Well. It’s almost 2006. I have survived a full year in the real world, and six months in the City. That right there is pretty damn good. This year is kind of a blur in a way 2004 wasn’t, because so much happened, but it doesn’t feel like it. Because I feel as if it’s been this way forever, and I say that in an entirely neutral way.

Anyway, I’m not big on New Year’s Eve, nor do I believe in New Year’s Resolutions, but these are things that I would like to commit to or work on or whatever. It is more of a “To Do” list then anything else, but it is purposeful. Starting January 3rd, I will re-dedicate myself to self-improvement. Or smtg.

-Drink less.

-Figure out the living situation by January 15

-Finish my grad school applications by January 15

-Commit to the 50 Books a Year thing and be hardcore about it. I’m already doing the “Three Books a Month: One serious non-fiction, one serious fiction, fiction/non-serious non-fiction.” I definitely read 50 Books a Year, but this is if you count things like re-reading The Little House on the Prairie box set and mass market chick-lit. Some book bloggers say these would count, but some don’t so I don’t know if they should be included in the total. Wow, I’m really neurotic. Maybe I should try and do 100 books? I don’t know. I want to read everything. Whenever I go to The Strand and look at the tables full of cheap Oxford World classics I think that I should read them all. Like, I think I should go to The Strand after work and purchase several of them. Which I won’t do, because I’m moving and the last thing I need is MORE books to move. But then I want the entire history section in my living room. And then I have this fear of not being well-read or educated enough for grad school, because I’ve still never read The Republic all the way through. But now I have the Bloom translation. So I have to read it. And continue to refer to one of the speakers as “That Thrashy guy”

-Stop going on rants about reading books and intellectual insecurity because I will be fine in grad school because I’m going to get a fully-funded ride at Rutgers, and study with a Tocqueville scholar and write about the ways in which women in an aristocracy were better off than women in democracies. Sebastian will get credit, since he gave me the idea last December at the Parting Glass gathering.

-Read the Economist more often.  Each one of those should count as a book. There are so many words! You couldn’t get away with that in an American magazine. Oh the Brits!

-Commit to doing more stuff in The City. This month it’s the Museum of Natural History. I’m going on Sunday. Anyone who wants to join is welcome.

-Eat actual meals, maybe even meals with Nutritional Value. Doritos are not a meal. Salsa is a condiment, not a food.

And that’s all I can think of right now. And I get out of work in twenty minutes anyway. So Happy New Year and all that nonsense.

My younger wiser sibling is off to the amazing University of Chicago. (And I reiterate, he rejected his acceptances to Yale, Princeton, and Columbia for them. He has done me proud.)

So I want to offer him so advice, because no matter how wise he is, I’m still his older, cooler sister.

1. Don’t smoke up when you’re already drunk. You will get horrendously dizzy and wake up with a hangover, and you will want to die.
2. Don’t take any classes with the word “Gender” in them
3. Coffee is great. But remember to eat, because sitting in class shaking from caffeine highs and lows just isn’t cool.
4. Allan Bloom was right.
5. While there may be no such thing as a free lunch, you should go to campus events that have free food and horde it.
6. Don’t lead girls on. It’s just not nice.
7. Remember to tip the pizza delivery guy, because there is probably no job more horrible. (Liberal guilt!)
8. Don’t become a hippie. Or a hipster. Or a filthy socialists I’ll never forgive you
9. Keep the PhD in sarcasm to yourself for about a month. Everyone’s walking on eggshells. Although UChicago may be different from Camp Hamp/Skidmore
10. Call me sometimes, because you will totally miss me whining to you about my boy problems and debating about participles.

I’m sitting on my balcony, looking at the skyline, thinking ‘blaaaah, I don’t want to go to work tomorrow’ and not wanting to study for the GREs, and well, I love lists, so:

What I Learned On My Summer Vacation

Or What I Learned In The Process of Job Searching, Apartment Hunting, Moving, and Other Assorted Growing Up Adventures

1) The Job Search is often a number games. Where you got your BA doesn’t matter. What you majored in matters even less. It is a matter of sending out hundreds of resumes, going on dozens on interviews, and even fewer second interviews. I am very, very lucky to have landed a job at a place I actually want to work.

2) New York is fucking hot in the summer

3) I can only like, (I mean, like, like) a guy maybe one every two-three years. I was trying to explain to a friend of mine who goes through men, well, rather frequently, that I just don’t LIKE most guys.  I get Serious-All-Consuming Crushes once every few years. And then they last and last until I either make him fall madly in love with me, or wind up getting rejected. And even after I get rejected I tend to hold on to Serious-All-Consuming-Crush until something new comes along and distracts me. Which happens maybe once every two to three years.

4) No matter how bad a day was, when you wake up the next morning and can see the sun rise over the Hudson, life is pretty damn good

5) Williamsburg and Park Slope, while “nice” are full of hipsters, which remind me too much of Hampshire students to live there. I live in Jersey City, fuck the stigma, my apartment is nicer and cheaper than anything I saw in either of those neighborhoods.

6) I have a little world for myself in Saratoga that welcomes me with open arms whenever I want to make the drive up there.

7) The cliché “sometimes it’s holding on that makes you strong. Sometimes it’s letting go,” is very true. It isn’t easy to do, but sometimes it’s the only thing you can do. Hobbes was completely right.

My best friend knows me disgustingly well. Actually, I already knew this, but I was reminded of it a lot this summer.

9) Hell is the 14th Street PATH station at three in the morning when its 100 degrees and insanely humid out. And you’re very, very drunk.

10) That I will be able to befriend random guys whereever I go because of my ability to take a shot of cheap vodka without flinching.

11) That I might actually want to go to school in Texas, because I love going to country-music bars

12) There are way too many pretty people in New York, and this makes me feel extraordinarily ugly on a regular basis

13) I discovered Strand bookstore, and I feel uneducated wandering through the history section there because there are just SO MANY books that I have not read.

14) I belong in academia. This real world this is a good experiment, a good test, if you will, a good way to make me appreciate academia, when I make a triumphant return to it’s hallowed halls in Fall 2006. I belong in academia, be it at Columbia or in Texas or Oregon or where ever and I will not let the fact that one person told me he saw me climbing the NYC  ladder affect my choices, because clearly, he had no clue who I was anyway.

15) I need to focus. Fall is for new beginnings. So here’s to a lot of GRE studying, Grad school applications, going out and being social, and reading all those books I bought.

Because my friends have been very good with the “Don’t worry, you WILL find a job,” (although it hasn’t happened yet, and I’m nervous and panicky and worried and, and, and…!!!) these are some other things that WILL happen.

WILL happen

Graduation/Birthday Weekend Recap

-got to Saratoga Thursday night
-was still in my work clothes. Sebastian commented that I looked great, so thus I proved to him that I do indeed “rock” a suit and heels. We went to Scotty’s. We talked and caught up.
-Sebastian and I are both nostalgic, so I’m allowed to be maudlin
-Back to Fain C, conversation with Leah, a little drinking, some writing, 
-picking up honors tassels, visiting a non-gov’t professor, hanging out in the gov’t dept lounge writing job applications
-sitting on a bench with Sebastian, being told by him “Yeah, but you’re more a Portia, then a Miranda.” Laughing hysterically at this comparison – Shakespeare’s Political Wisdom indeed
-Gov’t Dept Reception with the parents: hearing my professors say wonderful things about me, talking with my two favorite professors for over an hour, being told by my favorite professor that I am “glowing”
-talking about grad school programs with gov’t professors who assure me I will get in, and I will get funded, and I will be an attractive PhD candidate
-being owed a beer
-The department chair telling me he cited my paper in a presentation he gave. I AM A FOOTNOTE
-dinner with my parents: they’re proud of me!
-out with Xina for a beer at DA’s – this is becoming tradition
-another drive-by, for old time’s sake, without Escape playing
-hugging Xina good-bye at the end of the night
-babbling until 3 AM on AIM about how awesome everything is
-picking up Xina for graduation, a little music, a little freaking out
-having Matt fix our hoods
-transfer girl picture
-walking at graduation, with Xina, who has been with me since Day One at Skidmore College
-some speech at graduation made me cry, I don’t remember which one now, but it was something about how you will have lows, and you will have pain, and you will have times where nothing goes right, but it is up to you to change that
-wearing my honors tassels, and my pi sigma alpha cord
-walking with all the transfer girls
-pics with all the transfer girls
-saying “3.5” every time someone said “four years” with Xina
-graduating with Kristen, who I have known for EIGHTEEN years
-hugging a seemingly non-huggable professor as we recessed at graduation
-getting a hug from Sebastian: “I’ll conform to your country’s etiquette”
-phone call from favorite professor
-hilarious card from younger, wiser, sibling
-getting to SLEEP
-driving home, relevant lyrics
-birthday dinner with Xina
-writing “You are hot!!!”
 -Birthday drinks with Xina and Michael
-Singing Eve 6
-floor sitting

Some things

–I am bored. I just got back from lunch and I know the afternoon is going to be endless. I’m tired and I’m convinced my hair still smells like smoke even though I showered when I got home from last night.

–Because I go out on Thursday nights now. Because I am acting like a college student.

–I have to do laundry when I get home because my smoke-infused clothes infected the rest of my clothes. I have nothing to say.

–And it’s Friday the 13^th! Happy Friday the 13^th! I should rent Part VI tonight – it is my favorite, favorite Jason movie.

–I need to get a dress for graduation. I need to find one of the three dresses in the world that de-emphazies my freakish hips. I hate dresses, and I hate dress shopping.

Nothing of Particular Interest

.

I just made a Wizard of Oz reference. I must be gravely ill.

Firstly, I realize that my LJ has completely declined into too much of a real journal — too “personal-y” and at times unapologetically sappy, or maudlin.

That’s why if you want to read something I’ve written that’s relevant or passably intelligent, you should read my very rudimentary, still a work-in-progress blog

The LJ will remain for schlok and countdowns.

Anyway.

The weekend was wonderful, and awesome, and filled with pretty weather, and laughing, and goodgood conversation.

Ten Things To Do in Ten Days

1) Drive my favorite aimless drive route

2) Spend the day hanging around the government department doing work

3) Uncommon Grounds for superior cappucino with Di

4) Confessional Drive

5) Parting Glass with the former reading group

6) Scotty’s with the misanthropes

7) Celebrate graduating with Xina with ridiculously expensive dinner

Trip to Dunkin Donuts after midnight

9) Jersey coffee with Kristen

10) Smoke cloves on my back porch, write insanely long essay on “Three-Point-Five-Years”

Take finals, graduate, pack, drive home

And live happily ever after.

Things I Don’t Want to Do

-Go to my Tuesday/Thursday classes (4 more)

-Write my Tocqueville paper (I’m like, not sure, if like, I GRASP what like, Tocqueville’s argument about equality is, like, do you know what I mean, like?/ NO. I DON’T LIKE, KNOW WHAT YOU MEAN, LIKE!)

-Study for my Middle Eastern Politics final. Because I haven’t done any of the reading. All semester. Oh, it’s just like Comp Pol…

-Drink anymore “Silver Tequilla.” It gives me a headache

The Plan for Next “Semester”

-German classes, yay!

-TESOL certification

-40 hours @ cafe.

-Going stir crazy in Jersey, finding teaching job in Austria, Italy, or Germany.

So, at this time next year I’ll be in Europe.

Tis hard to be back in the frozen North Country (as 100.3, THE POINT calls it) after a long, enjoyable weekend in Jersey. The air pollution keeps in the warm air.

This weekend:

-Wrote an insane amount for NaNo, taking my book in a new direction. And now it has a title!
-Climbed into my freezing cold attic wearing high heeled boots while tipsy to retrieve my high school yearbook to look something up and win a bet
-my high school picture reminds me I used to be a blonde. Ug
-Watched “Love, Actually”
-cried at the “To Me, You Are Perfect” part
-and the part where Emma Thompson confronts her husband about cheating
-Was accused of being a sap for aforementioned crying
-Duh
-This is why I prefer to watch my girly movies (I Capture the Castle, Eternal Sunshine, assorted Mandy Moore movies, among others) alone. Because I like to maintain my image as tough as nails

-Recieved Newsweek with Bush’s face on it. My parent’s arrived home:
Me: Oh yeah, and we got Newsweek. It has Bush’s smug face on the cover
Dad: Put it in the recycling
Me: I already did.
-Advised Jon that he should totally give up computer engineering and become a male Asian model
-Was hit by Jon for suggestion
-Got amazing, high class brunch food
-Made appeals to the Divine
-Cooked an insane amount
-Chilled with the cats, with a drink and some Dostoyevsky.
-Read bunches of essays, found authors I want to emulate
-Researched grad school programs, envisaged myself 35 and already a completely insane history professor
-Drove through deserted suburban streets
-Diner dwelled
-Fought with pillows. And my fists!
-Slept with all the lights on
-Kicked
-Insulted people
-Was read to

I love my Jersey weekends.

-It’s raining here. Remnants of Hurricane Ivan. Appropriate since much of my Russian reading this week has been Ivan III (The Great) and Ivan IV (The Terrible). Russian names sound so threatening and evil.
-”Drinking Green Mountain coffee is virtuous [because it's fair trade coffee]. You’re not addicted to caffeine. You’re addicted to helping people get fair pay for growing coffee.” – Modern Political Thought on Wednesday.

-Saratoga has the oldest operating race track in the country. That’s because after the Battle of Saratoga George Washington was like “We have all these ponies…lets have them run around in a circle and people can bet on them.” Yes. Ponies.- my brilliant housemate

-Buckley and Beer. And Baseball!

-I want to go to Russia. Or Italy.

Friday night, I was lucky enough to have a EuroSim reunion with some of the coolest Model EU people ever. Like plenary sessions, I kept track of all the brilliance.

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The Rachel and Christina Drive to Jersey Extravaganza

Last night:
“There’s no crying at Skidmore!”

“You’re still up?!?” “I’m eating cereal at 3AM. Mostly because I’m hungry, but also because I want to spite Brent”

Today:
Drive thru windows!

“Are you feeling crippled today?”

And THAT is why the Lord created men (the song too)

The guy with the weird hair…they won’t even let him look up.
Keyboards are SO 80s!

“It’s that orange truck again, it’s coming to get you”

They’re selling doctors? Isn’t that illegal?

Proof Xina and I could never have been friends in high school: she liked the Back-street Boys, and now it’s posted here for everyone to see, and mock. (And she led a contingent against a group of N’Sync fans, and she knows the names of all the Back-Street Boys)

In regards to “The Sign” (Ace of Base, yo) There is a tunnel of bad pop music that goes from Sweden to the US. But it’s still relevant!

Liz Phair ‘sold out.’

“Rachel is an institution” –Xina
New plan: Just like Caesar wasn’t a title until after Julius Caesar died, I am going to take over the world, and then after I’m assassinated, my name will be a title for ruler. That would rock.

EZ-Pass GO! ‘Jersey beats New York! Jersey beats New York!’

Crossing the border into Jersey and playing “Livin’ On a Prayer”

God Bless PLJ

Sweet home New Jersey
Where the skies are so gray