i'll take a cup of kindness yet for auld lang syne

GOOD RIDDANCE, 2009.

I look forward to throwing off the chains of the old decade and beginning the new.  Peace out, wretched 00s and your self-important exposé.  Adieu, you mongrel of a year with your sensationalisms, heartbreak, furor, and upset.  You have outworn your welcome, 2009.

And WELCOME, newest of years.  Cheers to a fresh new decade upon which to make our mark, our moment in history, our next major life changes.  Here's to our generation's next ten years, carefully paved by our last with caution, volatilism, and heart.  In our last ten years we survived Y2K, 9/11, Katrina, swine flu, and economic crisis; in our next may we exercise our new tools of persistence, hope, love, and a belief our ability to create a better tomorrow.

In lieu of resolutions, choose changes.  Seek those moments in which you feel fulfilled, strong, and passionate; pursue them.  Pay attention to those strengths you've forgotten you possess; remind yourself how strong you've been, will be, and can be for yourself and others.  Find moments of being, and just be.  Breathe, rest, and do that which will bring you closer, more intimately connected to your neighbors.
Choose to reuse, recycle, reduce.  Make creative choices over consumerist ones.  Celebrate a quieter space of life: cook more, laugh more, talk more, plant more, save more, live more.
Filter more.  Turn off technology more.  Choose local news, visit local parks, meet neighbors for coffee at a local shop.  Listen more.
Love more.

Welcome, 2010.  You've been a long time coming.

it's like ComicCon, but for lit students. and i will never tire of calling it that.

The Sched.

Tuesday
8pm: Played a real life Virginian for a WHOLE WEEK.  Cheers to warm weather, sweet Southern people, and a whole lotta family.

Sunday
7am: Hugged my favorite palm tree for the last time.
4pm: Got stuck in the 30th Street L turnstile.  People laughed instead of helped. Humiliating lesson learned.
6pm: Grad student reunion happy hour downtown!
7pm: My first MLA panel, 'bout robots.

Monday
8am - 3pm: Convened. HARD.
3pm-bedtime: Napped by accident. Did MLA things. Napped again.
11pm: Unpacked MLA things. Pretty sure I made back my registration fees in free books and tote bags.  Hello, next year's presents.

Tuesday
8a: Convening.  So. Much. Convening.
1pm: First drag sighting, Marriott Grad Lounge. Felt wretchedly dowdy in my sneakers, jeans, and button-down.  Sank further and further into my chair as the young German man in fierce zebra coat, high-heeled boots, and immaculate red wig discussed identity theory with an MLA delegate. 
[Note to self: be more fierce.]
3p: Sad moment in the Scottish Writing booth: totes have disappeared. Sorry, Mom.

Wednesday
8a: Too. Tired. To. Function.
9a: Mobbed the Exhibitor for almost-free-they're-so-discounted new books!
10.30a: Slunk back into the grad lounge with armfuls of fought-over-and-won paperbacks.  Still panting.  Bleeding from the right cheekbone.  Victorious.  People stare.
11a: Beth to the rescue!  Bestowed with Scottish Writers tote; a thrilled Mom promises a thank you note. BETH IS AWESOME.
12noon: FINALLY. A Virginia Woolf panel!
12.15p: IT IS SO AMAZING.
1:45p: Attend final panel of the convention.  Any guesses?
-  SHOCKER: "Roundtable for Graduate Students Re: Life in the Corporate University"
- WHAT.

The lessons.

• Fact: "Neoliberal zombies are feasting on the remains of the academic institution."
• Also: "Universities have never not been corporations." Jean Howard, Columbia
• GASP.
• Woolf has the best cult following of ALL the cult followings.  Joining the Society in January!
• Jackie will elbow tottering old professors out of the way in an outright SPRINT to the Penguin table for final sales.
• Don't buy anything til the last day.  Then, buy 14 books for $31.  That is $2.21 a book.  Plus free totes.  Playa WHAT.
• Professionals in the Lit(/humanities) field love to hear themselves talk.  A lot.  They will blatantly disregard the timer, and the timekeepers should be shot.
• If the MLA selects you to panel for something, you are an authority on that something.
• BUT: Just when you feel important enough to be listened to by a panel and responsive audience of your peers, they schedule you for a room with 15 chairs, at 7:15pm, and all of three people show up.
• This is considered being "respected in the field."
• You can also tell the CFP panel anything to get selected for a panel and then present a whole different paper at conference.
• See: robot debacle of December 2009.
• The myth of the American dream does not exist for professors.  Also: they know.  They're working on it.  But who cares about professors anyway.
• Often presenters do not know how to turn on a projector, adjust to their needed input settings, or change the Powerpoint slide.  Facts.  I witnessed all of these.  This explains in horrifying detail the slow death of the Literature field.
• One presenter actually suggested (at the "rethinking the MA degree" panel) that "Information Technology" isn't important really to the field.
• I would like to take this moment to assert that I do not know how to do research outside of online journal databases.  And I can read Queen Victoria's notes on her speeches housed at Buckingham ONLINE you guys.
• It is now clear why English Lit gets such a bad rap.
• Philadelphia is cold. as. ballz.
• "Fame, Stardom, and Celebrity" means "I study celebrities for a living" possibly "because those who can't, write papers about it."
• This is not encouraging to one obsessed with fame.
• Suddenly my life as a graduate student makes a lot more sense.  Encouraging?  Maybe not.  More direction? Absolutely not.  But sense-making? ... Yep.

the "jingle" of "jingle bells" is an imperative verb: the speaker is asking the bells to jingle! this has been your grammar trivia of the holiday season!

Happy Christmas, you guys.



May your Christmas be all kinds of bright and beautiful, wherever however whatever your plans!  I hope all the love and cheer of the holiday season spends an extra moment with you and yours.  But also that your least favorite visitors don't overstay their welcome.  That's awkward.
This English major is having a very happy humanities holiday, full of new books, new anthologies, and old friends.  It's going to take me months to get through all my brand-new, beautifully re-editioned classics (so excited)! 
Hope your holiday is just as wonderful!

if i knew then what i know now ... i would have brought an icescraper with me

Oh, btw: I survived the SnowPocalypse.

I braved the storm Saturday to catch some 9am snow-action shots for my Constant(ly Curious) Readers.  It was misery:

You're welcome.

This, you may recognize, is the southeast view from my window.  Please compare to sunny, beautiful Fall views.  I'm tempted to call "WHITEOUT" but then, I'm prone to drama:

And Sunday noon-ish, after snow[plow]man had worked his dubious magic on the parking lot.  Poor Christine.  She fought tooth and nail against this move, and it's hard to blame her:

When I got outside and saw the above, I did in fact stop short.

Um, this is a first: on the rare occasion I see snow, it is way rarer that will stick to the ground.  This predicament blew my mind.  I was bewildered.  I squinted at the parking lot and tallied my ideas.

• 1) All-wheel drive?
• Instantly squished: I would have to AWD it over 23 inches of snow from a dead standstill and I am not about to bottom out on a snowdrift.  In my parking lot.
• 2) I was out of ideas. 

I literally called Dan and asked for help.

I would also like to take a moment and stress how grateful I am for my HM-GBiffles: he only laughed once.  Then he carefully described "digging out," what tools one can use for it, and the necessity of vehicular "rocking" finesse.  Slowly the grim reality dawned: this is going to mean a snowshovel.

I mean, it's all part of the experience, right?  I made the call to live up North for kicks and giggles -- time to become one with the community.  Like an anthropology project.  From hell.

So I rolled up my winter coat sleeves and marched to the front desk.  I explained I'm from the South and utterly baffled by all this white stuff, but understand that a tool one might call a "shovel for snow" exists and could be just what I need.

I was offered both snowshovel and Dennis (property manager)'s snowshoveling machine. The shovel looked heavy.  Dennis's machine came operated by Dennis.

Thanks Dennis!

To conclude, I'm unconvinced that snow is desirable, but at least I know what it's like to live in a state that can actually handle snowfall.  A few questions remain, like: I'm still not entirely sure how the highway got plowed so fast?  Especially when the concrete dividers are so high.  Where does almost two feet of snow GO but to the side of the road ... when there's no side of the road ...?

Also my understanding is that Virginia is crippled for weeks.  I'll be sending canned foods and batteries in to the drive soon, Constant VA Readers.  Be strong.

So ... til the next PhillyVenture!
xoxo Anne

GUYS. YOU GUYS.

So that seminar paper that was consumed by my Mac?  Worth like all of my grade?  That I hope and dream, one day, to call a master's thesis?

On fish?

A- you guys

Cue Triumphant Moment:

Photo Credit: Amanda Fuller

Used here, "A-" stands for "Life validation."  I will most definitely be presenting those pages for qualification next semester.

Fish.  It's what's for analyzing.

i may or may not live through snowmegeddon.

Philadelphia has already experienced more snow in 12 hours Virginia has in the last five years combined*.  It is currently 23 degrees (feels like 9!), snowing really hard, and scary you guys.

As you may be aware, SnowWatch `09 is a big deal for parts of the MidAtlantic.  Virginia specifically is losing it: they have like one snowplow for the state, and no evacuation plan, and if you drive you will die. But Philadelphia?: "oh, we'll get between 15-18 inches. Whatevs.  Hot cocoa!"
I am < thrilled.  Snow all kinds of monkeys with you.  Your plans get defenestrated and SNOW becomes your plans.  Even the threat of snow turns VA (and me) into a tizzy. I do not need "like 15-18in." of it snowing me in all stranded-like.

So, I'll admit, at first I was annoyed with my W&M/VA/DC news feed: it was blowing up about the Snowmegeddon like two days before it even happened.  That is great, you guys, enjoy the snow.  Throw a snowball on someone's face. Get your clothes all wet and catch pneumonic swine flu. Huzzah.
Philadelphians, on the other hand, curiously peeped once pre-monster-snow:

"I leave for a weekend in NYC in one hour.  If it snows a foot like the weather reports are saying, I. AM. SCREWED.  Buying snowpants on 5th Avenue?" - PZimmz

Please note: that is a travel peep.  Perhaps the updater will be inconvenienced by the wretched meteorological phenomenon that is snow.  I commiserate and wish him godspeed.
Let's take a look at some comparable VA updates:

"SNOW glorious SNOW!" -Lemon

"snowsnowsnow :)" -KGpers

While adorable, those are "I'm so stoked about precipitation!" peeps.  I do not understand.  It is snow, it is wicked inconvenient, and it is not fun. Yours truly, The Grinch.

This morning I had a chilling realization: at least my VA homies are talking about the snow.  They look forward to the requisite snowballing and the VA state of emergency.  They are weather-aware.
It scares me to pieces that the Philadelphians are not. even. fazed. by the SnowPocalypse.  As if ... as if this isn't a SnowPocalypse. AT. ALL.

Maybe this is normal snow expectation.  Like SnowPocalypse `09 is just the tip of the iceberg.  THE RAPIDLY MELTING ICEBERG.

I went grocery shopping yesterday just to have food in the cabinets in case I get snowed into my apartment complex for the next three days, as a VAian does when TWO FEET OF SNOW is forecast.  Sitting there in the parking lot in 23 degree weather, shivering in my birthday coat, gloves, and boots waiting for Christine to warm up, I witnessed the single most terrifying thing I have ever seen in my life.

My apartment complex has its own snowplow.  The snow[plow]man was test-driving it around and around and around and around my truck.  And me, sitting in it, looking on in frozen horror.

It is going to be a long. long. winter.

*That might be true

my laptop's "n" key is significantly more faded than other keys. i don't think i really use it more than other keys. is it less hardy than other keys ...?

I have turned in my last papers, returned my last 40 books to the library, and celebrated at a TUEGS bonanza. VICTORY.
Further, it has been precisely four months since my traumatic move to Philadelphia.  I have lived in Pennsylvania for 123 days (and have yet to meet into Steve Carrell, weirdly).
I must have learned something. Behold, the lessons ye are about to receive, ever-Constant Reader.

A Leadership Self-Assessment, found on a random business website 

(inspired by Diana) Edited by me.

• [Graduate Student] Attributes ...
• Do I view problems as opportunities?
• The major problems this semester: overloading on credits. No financial aid (thanks, economy!). Living by myself in a huge, terrifying city.  Tackling graduate school alone.  Sudden panic at the prospect of joblessness next year.  Constant self-doubt buffeted by incessant defense of life plan.  
• Problems? Yes.  But are they ... opportunities?
• FO SHO!: everyone loves a good rags-to-riches story.  This is America!  Land of probl delusions of opportunities!
• Am I a priority setter?
• If by "priority" you mean "learn to budget like a crazy-person," then maybe.  If you mean "cram frantic paper-writing/speed-reading around bouts of drinking and graduate-student tomfoolery" then yes.
• Am I courageous?
• I prefer "obstinate."
  
• Am I a critical/creative thinker?
• I'd rather not relive V's class here; this is a happy place.
• But in the spring I am taking a class with Rachel DuPlessis on "Virginia Woolf: Poetic Prose;" the course requirements are a 15-page critical paper on writing (?) and a 15-page creative essay (!)
• So let's hope together, you guys.
  
• What is my tolerance for ambiguity?
• You mean V's emails? Or Miller's assignments? Or O'Hara's classes? Or J's "check mark" grading system?
• ZERO. I HAVE A ZERO TOLERANCE POLICY.
• Do I have a positive attitude towards change?
• Please.
• [Graduate Student] Skills ...
• Do I debate, enunciate, and clarify my values and beliefs?
• According to V: absolutely not. According to O: absolutely.
• Only my GPA will tell.
• I do so love to/am great at gossip, so if that counts.  Especially about people, things, places, and politics. Also people in politics.
  
• Do I ask the big-picture questions, including "what if?"
• What if we never landed on the moon?
• What if the Manhattan Project had failed?
• What if this is the post-nuclear alternate universe?
• What if there's life in a neighboring solar system, and we find it?
• What if the Internet collapsed tomorrow? 
• What if everyone dedicated ten hours a year to community service?
• What if the poverty/affluence gap began shrinking?
• What if my future-bestselling-series is adapted to a four-movie-saga. I'm sorry, when it is.
  
• Do I encourage dreaming and thinking the unthinkable?
• In my head I live on the LOST island.  Next please.
• Can I align the budget, planning, policies and instructional programs with the district goals and vision?
• That was the rabid, delusional thought behind "I'll do it in a year! A YEAR!"
• So maybe.  Yes if on January 21 I am handed a salaried, benis-full 24-month contract offer.
• And if I pass the French exam.  Fluency, baby.
• Do I practice and plan conscious abandonment? 
• What the hell is that?
• Does that mean fantasy and/or role-play?  Yes. I fantasize about my impending fame like six days a week.
• And also LOST. Um, Sawyer. Don't judge me: he's so well-read for a down-home Georgia boy killing machine.
  
• "Business" seriously makes no sense.
• [Graduate Student] Knowledge ...
• Do I know board roles and responsibilities in planning and implementing plans?
• As I comprise the board, this answer is pretty clear:
• NO.  I am making this up as I go along.
• WOOO PARTY
• Do I know the board and district vision, beliefs, and mission? 
• Sometimes.  People think it's cute that I have dreams and starry eyes and "want to help people," which is occasionally in itself enough to lose confidence.
• But then I remember those people can suck it. For I am AWESOME.  (I'm looking at YOU, SENSIBLENESS)
• What trait are you trying to make more descriptive of you?
• Listen, CorpAmer.  Employ English majors to clean up your basic communication skillz.  It's sad for you plus we need jobs.
• I choose confident.  This, I think, has been the tenuous theme of Fall 09.  I waffle between being giddily excited about my life to utterly devastated about the choices I've made
• Thus I'd like to be much more confident.
• Also "sexy."  And "Jim Halpert's life coach."
• I'm planning a trip to Scranton over winter break and you should come. I need help getting just the right picture to Photoshop myself into Dunder Mifflin's family/office park.
• You guys, you can't live in Pennsylvania and NOT go to Scranton. Don't look at me like that.

Cheers to life, love, and blogging, you guys.  I miss you.

and thus trumpets the victory of the english graduate student: first semester DOWN

- Golden Globe noms are out and LOST has a single "Michael Emerson" nomination. Ouch.  Michael Emerson remains the only claim to legitimate fame LOST has and it's BS you guys

- I've noticed that every time I've come into the grad student lounge the past few days, a certain undergrad at the front desk has followed me in, resulting in a fresh pot of coffee.  Is it Pavlovian? Am I an unrealized coffee tyrant? I confronted her today.
She stammered, "Um .. I always brew more when you come in, because you always drink coffee.  It's better fresh?"  She thought I was mad at her, when in reality I was trying to restrain myself from bursting into tears right there in front of Peter Logan and everybody. 
She has been added to my Christmas card list as "Coffee Queen" and we are COFFEE BIFFLES 4 LYF

- I trained for two hours yesterday at my new part-time job that will keep me fed over winter break. Most of the hours (based on my lazy availability) will be spent at the front desk of the fitness center, across from the cafe.  I am okay with this.  There is Internet and desk space to hide books, and there are definitely still free smoothies.  However, I am officially reevaluating my life:
The person training me gave me a quick tour of the center, indicating that on the rare occassion I see anyone improperly using a machine I should definitely call a trainer's attention to it.  Then she glanced over at me, LAUGHED, and said, "Oh, I'm sorry, I'll make sure you get an orientation session with each machine.  We'll schedule that next time."
I literally LOOK like I don't know what "working out" is.  20 minutes of "yoga" twice a week is clearly not doing anything for my delusional body image.  And I now work at the gym downstairs that I have free access to. 
Thus, a shameful, shameful New Year's resolution is born.

 - I hate when you get in the elevator with 6 other people and each of you hits a different floor number.  I hate that.  It adds like 8 seconds every floor the elevator stops on, and I inevitably am going to the uppermost floor of any building I enter.  The only socially acceptable option, once you've exhausted the light reading you've brought for the upward transit, is to curl up quietly in the corner of the elevator and nap.  To keep the rage at bay.

- Today was my last day as a Fall 2009 graduate student, and it. feels. awesome.

picture every "my computer ate my thesis" horror story you've ever heard. add a dose of bad karma, and me.

This is me, posting at 6am. 

This is me, having just pretty much pulled an all-nighter as I last minute stumbled upon a new-and-improved direction for a 20-page seminar paper, that I hope to use as my MA thesis, that is adding a lot of pressure to my life.  This is me exhuasted and looking forward to turning this monster in in a few hours.

This is me, cup of tea in hand after a three-hour midnight nap.  This is me coming back to reboot my computer at 5am to wrap it up strong.

This is me, finally (frantically) getting my Mac to start back up, and this is me presented with a message that no, no it did not calmly shut down a mere three hours ago.  It came CRASHING DOWN in a BLAZING FIREBALL of twisted white plastic and massive word processing documents.

This is me, with 30% less seminar paper and 85% less sanity.  And like four hours left.

sometimes i am thinking. and then self-publishing.

Often I have thoughts.

• My professor brought cocktail fixin's for our final class, and instead of lecture we had screwdrivers, Bloody Marys, and wine.  9am Tuesday.  I would like to strongly recommend graduate school to you if you need some life plans
• Of note: exam week is much harder. Blowout does not exist. My brain is extra-mushy and I think I legitimately have carpal tunnel from the typing bonanza of the last three weeks.
• But if that's what floats your boat, then yes, it is awesome.
• One of my professors came to the lounge for coffee and happened to see me on a Twitter break.  "Oh, are you on the chat-Twitter-mail?"
• I made an awkward noise between a laugh, snort, and cough, which led to choking. It was hilarious, and yet I wanted to respect my professor. I think I just scared him.
• This is how hellish my finals week has been:
• I turned in a close reading last week on Laertes.  It was a pretty amazing (if I do say so myself) deconstruction of the father's inappropriately gendered response to a daughter's suicide, and I was really proud of such a neat angle this late in the game
• Until I went back to the passage for my seminar paper yesterday and realized Laertes is Ophelia's BROTHER
• I turned in my rewrite today.
• The shame will live forever.
• I officially have a winter break job: making smoothies at the cafe/sitting at the gym desk in the lobby area!
• + Commute can't be beat: enter elevator. Hit "Lobby." Turn left.
  
• + I don't have to work at McDonald's
  
• - She doesn't allow books or Internet during down time.  Ouch. It's like the Middle Ages up in here.
  
• + I'll only work mornings and will have the rest of the day for napping/reading/cocktails
• - The pay is next-to-nothing
  
• + I will get paid
• This is more for the Tribe 09ers (et al)
• Tribe mascots announced! HERE 
• I'm all about "The Tribe Pugs," personally.  I'm down with adorably cute mascots, and imagine the JMU Bulldogs' confusion as we unleash the "Tribe Pugs!"  (AHAHAHAHAHAHA it will be awesome.)
• That is my vote. You can give your own feedback here.
• I can feel, physically, how exhausted my Mac is.
• I just counted and no joke:
• 2 Firefox windows
• 15 tabs of research/Gmail/FB/primary sources
  
• A software download that needs to restart my computer, hovering in the background because:
• 8 Word files are hanging out, two more in the dock, and a PDF that I'm not done transcribing
• Google Chrome Beta download! For Mac!  It exists here!  And PS. its URL tags "huzzah" at the end, it's adorable.  And I can't shut down until I can also do that!
• Mac can hardly move.  Grad school is wearing him out.
• I have 55 more pages to turn in by 9am Tuesday. 20 of which are due tomorrow at 9am. I am a little nervous I'll fall asleep at my desk and sleep right through the deadline. 
• Probably the nightmare of sleeping through the deadline will wake me up.  So I'm not all that worried?
• BUT THEN it is winter break and winter break means books, wine, mo' money, Christmas, family, travel, sleep ...
• This grad school thing you guys. It's brutal.

These are thoughts that I have.

perspective

When I was little and adorable and in elementary school I was kind of the teacher's darling.  I could answer any question pretty quickly and always raced through tests and so I could get back to reading the books I had stashed in my desk.  But there was one question that would, without fail, throw me into a tailspin:

"What do you want to be when you grow up?"

Frick.

I'm told people like to refer back to what they wanted to be at 8 years old or whatever.  This is, evidently, a great way to tap into what made you happy as a child, where you found purpose and satisfaction, and what gave you hope for the future. Except, um, for me.

My friends all knew they wanted to be doctors, firefighters, veterinarians, astronauts.  Oh, not me, thanks.  The standbys I rejected one after the other: 

• I never wanted to be a doctor; why deal with sick people all the time. Plus hospitals are associated with "sickness" in my mind
  
• Not a firefighter, either: I don't even like being in smoky bars, much less burning buildings
  
• A vet? FUZZY. ANIMALS. DYING.  Done and done.  
• Astronautism, aside from rocketing me one parsec closer to my greatest fear in life, is just creepy.  I don't ever want to walk on the moon.   More power to those of you that do, weirdos.

So I usually answered

"Annie Allen: President of the United States." 

And I was most definitely that kid in your 3rd grade class.  My teachers and friends did not challenge it.

At 8, "President" was at least half true.  I had the unfortunate curse of being pretty good at school in general and interested in a lot of things, which meant I was constantly reminded "You can be whatever you want to be!'"  THANKS but that's not helpful. 
I knew the President was at least in charge, smart, famous, respected, and reserved for men, so there was that.  Screw you, sexist America.  This is what a baby feminist looks like:

Laser lights and an androgynous sailor suit.

I don't think it gets better than that.

In high school I took 7 (seven) career placement tests.  I scored equally "suitable for" humanities, social sciences, general sciences, health services, and law on pretty much all of them.  Which is not helpful.   I have a Bachelor of Sciences in Psychology from a liberal arts college, and am now in a Master of Arts program for English Literature.  Specializing: Gender/Women's Studies.  Also Woolf.

For those keeping score at home: that's zero direction.

So this is me, looking back at what I wanted to be at 8: I mostly just wanted to experience everything and love every moment.  I wanted to go places, do things, change people's lives.  I wanted to be successful, happy, and above all, busy.

This, on the one hand, is an awesome "to be" for when I grow up.  I can be free to go anywhere and do anything, on the single condition that I'm happy and healthy.  I don't HAVE to have a conventional plan, corporate America, so suck it.  Or a tried-and-true path to enlightenment.  I can just be.
On the other: welp, I'm kind of a control freak.  Planning is right up there on my "Favorite Hobbies" list.  The plan of "No plan" is horrifying and I need a brown paper bag just typing about it.  Also I dread people asking me what I'm doing with my life and hate my half-lies when I answer them.
So.

"What do you want to be when you grow up?"   "What are you doing next year? After grad school? With your life?"
Honestly?  I want to be awesome.  And happy and proud and excited to start each new day. 
It's time to at least consider pursuing that.

ACT II

Stage lights dim. Spotlight upstage center. 

Enter Anne

An.      I told you that story so I could tell you this story.

I applied for Teach for America in October and attended a final interview today.  In my nervousness I tripped and ate it on-site, stabbed myself in the eye with a pen while removing the cap (a warning to you all: clicky pens are key), and called my interviewer by the wrong name twice.

Awkwardly, the best answer I could give to "Why Teach for America?" was:
"Um, that's a hard question to answer.  I can't really explain why I need to give back, or flock to nonprofit, or seek out opportunities to give low-income students a leg up on tomorrow.  I can't break down why Phonathon or SCG are on my resume.  I can't explain why putting myself through school changed my life, or why the full ride WM gave me from 2007-2009 correlates with a greater intensity of my desire to ... help.  Give back.  Reach out.  Be love.

"I can't answer that.  I will say that I'm doing this, because I have to."

I was honest, and real, and will know on January 21st if the corps wants me.  I hope they do: it's a small way to make a big difference, and a fast track to who I want to be. 

And who 8 year old Annie dreamed of being.

Exeunt

- FIN -

arguably the best day of the year

“O my God, how often have I not rejoiced, given thanks, been unspeakably grateful in discovering how wondrously events have been ordered…” - Kierkegaard, Upbuilding Discourses (1843)

Things I brought back with me from Virginia Beach:

• School supplies (my mom is a high school teacher, which is awesome for a perpetual student)
• A W&M-inspired bookbag (see above)
• A RealSimple magazine with awesome gift ideas (one less thing to stress over)
  
• Leftovers! YUM.
  
• A new purse to replace my big yellow bag that BROKE when I got off the train (I cried, you guys)
  
• Winter Gear! Snow boots, a winter coat, and new gloves! I will not be freezing in Philadelphia!
• I think that's it!

Things I accidentally left in Virginia Beach:

• My Obama fleece! (CURSES.)

Thanksgiving is just like Christmas.

Unfortunately Thanksgiving is also a red herring.  Eat a lot, pretend that there's no work to do, nap ... then come back to one's apartment and choke over the piles and piles of work that are due.  Even as one is super stoked about new, extra-cute winter gear.

I'm right at that point where you have SO much work to do that you just give up and don't do anything.  Overwhelmed? Don't shoot yourself in the foot next time.  No, seriously, just crawl back into bed with Thanksgiving weekend "Star Wars" marathons and leftovers - that will definitely make you feel better TODAY.

December 15th I turn in my last paper.  That's 17 days, you guys.  17 days to write almost 80 pages, present two presentations, and clearly articulate in two seminar paper conferences.

Oh, look at that: Star Wars EIV starts at noon.

this is an english major's blog after all. deal with it (and give feedback)

Little bit of a good news/bad news there.  My professor is intrigued by my topic, but strongly encouraging a new direction to see if I come up with the same conclusion.  Read: I'm stretching it with the fish, but it's not totally out of left field if I redirect my question through the lens of "The Fisherman and His Wife," this Grimm fairy tale that is threaded throughout the work.
So now I'm all kinds of losing confidence. 

The best part of being an English person is the freedom to read and interpret and analyze and make really fun conclusions and contribute to the critical conversations surrounding important works and authors.  This is also the worst part.
Because seriously.  There are few rules outside of "Come up with a question. Ask that question. Try to find the answer and if you can't find one, make one up."  It's awesome because if that answer is a solid response to the canon, then you are a rock star. #thesiswin 
It's awful because if you make that answer up and people like your professor go "Um ... I'm not sure you can actually conclude that because -- " then you are a loser.  #thesisfail

So it was a disappointing to have my question cut down and handed back to me.  Maybe (definitely) I'm just stubborn, but I refuse to give up the fish.  And yes, I understand that TTL is a seaside novel and fish can be read as local color, but Woolf does not just throw literary references around all helter-skelter: a fairy tale about fish punctuated by a novel consumed with fish has to be significant.  The gender roles, Victorian/modern crisis, Cam and Lily's ideas of "woman," all framed by this fishy fairy tale?  The dinner parties alone, you guys.  Woolf.  Dinners. ...of fish. 
Insert ominous music here.

New deep-breath-refocus-reresearch plan: build some fable knowledge, familiarize myself with some key analysts, come to the same (similar? please?) significant conclusion from a more interesting perspective.
But I can't just make it significant.  It actually has to be significant and not just a marine fetish on my part.

Jeezum.  Why can't I pick a concrete, simple-prose author to be all about.  And fish?  What crazy person chooses fish?

Godrevy Island and its lighthouse of yore. 

But however does one get there.

oh and also!

Birthday weekend!

• Travel!  See travel blog!
  
• Philadelphia Museum of Art! I CANNOT WAIT to go back! (Soon! "Étant Donnés" ends 11/29!)
  
• Downtown tour guiding (and getting lost)!
• Hard Rock Cafe with JASON MRAZ (music)!
• Bars, pubs and vegan food!  I have a new South St. restaurant!
• Naps!
• Birthday cake! Cupcakes! Cards in the REAL mail!
  
• Amanda, Diana, Peter, Dan, Richard, and TUEGS!

Best.  Ever.

the point is: shakespeare had a sister. it's impossible to hear her and imperative to listen.

One gumbo, Abita TurboJack, shrimp po'boy, and tour of Canal Street later, Rick and I peaced out for the beach.

There is little to say about the beach that isn't "It was awesome" and "Recommended: blow off work and go to the beach."  This is where it was:


View Larger Map
This is what we did:

This is what this gymnast I know did:

Above-mentioned gymnast taught me this, which I then did (least awkward of all the awkward shots):

The weekend ended with late beignets at Café du Monde and a renewed appreciation for the Big Easy.  I do miss hanging out there: it reminds me of a successful modernism. It straddles the old and new without crisis.  It's comfortable with its unique history instead of imploding because it can't establish an identity.
It was worth heading out there and getting super-behind on my seminar papers right before the semester spins out of control.

It's hard to describe grad school, I've decided, which I guess is why I wanted to leave it for a second.  People assume it's the same as college, which is totally justifiable, but my strongest defense is "Um, it's not really ... I can't really explain it, just trust me?"  The heart of the difference probably lies in that I had no idea what I was getting into when I accepted the offer to study literature.
Of course I still love it and still feel it's worthwhile.  I still think gender and women's studies in the late 19th/early 20th century is important.  Valerie Traub and Suzanne Raitt are still my heroes, and women moving in history still keeps me turning pages and unpacking more questions (and paper topics).  But plenty of people don't see it.

That's hard to overcome.  Grad school forces you not just to defend the importance of your topic, but to defend your mastery of it while simultaneously revealing how very little you know about anything.  At least in college you operated under the belief that people cared and what you had to say was important.  Now, out of undergrad and pursuing literary study, people wonder what relevance studying literature has, why pursue it if it's unpopular and outdated, and why I'm wasting my time.
And sometimes they make a lot of sense.  Who cares what fictional women did to conform to or reject established avenues of sexual agency 100 years ago?  What value do Sedgwick's "Epistemology of the Closet" or Foucault's "History of Sexuality" have to women's history, and why am I writing papers on it?  What point am I making in that "The Fisherman and his Wife" is Mrs Ramsay's tool to socialize Cam(/James) to an "ideal" Victorian womanhood, but the triumph is Lily's ability to "ground" herself, reject the marriage, and thereby reject an external definition of her identity, in the process of which liberation Mrs Ramsay has to die a bloody wartime death.
What do books from a hundred years ago and the fish that are consumed in them have anything to do with anything?  What does any of that mean, to me, to women, to today, to history, to literature ...?

Right about here Richard usually cuts in with an "Um, wait.  Let's talk about all the reasons why English is awesome and how much you love it and whatnot."  And then he starts listing all the reasons why literature is awesome and why I love it.  It is hard to be so defeated when someone else is quite sure you're still winning, and has pretty convincing evidence that resonates deep in my little English major's soul.
He's right, per usual: I can't help but let literature creep in (like "The Conundrum of the Workshops" or the Sun to Frank O'Hara) to ruin my pity-party because that's what it means to be an English major.  Plus, other Lit students think Victorianism is important, or Translation relevant, which means someone cares.  I imagine American literature scholars pore over yellowing account books from the 17th century and make notes for Hawthorne readings because it means something.  Me, I spend my days plugging through queer theory and primary texts and centering Woolf as a beacon of hope because it does matter.  Women did react, and subvert, and conform, and challenge, and fail, and succeed and it's unpack-able in modern British literature.  And that's important not just to women as a period study unfolds, but to our understanding of where women today came from, how they navigate gender/sexual understanding, and what that means for women of tomorrow.  And me, which is awesome.

That is just sometimes hard to keep in perspective.

Thus it was really important to get away for a second.  It's impossible to be locked up in the library with Woolf and fish for weeks on end like that and not go crazy.  I'm extra-thankful for people in my life who understand how much what I do means to me (and are willing to remind of it).  Thanks for keeping me grounded and not succumbing to the structures my own culture has established to keep me squished. 
THUS onto my 5022 seminar draft.  I need a way better title than "Gutting 'Queer Fish:' Lessons from the Lighthouse," but I'm seriously drawing the worst blank.  Plz suggest.

birthdays are awesome. sad it's over, but ready to collect new exciting tales of adventure (and this post is for KATE!!) !

It was probably misleading for me to end on that last note.  I'm not apologizing: I'm all about the drama and the suspense and you heard about Ida anyway.  Poor Hampton Roads.  My little sister's birthday was State of Emergency'd out.  Too bad I was in Florida enjoying perfect weather, so ... not my problem, MidAtlantic.  ZING

What I DID do that is ill-advised prior to travel was watch the latest sensitive and classy TLC special: "I Survived a Plane Crash."  There were not just interviews of the (remaining) pilots and survivors, but actual footage of planes as they burst into flame and dropped out of the air like stones, only to wrench apart in tumbling fireballs of groaning death upon contact with the ground at an ungodly high speed.  For an hour.  At night.

My favorite (?) went like this: a Boeing 757 takes off from somewhere in the US to somewhere in Latin America (which is the extent of my geography skills, so deal with it).  The captains set the coordinates and settle into autopilot, with their headphones or personal laptops or whatever captains do on autopilot.  Suddenly, as a survivor describes, the plane rears straight up into the sky, engines screaming and passengers following suit.  Straight.  Up.  Into the sky.  She described the panic in the cabin and the screaming and the rising G's and ... then she blacks out.  The rescue footage shows the pilots desperately tried to correct a misguided flight path but ultimately couldn't save the plane from crashing right into a mountain.  DIRECTLY into a MOUNTAIN.  Of the like 210 passengers, four survived.

Me: "That's it.  That's how I'm going to achieve my 15 minutes of fame: dismembered in a fiery mass of crushed metal and ugly upholstery, my limbs scattered among airline peanuts and displaced tacky Hawaiian shirts.  I'm not even going to crash onto a time-traveling, debilitating-illness-healing, quantum-physics-manipulating island, either, it's going to be the totally crappy-by-comparison Appalachians.  Goddammit."


I'm lucky enough to have friends who make fun of me and my inability to remain safely in planes anyway, so yes, of course I eventually boarded my own Boeing.  Good thing too: my seat-buddy for three hours was a House Rep with a literature PhD who recognized my flight-reading.  He had evidently heard Derrida lecture before on the recommendation of his friend, Gayatri Spivak, whose translation of "Of Grammatology" I was clutching with sweaty palms before takeoff.  His wife wrote a Modern BritLit dissertation and is a Woolf scholar in the process of completing Divinity school.  He lauded English majors and every precious soul in the world who follows their hearts and not where they think paychecks are: there's something so empowering about choosing a life path based on love and passion, which got him several degrees and a pretty sweet government job.  We are now best friends.   And #6 suddenly looks pretty attainable. 

In any case.

Jackie witnessed my first train experience and my trial-and-error method of boarding, and from there I was so stoked to be traveling again I didn't have time to be embarrassed.  What follows is the transcript of text messages I sent to Rick as my travels began:

Anne: "I cannot express how god. Awful. The weather here is."
A: "My feet are serously turning blue as I wait for the train.  Tell me NoLa is warm yo"
A: "What luck! A US Airways person right across the aisle on the train. Pilot? Flight attendant?  Who knows, but my new guide for sure"
A: "There is a GAP in this airport."
A: "And you can get flu shots in the food court."
A: "So I just lost my boarding pass.  Retracing my steps to the GAP, but will the gate agent reprint me one?"
A: "Strike that. It was somehow in my laptop.  Crisis averted."

If I could also take this moment to recommend nonstop flights.  PHL to MSY offers more nonstop options than RIC or ORF ever did, so I checked it out and it was awesome.  We left almost an hour late and still landed four minutes early.  This was okay with me: a weekend of alligator cheesecake, palm trees, white sandy beaches, Derrida, and job-scoping (okay, very little of that actually happened) were waiting, and getting to it the sooner the better.

Four minutes sooner, in fact.

captain's log: day -6

[Taking a page from Alex's blog: dramatic travel blogging!  I didn't trek through Eastern Europe per se, but I hope between my various adventures and mad blog skillz the next few posts will be worth the read]

So I moved to Philadelphia on August 16th and have left the city exactly once since then.  This past weekend I determined to go big: Florida!
In November!

Which is at least 20 degrees warmer than Philadelphia in November, according to this Wikipedia article.

This trip began several weeks ago.  My biannual syllabus-writing party in September had left me with ink-stained fingers, a virtually unreadable planner, and precious few weekends to spare.  I dug my birthday out from the surrounding crowds of assignments and weighed my options.
I love my birthday.  I especially love when my birthday is a numerological miracle.  However, I'm perilously close to shooting myself in the foot with towering stacks of work and rapidly disappearing days in which to do it all.  Plus, an exciting complication also chose to rear its head this semester.  It's kind of a secret, but as you guys are in the circle of trust: I have job prospects (and a final interview on Dec. 4th) down South that need prospecting!
And, you guys.  My birthday.

There was nothing left to do but compromise.

• November 12: Fly into New Orleans for compulsory alligator cheesecake, much-needed visiting, job-scoping
• November 13-14: Pensacola Beach for indulgent birthday activities!
• November 15-16: Travel to NoLa->Philadelphia for conferences, further prospecting, and an old-college-try at the piles of work on my desk in advance of real birthday

Fair and balanced weekend if ever there was one.  I booked my flights, set up my itinerary, and happily began packing my (new! giraffe-print!) duffel bag.  UNTIL --

November 8, 4pm: Governor Jindal declares a state of emergency for Louisiana in advance of Hurricane Ida.

This is the thing.  I grew up by the Oceanfront and we get hurricanes.  I am intimately familiar with the hurricane.  I know the season traditionally ends on November 1.  I also know that the 2009 season, though forecast to be one of the worst seasons in decades, fizzled out early with barely a tempestuous whimper.  The specialists called the season a wash like months ago: global warming, you guys. Shrug.

But of course, Ida.  Naturally.  Forecast to gather strength the week of November  8th, Ida tore through Mexico and lay in wait over the Gulf of Mexico, harbinger of a harrowing future for an already battered region.  The same specialists took to the airwaves, shouting each other down with "breaking" wind shear data and Gulf temperatures, debating her landfall in Florida or Louisiana or both on the 11th, maybe 12th ...

Governor Jindal took no chances.  New Orleans braced itself and waited for the dawn to break.

Four days before my flight.

travelogue starts here

Fabulous/hilarious updates forthcoming.  For now, a summary:

well, bollocks.

So my schedule for the next semester is finalized!  It's okay.

January - May 2010:
 Monday
  12p-3p -- Adv. 20th C. British Lit: "Finnegan's Wake"
Tuesday
  9a-12p  -- Creative Writing: "Poetic Writing (Woolf Studies)"
     [Ed. Note: Lifetime of fame begins here]
Wednesday
  9a-12p -- Lit/Cultural Studies: "Narrative Theory"
Thursday
  No classes
Friday
  12p-3p -- 19th C. American Lit: "Rhetoric of Character"

May 13,  2010: Graduate.

I guess not every schedule can be as awesome as this semester's schedule.  At least I'm thisclose to picking up that shiny new degree, babiez (and a job?  One day?)

while we're on the subject

For those of you who have never sat through a LOST episode with me maybe don't know:  23 is my all-time favorite number (of all time).

My 23rd birthday is November 19, 2009 which is awesome because

1+1 + 1+9 + 2+0+0+9 = 23

I know.  It freaked me out too at first.  It's pretty much going to be the best birthday ever.

"keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life." proverbs 4:23 (esv)

Combing through Hamlet folios for seminar papers is mind-numbing, but I am always relieved to stumble over this cute moment.  Shakespeare is all tender and adorable sometimes, tucked away between the gory death and crippling madness and curses on houses.  And the gory, gory death.
So anyway. Here's to a fresh new (less surreal) week!

Polonius [to Laertes] -
                             "There -- my blessing to thee!
And these few precepts in thy memory
Look thou character. Give thy thoughts no tongue,
Nor any unproportion'd thought his act.
Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar:
Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,
Grapple them unto thy soul with hoops of steel,
But do not dull thy palm with entertainment
Of each new-hatch'd, unfledg'd courage. Beware
Of entrance to a quarrel, but being in,
Bear't that th' opposed may beware of thee.
Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice,
Take each man's censure, but reserve thy judgment. ...
Neither a borrower nor a lender [be],
For [loan] oft loses both itself and friend,
And borrowing dulleth [th'] edge of husbandry.
This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.
Farewell, my blessing season this in thee!"

Hamlet, I.iii.57-81

[Ed. note- oh snap "Buy truth, and do not sell it; buy wisdom, instruction, and understanding." Proverbs 23:23 (ESV)]

honestly it happens so often it's hard to keep being embarrassed

W&M's campus is an unappreciated safe-zone for me and my awkward brethren.  It turns out in the real world most people have average levels of awkward, which makes for interesting days when my above-average awkward rears its maladroit head.

• I woke up sick, again.  I generally allow sickness once a year, so being sick for the SECOND TIME really grinds my gears.  Plus, I have exactly no Dayquil because "natural health" remedies are cool when you're not sick but utterly useless when you're legitimately ill.  I googled solutions and this promising nugget showed up: flush the sinuses with a Neti-pot-like setup, using a small bowl and warm saltwater.  I will spare you the horrifying details, but know that I was dangerously close to drowning in a cereal bowl this morning.  At least my sinuses did clear, if from sheer mortal terror.
• My apartment's Temple shuttle is crazy-packed, what with the SEPTA strike and all, and necessarily things happen.  Like today when I sat down on someone by accident.  However, that awkward pales in comparison to this awkward: I thought I was sitting on my own bag and had to be asked, "Could you sit on the seat and not on my leg?"
• Do you ever hear someone's cell phone go off in class and roll your eyes and glare in that general direction because seriously you guys, silence your phone as we're in a professional setting?  Do you ever do that for a while before realizing everyone is glaring at YOUR BAG?
  
• I thanked Frank many a time for the fantastic vegetable lasagna he brought for 5022.  I even asked if he would send me the recipe after seminar, to which he replied, "I'm not Frank,  I'm James.  We have two classes together, Anne."  Frank was not even in the room.  To James, or those in the program reading my blog who can relay this to James, I offer my sincerest apologies.  I swear it's not personal.  I had a near-death experience with a cereal bowl this morning and it's affecting my judgment.
• I raced out of my last conference to swipe some QE1 speeches from the library with a mere 15 minutes to spare before catching the shuttle home.  While there I stumbled over, by terrific coincidence, the complete diaries of Virginia Woolf.  "Holy awesome, Batman!" I squealed. " This is magic! Primary source material for my seminar paper, right in front of my face."  I gleefully climbed to the top shelf, but froze: Volume II spans 1920-24 and Volume III picks up 1925-30.  Only the diary with To the Lighthouse notes will be of any use to me, so...  Oh no. When was To the Lighthouse published?  WHEN WAS IT PUBLISHED.  I hesitated for just a moment, then snatched up Volume II and fell off the stacks.  It hurt.  Fail. 
• But I caught the shuttle with seconds to spare. WIN!
• To the Lighthouse was published in 1927.  Fail.

At the very, very least: still having adventures in Philadelphia, you guys.

scenes from my neighborhood, in defense of NEPhila

You know what's really weird?  People who live here do not like this city.

I'll tell you this story so I can tell you that story:

• Grad school has taken my real life hostage.  I hate that my overload schedule affords me less time to do fun things with the people in my program.  I AM a fan of life/work balance, so I do my best to attend like 25% of what I'm invited to instead of turning everything down.  The Halloween party came at the perfect time and people were excited, perhaps most of all me.  I dressed as the scariest thing I could think of and actually left my apartment.  
• On a related note: South Street on Halloween is hilarious.  I couldn't get a fast enough picture of the hot guy dressed as the "Clark Kent-to-Batman" moment and the out-of-nowhere flashmob of "teen Asian" girls at 1am, but I did laugh so hard I cried.  Oh, drunk Philly.
• And the other grad students are awesome.  They have unique interests in literature and are not all from Northern Virginia.  They are of utmost fun to hang out with and always have great wisdom to impart about the field, etc.
• Until the inevitable question: "So how do you like Temple/Philadelphia so far?"

I think I'm supposed to answer "I hate it!" or "It's ugly!" or "I carry various and lethal weaponry now!" because no one believes that I like it.  They give me funny looks and start cutting down what I think is a pretty cool place.  It  is weird.
No, really: I like Philadelphia.  I love when I can spare an hour or two for wandering around downtown, discovering quirky coffeeshops or reading in one of the Squares. Or eating cheesesteaks.  And taking pictures in the Museum District.  I also like Temple's campus: I expected an urban campus to be nothing but concrete and traffic-y streets, but Temple is beautiful and I am constantly adding pictures to prove it.

Also nice: where I live!  My apartment complex is in a six-or-so block area of Broad Street that was renovated like five years ago. There are parks, tons of trees, new stone-and-moss rowhouses, LaSalle's campus across the street...  even a Catholic church a block down that is impossible to photograph appropriately. The quarter-million dollar homes across the street are a little small (very little acreage on Broad Street, you guys), but lovely.  They have ivy-covered gables, you guys.  What.

Strangely, no one has heard me say those things.  They ask how I'm doing here, then announce I'll be lucky to escape with my life because Philadelphia is the worst.  Even those who have heard me defend it (and Temple) before look at me skeptically and say "Yeah, you've said that ..." before adding their fuel to the "Philly is Way Lame" fire.  They illustrate the impact the economic crisis has had in Philly, and how Temple's campus is a lot of concrete and packed with students, and that crime ... exists.

Believe me, I'm aware.  I used to think abandoned buildings were totally rare and sad, but now a block without an abandoned building is a "wealthy" one to me.  Of course there are rowhouses down the block that are trying to sell for less than $25K and others that are mostly broken windows and rotting wood - I'm not oblivious to this.  But the bigger picture is: community-mindedness?  City pride?

It's just weird.  True: Virginia is the greatest state in the nation (not to be redundant, as "Virginia" does mean "AWESOME" in most dialects) so there's less to be disparaging about, but there people are just fiercely proud of their own county.  Try asking Landon about Williamsburg, then about Blacksburg. Or someone with NOVA roots and a Hampton Roads local about their state and respective city.  We love Virginia overall but our little corner of the state most.

[On a related note: Virginia DID break my heart last night.
I have a self-imposed "no politics" rule for this blog, but last night was sad.  Even the 1977 effect does little to dull the hurt.  I'm trying not to ask "What does this mean?" and instead to ask "What happened, exactly?"  It's unproductive to apply the results nationally, to our President's policies, or even to define what the Dem/GOP identity is in light of the vote.  Virginia's election was just that: Virginia's policies.  I suppose the best thing to ask is "Where do we (as Virginians) go from here?"  It's imperative to keep one's focus on remaining progressive even as it seems we frustratingly take steps back.  Frankly, progress is human and progress always happens.  Just maybe not as fast as I'd like.
So that's my political moment and I'm done now.]

Thus and in conclusion, Philadelphia's people are weird for overlooking their beautiful and exciting city.  It has a thriving arts scene and super-cool museum district and lovely downtown parks and great food.  I DO love Temple's campuses and my neighborhood, believe it or not.  It's frustrating to find myself defending where I live and go to school to people who ALSO live and go to school here, in what is clearly a pretty awesome place.

New goal: convince a local that "I really do like Philadelphia!"

welcome to my BIRTHDAY MONTH

Cue the Cannonball Read, you guys!
This is something fun that dorks who like reading do.  It's officially hosted by Pajiba but I'm unofficially tagging along.  I encourage your participation, but mostly am appealing for your recommendations.

The challenge is to read 52 books in 52 weeks (Nov 1, 2009 to Oct 31, 2010).  This is my list in kind-of genre order, and note that it as of yet does not equal 52.  Some I need to read for general literature purposes (ie. um, Dickens) and some I'm just super-curious about (can't. wait. for Palin's memoirs).
Notice that in terms of contemporary literature, I'm clueless.  Unless Oprah recommended it.  In which case, yes it is on my bookshelf already so no don't suggest it.

Anyway.  Please share your favorite/most interesting/haven't-read-it-yet-so-Anne-can-read-it-for-me books!  And also please read with me!

• Dickens, Bleak House
• Dickens, Our Mutual Friend
• Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities 
  
• Kafka, Metamorphosis
• Dostoevsky,  The Brothers Karamazov
• Tolstoy, Anna Karenina
• Tolstoy, War and Peace 
• Patterson, Cross Country
  
• Homer, The Iliad
• Beck, Arguing with Idiots
• Palin, Going Rogue: An American Life
  
• Eliot, Middlemarch
• Austen, Emma
• Austen, Northanger Abbey
• Joyce, Ulysses
• Pullman, His Dark Materials Omnibus
• Barrie, Peter Pan (yes, my favorite movie of all time; nope, never read it)
• Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises
• Hemingway, A Farewell To Arms
• Hughes, Birthday Letters
• Steinhardt, Indivisible by Four: A String Quartet in Pursuit of Harmony
• Wallace, Infinite Jest
• Wallace, Brief Interviews with Hideous Men
• Diaz, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
• Roth, Portnoy's Complaint
• Lawrence, Lady Chatterly's Lover
• Voltaire, Candide (en français, bien sûr)
• Darwin, The Origin of Species
• Marx, Communist Manifesto
• Nietzsche, Thus Spake Zarathustra
• Einstein, Relativity
• James, The Bostonians
• Strachey, Eminent Victorians
• Woolf, The Waves
• Woolf, The Years
• Woolf, The Complete Shorter Fiction
• Woolf, Night and Day
• Woolf, Three Guineas

[38]

the holidays begin with "charlie brown," who begins with "the great pumpkin," which is awesome

Happy Halloween, you guys!

little bit virginia-sick

Over the weekend this English major left Philadelphia to hit up her Old Dominion State.  It was bittersweet.  Plus I'm exhausted, so apologies for disorganized thoughts.

The non-blogworthy parts of Homecoming were good (fabulous pictures here).  It was energizing to be back in the Commonwealth: we hit the 'Burg during the 100 minutes it experiences autumn and it was pretty fantastic.  Also it was awesome to be funny again! VA appreciates my carefully-timed sarcastic delivery. My first parade was super fun, my first tailgate was kickass, and W&M destroyed "The Original Plan B" in a stunning victory.  Our fight song was played like a billion times (Diana: "We have a fight song?" HERE is the fight song).  Someone gave me a sickness and I swear upon all that is holy on this earth if it is swine flu I will cut a bitch.  Overall, seriously good times.

I also managed to spend most of my weekend wavering between emotional dipoles.  The College continues to exist without me, which is sobering.  Appreciating my new relationship with campus and the alumni body was exhilarating.  Seeing my W&M comrades was by turns wonderful and heartbreaking ... wherein lies the rub.

So many 09ers were coming back to campus that I finally decided yes, I would go.  Reservations be damned, I miss my friends and want to hear about their lives outside of status updates.  At first it was easy as I checked in with old friends - Diana and I will never run out of things to talk about, Amanda and I quickly fell into old comfortable habits.  Doug is Doug is Doug, and proof that some people will be in my life forever.  And dinner with the Tripod was especially awesome: we don't spend every moment attached at the hip anymore, suffering the same stresses and successes, but our friendship has evolved as our lives have. This is both comforting and encouraging.

Other moments were not great.  I really struggled with how some relationships have dissipated or moved away.  There were definitely some people to and from whom a hug sufficed, which was fine.  Some people didn't want to see me as much as I wanted to see them, which was painful.  Some people, um, are no longer interesting outside the College.  Which sounds so snooty, but what I mean is: we had W&M in common, but now we have alumni-ship in common and the difference is large enough that we don't relate anymore.  Still others I walked away from with the uncomfortable feeling that I will probably never see them again.  That is a sad thing to realize.

This whole "adjusting" thing is Sisyphean and I have been frustrated.  Hence, my Homecoming fears.  I'm still working on where I'm going from here and these moments are a big part of that.  Plus, it's just a weird place to be in general for WM's 09 class, so it's easy to feel a little lost and alone.  This being said, I'm surprised at how well we can relate and relieved that we do.  I'm thankful my friends share the same sentiments while remaining so supportive and optimistic, and ultimately I did enjoy taking those first steps to new off-campus friendships.  It means a lot that the people I was closest with then made time to be with me now, asked about my life and answered my own questions about theirs, and ensured we'll be together in the future somehow (be it visiting or traveling or virtual LOST parties, baby).  We are still close and will make it work as best we can, which I suppose is how adults make friendships work in the real world.
Plus: you guys are super hot and I'm stoked to have such sexy people in my life. Makes me feel sunny on the inside.

So ultimately, thanks for the weekend you guys.  Here's to new challenges and unexpected contented-ness-es.

The time feels right for a 

CHEESE-TASTIC PHOTO OP MOMENT

i'm still bringing reading, but will consider the weekend a clamorous success if none of it gets done

Couple things:
1) I live 3 miles from downtown for the following reason: if I WANT to be in the middle of Philadelphia's "WE'RE GOING TO THE WORLD SERIES" rioting, I will go downtown.  Thank you for your thoughtfulness, but bringing the riot to my neck of Broad Street was a bit much.  (PS: Phillies are round two-ing the World Series!  It's so weird to live in a city that has really good professional sports)

2) As beautiful as Philadelphia is, my pictures of the city are starting to get boring.  I took a wrong turn downtown yesterday and found some fun stuff, but more importantly I found some great people and got really excited.  Unfortunately, trying to take pictures of people you don't know is really awkward so ... next time.  When I build enough courage to be awkward on purpose.  So, stayed tuned for my next project: "The People Here are So 'Unique'"!

Anyway.  Here's another picture of a building:

3) I got a string of Phonathon emails in advance of this weekend that made me cry:
- "Hey everyone!  Exciting news!  It's almost homecoming!  And Annie is coming to town (ONLY TO VISIT US, OBVIOUSLY)!  Lets hang out! ..." - Sup1
- "Since virtually none of my graduated friends love me and are not coming to homecoming (besides Annie), I ... can hang out whenever.  ... My parents will be in town for the weekend, but I can work them around hanging out with Annie." -Sup2
- "YOU GUYS.  Seriously you guys?  I am so excited that you're including me in your supervisor hangout.  I literally just shed a tear.  People in the Temple Library are looking at me funny.  You guys are awesome." - Me

Part of coming back for Homecoming (for me) is realizing how few undergrads I'm acquainted with and what the campus is to me now, after four years of dedicated service and crushing academic schedules.  Honestly, I was so worried that no one would really care that I was around and that coming back would be a mistake -- Happily, as evidenced above, there ARE people who look forward to catching up with me!  And not just the ones I've been bugging for weeks (Amanda and Diana especially have suffered through some novel-length emails).   I'm really excited about the weekend, but also really grateful that there are more people who care about me than I give credit to.  Note to self: be more thankful. You guys rule.  And I can't wait to see you too!

[Side note: growing up is hard, you guys.  It's weird to be on this side of campus, trying to find people, not sure what your new "alumna" role is.  Getting old blows (29 days to my next quarter-life crisis)]

STOP THE PRESSES

The previous post was all kinds of premature you guys!

I just got my first (8 page) paper on Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit back ... 

A- !!

I am so throwing myself a party!  My whole semester just dramatically improved!  Grad school is awesome!!

it is like december does not even exist

My semester has divided into two strict camps: Theory vs. Literature.  Theory is dominating.  I wish I had established a safe-word earlier in the game because my brain is melting.

To my knowledge we did not have theory classes at W&M and I'm 100% sure it's because they are stupid.  These people are all dead and frankly their stuff is old and boring.  Also, with the advent of the Internet, let's face it: TOMORROW'S arguments are obsolete already, so ... seriously.  What do you have to say that is relevant.

I'm in it for the political activism, you guys: literature is no longer cooped up in libraries and ivory towers and exposit-ed upon by sneezy old white men in fraying blazers with patched elbows.  It's on the streets, babiez, and when you dig into lit you're holla-ing at today's issues and the movements at the forefront of society.  Thus, I do not see the relevance of critical theorists unless they are historically related to my field(s).  It's like a class on Latin American history when you're a European history major.  It kind of makes sense that you have to take it, but doesn't apply to you really.

My professors disagree.   Evidently theory is crucial to my training in literature.

Behold, my semester of ferociously warring tribes. 
Shakespeare class? Awesome.  My seminar paper hovers between Gertrude, Hamlet, Lear, and Cordelia, with a dash of extreme sociopolitical brilliance.  Modern Lit?  Marxism and modernism and the correlating rise of sexual visibility to crisis economies ... it's going to be a great qualifying paper contestant.  Awesome squared.

"Hegel?"  "Intro to Grad Studies?"  Kicking. My. Ass.  It's unreal how lost I am in discussion and how terrifically difficult the papers are.  I am floored by theory.  It is maddening.

I have grudgingly reverted to the undergrad system: 40+ hours in the library and haunting office hours.  I refuse to let Theory walk all over me like this and I will see you after class, Professors.

So, there you have my graduate school experience.  But to end on an optimistic note:




If THAT doesn't make you feel awesome, than I have nothing else for you sir.

i learned a new word today: 'hashtag'!

"Always be ready to make your defense to anyone who demands from you a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect" - 1 Peter 3:15 (ESV)

I do now and will always have hope #andnotjustonmyObamafleece

ZING

mini-thoughts: mini-interesting

- This week was unapologetically academic.  For four days I was sequestered in various libraries, seminar rooms, and grad lounges helplessly suffocating under piles of books and articles.  And scratching out discourses on editorial privilege, and assembling bibliographies on "queer fish."  The ivory tower is a-lonely and strange.
On the plus side: if you extrapolate my progress I will have a complete mental encyclopedia of literature locked up by 2095!

-It was 33 degrees when I got up this morning.  Dan warned me: one day you wake up and Pennsylvania is COLD.  I desperately need to update (um, start building) a winter wardrobe before I freeze; my Obama fleece and a cute scarf does not a winter ensemble make

- Comedy: not universal??  In Virginia I'm hilarious but in Philadelphia I'm mildly eccentric and awkward.  It's weird.   Thankfully, sarcasm and "That's what she said" transcend regional differences, but I need to work on my material you guys

- Many more shows and films are set in Philly than you think, thus: theoretically if I spend enough time downtown I'll be an extra in a movie/TV show soon!  If you see me somewhere and I am uncredited, please waste no time updating my IMDB page as I am sincerely looking forward to fame

- Is anyone else feeling awkward re: Homecoming?  I can't wait to see campus again and hear what my fellow 09ers have been doing with their new off-campus lives ... but isn't it going to be weird?  Plus my hair is in that awkward not-cute growing-out phase.  Maybe I'll just plan to be at the Leafe the whole time, too inebriated to care.  Join me.
[Also: who's going to be there and let's make a date!  I miss you!]

- I accidentally abandoned tech-media this week for like the first time in my life.  Existential crisis.
I'm a fan of instant gratification and immediate knowledge; naturally, I am miserably addicted to the internet.  I spent so much time combing through lit databases this week I forgot the relentless Facebook updates and news media-haunting that is my daily life.  Spoiler Alert:  I did NOT cease to exist.
This weekend's experiment: the independent/French movies I've been meaning to catch up with and the non-essential reading that's been lonely on my bookshelf.

And, of course, the literary research.  So. Much. Literary research.

The view from my window yesterday!  Slowly PA enters fall

and I creep closer and closer to my first fall drive .. to Lancaster County.

 I need a homemade bonnet.