiety until I find a job. But either way, my academic career will be over in a little over three weeks. (or WILL it?!? Stay tuned for at least a year’s more hedging on to PhD or not to PhD!)

Between Order & Exception: Carl Schmitt & The War on Terror

Rachel Not Rebecca — Fri, 04 May 2007 18:51:00 +0000

Number of (un)intentional all-nighters [rough draft included]: 5
Number of times I changed the title of the project: 6 (see the final title above)
Number of times I considered the project a complete failure: probably about 5-6. I think I only cried over it once though.
Number of drafts I’ve saved because I’m neurotic/paranoid: 58

Being done with my thesis, by the deadline for June graduation, as I wanted to all along: Priceless.

It was worth all the anti-socialness. It was worth the intimidating of the brilliant advisor. It was worth skipping class for meeting with said advisor. It was worth the mess my apartment is, buried in journal articles and books and empty cans of seltzer & energy drink (I actually took a picture of my desk last night, to capture the outrageousness)

This has been an exhilirating process of 11th hour epiphanies. I started this project feeling pretty meh, just trying to find ANYTHING that could relate to Carl Schmitt, because it would make the whole “topic/advisor” thing infinitely easier. I initially wanted to kick my own ass for chosing to write on the war on terror. And then something clicked. And then something else clicked. And its turned into a really awesome project.

The thesis is in. And now I promise never to speak of Carl Schmitt again!

Jon Stewart: Still The Thinking Woman’s Sex Symbol

Rachel Not Rebecca — Wed, 25 Apr 2007 17:33:00 +0000

This is a post to say that I’m alive and overwhelmed and I can’t talk about anything but my thesis. However, Jon Stewart basically articulated one of the main points I’m using in a section of my paper and that made me happy.
I’m too youtube inept to find and link to the video of this, but he basically cut back and forth between things Bush said before we invaded Iraq and things Bush says now. One of them comes down to “So wait. We invaded a stable Iraq to get rid of Saddam Hussein. And now we have to stay…to solve the problems…caused by…getting rid of Saddam Hussein.”

Because we shouldn’t have invaded when there was no security threat, especially because we’ve just caused more of security threat (instability in the Middle East = bad. Insurgency attacking American troops = bad) And Schmitt would be like “dude. the purpose of the exception is to RESTORE security, not cause more of a threat.” And then he would go off with his friends and they would sneer about how stupid Bush is. I figure Schmitt did a lot of sneering since he was pretty self-righteous and misanthropic.

Carl Schmitt is My Nazi Boyfriend

Rachel Not Rebecca — Sat, 21 Apr 2007 22:50:00 +0000

It’s a beautiful day. Don’t let it get away.

Besides my distrust/discomfort with perfectly weathered days such as this one, I’m afraid I also have to ignore Bono’s plantative suggestion because I am spending the whole day inside with my fascist boyfriend. It’s not as enjoyable as it sounds. I DO have on a very pretty colored tank top — it’s all about the little things. Plus, I need to look really cute to make up for the fact that I’m Jewish — my fascist boyfriend lets that go because I have a German last name, and lets face it, how many other chicks are going to defend him. Oh wow — way too close to my MO for comfort, anyway, back to the real purpose of this entry: procrastination!

Based on a one sentence suggestion from my advisor, I did a new search on this OTHER aspect of Schmitt and now I have a dozen new articles to at least skim. Which means none of my IR reading will get done and I have a short policy paper worth 33% of my grade that I will have to work on next week and that makes me nervous.

With all that’s going on its very likely I’ll spend the next two weeks being rather bipolar, because already its like one minute I think my thesis is great and its going to work out and no problem, the next I’m like “How can I possibly understand Carl Schmitt when half of what he’s written hasn’t been translated from German (and thus, half the commentaries are in another language) and how can I think I can apply him in this manner when almost every other scholar on Schmitt would say my thesis is crazy, including my advisor. And my advisor is a GENIUS on the subject and sometimes I suspect that he thinks I”m a complete moron!” (My advisor thinks I have a well structured argument, and at one point even described it as “provacative” but he does disagree with it.)

Other than those moments of abject panic though, I’m pretty much okay. I’m excited that I’ll have my thesis in before my birthday, and an MA in my hand less than 3 weeks after I turn 24. 24 sounds both very old and very young to me. This isn’t where I imagined I’d be at 24, even when I was 20 I would never have predicted this particular future; I feel old because when I’m bored, I do a myspace search on high school classmates and so many of them are engaged/married. Or I feel old because I knew I was going to go to grad school, so I got a job instead of starting a “career” after college, and now in some ways I feel two years behind my college classmates. On the other hand when I lived in New York, most of my acquintences through Astorians, LC, etc were 5-10 years older than me; I believe I was the baby of the Astorians. So it’s like, I still have all this time. I don’t see myself “settled” anytime soon,

I’m still torn on the future; part of me wants a PhD. Part of me thinks I’d be miserable. The part of me that wants a PhD is also torn; do I want to apply this fall for PhD admission in Fall 08′? Or do I want to spend a couple years in the real world, do something else because academia/anticipating academia? If I get my PhD, I’d like to have it before I’m 35. I don’t know. I’d also like to live somewhere/do something for longer than a year. I’m sick of moving. I’m sick of not being settled. But on the other hand, a PhD program WOULD settle me someplace for 6 years, at least. And yet I am remarkably without ennui. I don’t have a Plan, I just have a startiling amount of confidence that I’ll figure it out.

Being able to write something happy is nice. And now that that exercise of procrastination is complete I’m going to go enjoy the nice walk home, do some minor cleaning on my disaster of an apartment, and read up on what my legal theorists have been saying about my boyfriend lately.

The Question Isn’t Who’s Going to Let Me. It’s Who’s Going to Stop Me

Rachel Not Rebecca — Wed, 11 Apr 2007 21:43:00 +0000

So here you are, in the ninth
Two men out and three men on
Nowhere to look, but inside
Where we all respond to PRESSURE
-Billy <3

I have fifteen minutes before my next class, and it isn’t as if I’d get anything done in those 15 minutes, so…
I also skipped my last two classes to work on my thesis. Oops. They’re big classes though, so it doesn’t matter.

So after a meeting on Monday and a meeting on Tuesday I basically walked down the hall back to my office, got online and screeched “I JUST FIGURED OUT WHAT’S MISSING IN MY THESIS!!!!” Unfortunately, I found this out a mere 72 hours before the deadline, so my heart has been pumping and my brain racing since then. I didn’t sleep last night — I didn’t mean to pull an all nighter; I tried to fall asleep on two seperate occasions, but my brain was just raising, clarifying my ideas in my head, trying to organize things, and so I finally gave up. I’ve been up 30 hours and counting — it took me a little bit of staring at the clock to calculate that. I am carrying around approximately 20 books and 50 journal articles related to Carl Schmitt. After class I need to put in another hour’s work on the thesis, go home and nap wake up around midnight and then no sleep till its done. I wanted to be a total overachiever and turn it in early (It’s due 11:59 PM on Friday) but it’ll probably get in Friday morning instead of the Wednesday-Thursday-at-the-latest I was aiming for. Because of my epiphany I think I’m going to have to sacrifice good writing throughout for a couple strong sections and hopefully a well-chained argument. I’ve never been so nervous about turning a paper in .

I’d like to say that I’ll be celebrating this weekend since my paper will be in, but really I’ll just be catching up on all the reading I didn’t do while I was in “omg, re-write 3/4 of my thesis in 72 hours!” mode.

Help.

A Nazi-Like Level of Productivity

Rachel Not Rebecca — Sat, 03 Mar 2007 19:36:00 +0000

On a side note, I have been on live journal for four years. That’s a lot of my life on the internet.

I couldn’t sleep last night, so I wound up talking to Brent until three in the morning. Even after I fell asleep, I woke up several times. Still, I managed to get up by 9:30, put laundry in, eat breakfast and continue work on one of my final papers. By noon, I had twice as many pages then I started with, bringing me up to 16, which is good for a first draft. I still need to do massive editing and rearranging, but my research is basically done and I’ve pulled probably 95% of the quotes I need. So, yay!

My habit of leaving clothes/books/papers everywhere is catching up to me again. I have managed to lose a CD containing all the episodes of It’s Always Sunny and Philadelphia. I also fear that I have lost my art book from junior year, which is not replaceable. In searching for the art book I did manage to find my black turtleneck. I also discovered that I ruined the shirt I was wearing when I cleaned my kitchen last week. Bleach and navy do not go well together.

I have a meeting on Monday to talk about the progress I’ve made thus far on my thesis. I’m happy with what I’ve done so far, but these meetings are also intimidating in the “you-are-the-expert-on-Schmitt-and-thus-everything-I-say-is-silly-and-unoriginal-and-unsophisticated.” Well, maybe not unoriginal, since I am one of the only one idiotic enough to claim that the theorist most likely to be portrayed as a war-monger would not support the war on terror.

Overall though, I think I am in much better shape now than I was at this time last quarter. I basically have almost everything I need down on paper, its just a matter of making it more nuanced, and in the case of my silly liberalism paper, integrating some more Mill.

So now I’m going to go edit my LRS/Thesis draft and maybe if I’m feeling really ambitious I’ll pick up all the loose change on my floor. (I throw my change in a mug at the end of the day. I knocked over said mug a few days ago. The change has slowly spread everywhere.)

Edited Aha! I just opened one of my desk drawers hoping to find the CD and I found the art book. This means I don’t have to clean my closet in search of it!

PS, I’m Awesome

Rachel Not Rebecca — Thu, 15 Feb 2007 22:53:00 +0000

1) Today, I got out of class, and the sky was bright blue and all the U Chicago faux-Gothic architecture looked so-so pretty against the cobalt background and I thought “This doesn’t happen much, but right now I’m so happy to be right here.” Because my class had just gone well (yay for making several relevant points) and so I felt smart. Then I had a great meeting with my precept regarding classes for next quarter, paper topics, and my thesis. It is times like this when I think I want to still do the PhD thing. We’ll see. No Plan, for now.

2) I officially have paper topics for my two political science classes. Guess what, I’m suckered into writing about feminism again! Favorite-Professor-From-College was right when she warned me that, as a female theorist, I’d always be pushed towards feminist theory. But unlike my defense of Marxist feminism last quarter, I’m not going to sell out on this one. I’m going to critique ‘sameness’ feminism in JS Mill through the lens of Diderot. A giant ‘fuck you’ to Judith Butler.

3) I have pages written on my thesis! Not good pages, but things on paper nonetheless.

4) I have kind of done a 180 on my attitude about my precept since last quarter. I feel like a sell-out on that, but whatever. Today, he was talking about how he just finished reading MAPSS applications for next year and it reminded me that even though I am a PhD reject, I still completely and totally beat the admissions odds to get in to this program and so I felt smart for that too.

Other than that, I am sick, yet again and all I want to do is sleep all weekend. And this burst of good mood-ness is probably attributed to post-last-weekend-giddiness, so it is entirely possible I am only imagining my current good will towards University of Chicago. At any rate, I’m still on a good course to finish this stupid program in June, and go do something else.

…except now I’m thinking about doing a PhD program.

Whatever. As a woman, I reserve the right to change my mind.

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.)