A year ago,  it was my last weekend in the city before I left for grad school. Last summer, as I have stated before, I reveled in the romanticism of being an unhindered 20-something in the city. I was empowered. More than ever, I was breaking out of old habits. The term social butterfly was tailor made for me, last summer. I loved my life, and I spent the last weekend celebrating, and trying not to get too sad over the fact that once I left things would never be the same. The Astorians threw me a party the Friday before I left. Saturday night was a mish-mash of old friends, PLI-ers, misc. people and unexpected guest. Sunday was choice encounters with Jill-IAN, and then Astorians. It was a perfect weekend to cap off a perfect summer.

Of course, I’m also realistic enough to know that one of the reasons last summer was so amazing because I knew it was temporary. I wouldn’t have “lived my life like a dream” if it wasn’t. (I’m quoting the REM song “Leavng New York” song there, which I listened to 12 million times) I don’t expect to have a summer like that anytime soon, because the last comprable one was seven years prior.

So it’s not wonder that after that summer, I crashed when I got to Chicago, and felt like the rug had been pulled out from under my feet and panicked. If I stayed in New York, I never could have sustained such perfection and wonderfulness and etc, and I know that. But it still sucked to get to UChicago and not automatically be thrilled and happy and exhilirated with the opportunity to be studying with brilliant people. Things even went pretty well and I was being relatively social and stuff, but I just didn’t CARE about most of my classes.

I was a pretty big mess the first quarter. And I just didn’t care enough about school; that’s what made me start to realize a PhD was not for me. I knew on the surface level that it was pretty awesome that my thesis advisor was a famous expert on the subject, but really? It didn’t matter to me. I didn’t “take advantage of the opportunity.” I just did what I needed to do, and that was enough for me. The best thing I could do for myself was throw myself into my thesis and get the hell out of there. And it worked. I graduated in June like I wanted to. I have no regrets about how I handled the year. I am so grateful to be out of Chicago, because I felt like I was suffocating there.

Now, a year after I left, I have my Masters and I have a job (this time, one I actually want.) and I can’t wait to get back to Astoria. I was sitting on the N train, waiting to pull out of the Ditmars station and its just  beautiful. Hell Gate Bridge in the background, cars rushing down the Triborough in the foreground, and signs in four different languages and there is just no way this will ever not be an awe inspiring view to me. This may sell me out on ever being a “true New Yorker” (how deep do Jersey roots run?) but I may as well enjoy it, because every time I travel out to Astoria, I’m anxious to get there, and when i step out of the subway station, I feel home.

I was not panicked when I left New York a year ago, because I knew it was “the right thing to do.” To turn down a scholarship to an MA program at UChicago would have been “irrational.” I still don’t feel it was the wrong decision, because I don’t feel I’ve lost anything by going. And sure, I’m probably romanticizing how awesome its going to be to move back to Astoria and get back into my life there and in the city. But whatever it is, I’m happy its happening. I’m happy things have gone this way.

So, it’s been a while.

I’m still not in a writing mood, but I should have some news very, very soon.

At least for a couple of days.

I realize, I’ve basically been anticipating this day since I found out the date the rough draft was due some time back in September. April 13th has been like, a touchstone. Oh touchstone’s the wrong word, but don’t look at me: I’ve gotten about 7 hours of sleep in the past 72 hours, I’m a little out of sorts.

“So if your thesis is due tomorrow, what do you do for the rest of the quarter?” my brother asked me last night.
“Well this is just the rough draft, we get comments on it and then we turn in the final on May 4th.”
He asked the question that anyone not associated with my program has been asking “…so then why are you obsessing if its just a rough draft.”

Move over Tocqueville!

I’m thesising away, trying to get thirty pages worth at least on paper so I have plenty of time to edit, move around paragraphs, make things click, etc. I have some major reading on the state of exception that I have thus far neglected to do, which is somewhat of a nagging-stressing thing. It should still turn out okay though, I think.

I have been spectacularly anti-social since the end of classes. First, it was that I had final papers due earlier than most people. Then, everyone else was working on final papers, and I was done. Then, my parents were here. Then, I just felt very anti-social, and holed up and was unproductive. I feel much better now though.

I am looking forward to my IR focused classes this quarter. I’m officially signed up for Terrorism, but I know I’m going to have to petition to stay in anyway. I’m hoping the fact that my thesis title includes the phrase “war on terror” and uses the word “terrorism” about 100 times will earn me a spot.

Grades are supposed to be up, but I”m still missing a grade. I know there’s no way I got an incomplete and/or failed, so I’m wondering what gives. Okay, back to work. Have I mentioned I love Carl Schmitt? He’s such a drama queen! In bemoaning the possible rise of unipolar world order he says “the last round, the final step, in the terrible rings to a new nomos of the Earth!” Yeah, take that liberal internationalism!

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.

This is just a post to say I am overwhelmed. Not neccesarily by work. Just by things. But it might be a good kind of overwhelmed soon.

I found a contradiction. So I’m checking my premises. Isn’t it obnoixous that I quote Rand (who is herself obnoxious) so shamelessly?

While I am quoting Rand, I am going to post one of my most favorite passage in possibly all of literature.

“She felt no anger toward anyone on earth. The things she had endured had now receded into some outer fog, like pain that still exists but has no power to hurt. Those things could not stand in the face of this moment’s reality, the meaning of this day was as brilliantly violently clear as the splashes of sun on the silver of the engine, all men had to perceive it now, no one could doubt it and she had no one to hate. ”

Thus concludes my shameless Rand-quoting. But since I know there is one other person in the world who can tell me exactly where in the book this comes from, I am not alone in my obsession.

Brent can’t tell me where this is from, but he does know that Charles Monet was a loner.

“The ability to make references that less than three people will get is a sign of talent”-Kevin

I ran a bunch of errands for my mom today, which required navigating through various suburban locales (in my mother’s car, which is rather unwieldy) and cursing the traffic. Just as I was in the middle of an internal rage about downtown Ridgewood (which I stupidly decided to drive through after missing the turn for Glen Avenue when everyone who grew up in the FLOW area should know that you shouldn’t go through downtown Ridgewood to get to Route 17) JBJ’s “Who Says You Can’t Go Home” came on the radio.

I took it as a sign that I should appreciate Jersey things, got some chai, and then managed to merge onto 17 in the stupid, unweildy car without having heart failure. There were lots of rageful drivers and flourishing commerce.

I also had thin crust pizza for lunch. I love New Jersey.

I had set aside today to work on my thesis proposal. It is not happening.

Things I Have Done So Far This Break Instead of Writing my Thesis Proposal

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I’ve gotten to talk briefly with both Laura and Sebastian this week; so good to catch up with the Original Misanthropes. Both of them are applying to UChicago at some point (Sebastian this year) so I’ve been dispensing advice on that front, and since Sebastian will obviously get in here, he’ll probably be visiting in April, yay! Sebastian is the one of the smartest people I know and very awesome; he entered Skidmore on a full scholarship demanding he be pre-med. Then he met Political-Theory-Professor, joined our drunken reading group, and got a government major in addition to the pre-med thing. Now he’s ditching med school for the ivory tower and I cannot image a better future colleague.

I remember how to do stats-math. You know, I don’t think I’m a total idiot in math. I think having BAD teachers 6th and 7th grade combined with my general disinterest meant I never got into the subject, never paid attention, and never tried. But I’m looking over the curriculum for quantative methods and I don’t know what my advisor meant when he said I needed a calculus background. This stuff is straight out of senior year sped math. I’m assuming you COULD use calculus formulas/methods that I’m not aware of to solve some of these problems, but I’ve been getting the right answers on the practice tests so I’m obviously doing something right.

I can be pretty arrogant about my own intelligence (defense mechanism much?) but on the other hand, it is weird realizing I may not be as stupid as I thought.

And my final paper topic got approved in my Schmitt class, so I am 1/3 of the way towards having my thesis topic approved. Or maybe 1/4. I can’t decide.

The amount of coffee I have consumed in the past 48 hours is disturbing. I was up until 2 AM the past two nights just thinking about academic nonsense.

Michael gets here in a week, and than I will have some sanity.

Wednesday I forced myself up early to edit my Midterm. Around 11 AM I hit the “I can’t do anything more about it” mindset, printed it out and turned it in. Then I went off to attempt to read for my Thursday class; I didn’t even bother to try and read any of the Foucault for my Interpretive Methods class. (And, because of Feminist Political Thought with Favorite-Professor, I knew enough about Foucault to still speak up in that class today. Thanks Skidmore-Government Department!)

There was a pizza & beer party for our program, but I didn’t stay long. I had some free wine, talked to some poly-sci people within my program, and then went home and returned the phone calls I’d ignored the past few days.

I talked to Jill-IAN tonight, and while we were on the phone she got a call from Drucifer, who she hasn’t seen since recently leaving our Workplace, and it occured to me that it is not so much that I miss him, but I do miss the three of us together. We were a team. When I think about all we did this summer together, I get sad because I have no equivalent here, and I miss them, and I miss New York, and I am thinking of our last night in Brooklyn and how whole I felt. I grant that I’m closer to Jill-IAN than Drew, and she would say the same for me, but we both love him for his no-BS advice, among other things. … What I wouldn’t give right now for a night at 3JP.

At my 2nd good-bye party (yeah, did I ever mention that? I had TWO going away parties because I became such a social-fucking-butterfly in New York…I don’t get it either) I pulled Drew and Jill aside for a second just because I needed a moment to formally recognize the awesomeness of our dynamic and friendship or something. I am lame.

I’m not neccesarily happy, overall, with the way things are going here in Chicago. But I am extraordinarily grateful for the best support system in the world.

I haven’t changed the time on my laptop to reflect Midwestern time. I have lived in the Northeast all my life (except for summer abroad) and so I am not into this whole “Central Time Zone” thing. It means the Daily Show comes on at 10 and that I have to remember to call my friends back home at eight-something my time, because it’s already 9-something there, and I don’t want to call too late.

They have various beers here that one cannot find in the Northeast. I’m sure there are brands of stuff that you can’t find here, but I haven’t noticed yet. Also, the Co-op by me takes off 5% if you bag your own groceries. I found this out because I made a big shopping trip, politely told the bagger I would bag my own stuff (it was my career for three years. I bag groceries better than you. Trust me. Also, I still remember a lot of produce codes) and found I got nearly $8 off. Eight dollars is important when you’re a student. I just spent an obscene amount of money on books for class.

Other Things:
There are imported squirrels here
There is a brand of soda called “Wildwood.” It tastes like RC Cola. They also make seltzer, orange soda, etc.
Different brands of bottled water than home
People are weirdly friendly. Like when we were driving out here, the toll collectors on the Ohio and Indiana Turnpikes were really happy and friendly. And the hotel people at the Ramada were friendly and not snooty.

I’m sure I will notice lots of other quirks. Right now though I am really, really tired and am going to go back to my apartment and take a nap. In the middle of the day. I like being a student.

Dusk is beginning to fall over Hyde Park and I’m high on life and a few plastic glasses of wine. (At college orientation they feed you. At grad school orientation they ply you with booze so you forget you have no income and 300 pages of reading.) Michael’s called me twice in the past week and so I finally return his call.

 I fill him in on the past few days, and he tells me again how different I sound on the phone “Different from a year ago…and totally different then five years ago.”
“Yeah. I’ve decided Hampshire Rachel is officially dead.”

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I’m safely in Chicago (and I guess I need a Chicago icon since I have half a dozen NY/Astoria ones) and the drive was not as bad as I thought. I have no internets in my apartment but that will be solved on Friday. My apartment is small, but perfectly adequete for one person and all mine. Um. I have a lot to write about but I’m standing at a computer in Reynolds Club and my brother is waiting for me so he can show me Chicago public transportation so this will have to wait.

Now I have to go get used to buses instead of subways.

And now I’m back at work, not doing data entry, and grumbling on Astorians about the power issues.