"don't bond too closely or you'll end up with your head in an oven!" -Jamie Hood

Holy cripes is this grad school thing getting intense.

So, this week I'm spending a lot of time with women whose existential crises overcame them during politically-charged moments in history: Virginia Woolf (d. 1941) and Sylvia Plath (d. 1963).  Lovely.  Thus I'm taking a break (and backing away from my gas oven) to bring you the following!

A Very Special Episode in which 

Everyone Learns an Important Lesson 

A Much-Anticipated Q&A Event

 Q: Let's bring your reading public up to speed.  Why do you study literature?
A: It's awesome.

Q: Try that without using the word "awesome."
A: It's timeless.  Lit has mutated through a zillion forms, from Beowulf to blogging, and has never been outgrown.  Humans have this desperate need to tell stories and establish identities using them, and studying literature is a deeply personal way to study people and how we move through history.

Q: What's "ModBritLit" and why is it a big deal?
A: A v. hot abbrev. Modern British Literature is the lit period bookended 1900-1945, though I prefer to identify the period using Oscar Wilde's trial (1895) - end of WWII (mid-late 1945).  Journalism, novels, and other written media trace the history of this era's chaotic upheaval.  For example: details of Wilde's trial depict a relationship equivalent to an institutional private-school boys' friendship; so where does this violent public attack on personal life come from?  And the war poets do a better job than I at detailing this, but in 1945 WWII ended because the US whipped out a nuclear smackdown.  Talk about a terrorist attack: can you imagine living in a world that is perpetually threatened by nuclear annihilation?

Um.  Anyway.  "Modernism" is the pictures, art, movies, radio shows, newspapers, novels, and other physical artifacts of an unfinished story.  It's an unstable period of rapidly changing ideas of identity, progress, technology, and the future.  Literary artists (like Woolf and Plath) struggled to find the meaning of the individual in such a world (but sometimes gave up).

Q: What do you do with it? How is it relevant?
A: Literature's evolution parallels our own. Our identity today as individuals in a global environment is overwhelming: between blogging (guilty), the self-exposé of Facebook/Twitter, blurred lines of an endless and undefined war, international economic collapse, political instability, the Internet itself, 24-hour media, constant connection to email, texting, cell phones .... How do we establish meaning and self-identification?

But it's ALSO as though modernism predicted us.  Here's an extra-creepy modern lit reference:

'I thought insurance companies never smashed,' was Helen's contribution.  'Don't the others always run in and save them?' - Howard's End, E.M. Forster 1914

And modern lit references are applicable to this very day.  Alex Mayer `09 is pretty much a modernist: "Quoting Yeats to describe the UN: where “the best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity" http://bit.ly/jRdak" (@Alex_Mayer 9/30/09).  It's great!

Q: So modernism is an opportunity to re-stage our current cultural moment?
A: Yes and no.  Because of mid-late 1945 we live in a surreal alternate reality of post-nuclear identity that is incomparable to ... but I don't have the foreign affairs know-how to speak intelligently about that.  What I DO have is a BS in Psychology, so welcome to Gender/Sexuality/Queer studies!

I revel in unpacking the historic construction of sexuality, institutions established to regulate it, culturally-relative ideas of gender, and what it means to challenge these things.  Also: how is sexuality evolving?  How do we now define it, why, and what do feminism or affirmative action or  DoMA or Prop 8 mean?  What historically has happened and how do we learn from it?

Woolf swore that life experiences happen on a continuum of sexuality and intimacy: from penetrative sex to hand-holding to kissing to same-sex friendships to walking in the park, intimacy is individual and shared.  And yet we still don't know how to deal with our own and others' right to intimacy without prejudice, anger, or restrictive social norms. Crazy.

Q: And that's the draw of literary academia?
A: Yep.  And it's awesome.

"There is only Love.  Everything else is our resistance to it." 
- Terces Engleheart 

cheers for flying American (and recession pricing)

To the Philadelphia International Airport!  It is LIKE international jet-setting, but more American.  Domestic jet-setting, if you will.  Intra-national Boeing-journeying.

Really, any use of American-made aircraft for travel within the contiguous US.

Excellent.

UPDATE 7.30pm: canceled flights are sucky.

UPDATE 10.47am Saturday: It's like a bad dream in which you are quite sure you're dreaming but can't wake up.  So much for this weekend (THANKS AMERICAN-MADE)

UPDATE 12.25pm Saturday: Cutting losses.  Try again next time. Lame.

i refuse to call it a "bucket list," that's so morbid

To Do:

1. Skydive *
2. Publish a novel (or seven)
3. Explore Berlin
(3b. Deutsch lernen)
4. Study in London
5. Join the NYTimes bestseller list, if but for a fleeting moment
6. Hold a public office (one of the easy ones- I'm not Presidential material, you guys)
7. Go white-water rafting
8. Adopt a pet
9. Camp in the Great Smoky Mountains
10. See the Pacific Ocean
11. Go skiing
12. Learn to love unconditionally
13. Hike a mountain
14. Get an awesome tattoo *
15. Take cello lessons
16. Earn a PhD in something I love (practicality be damned)
18. Order (escargot) in French (à Paris, bien sûr)
19. Climb to the top of a New England lighthouse
20. See the sunrise over the Grand Canyon
21. Volunteer for a girls' program in need of female role models
22. Shake President Obama's hand
23. Learn to let go and give life the space it needs to happen

Your turn!

 Bears repeating. July 18, 2009

* Completed at least once

things be happening, y'all

A)  I've adopted catch-phrases for the day, beginning with "Shut it down" and "This makes me want to shoop." *  Hoping to get away with using them in seminar, will keep you posted

B) Someone asked ME for directions today!  So I was checking my watch at the corner of Walnut and 16th downtown (oh PS I rep a corporate-America watch now but ironically) and straight-up this guy was all like "Excuse me: do you know how get to 12th and Market?"  And I was like "Oh wow I do actually."

It's official: I now give off a "Why-yes-I-DO-know-where-I'm-going-and-you-can-trust-me-to-point-you-in-the-right-direction" kind of vibe. Talk about awesome!

The one caveat would be, um ... I had JUST pulled out my Streetwise map at the Walnut-Locust station because I had no idea where I was.

Still counts.

* In the sage and timeless words of one Liz Lemon

you can take the girl out of WM, but it takes more than that to silence the TWAMP

Today I tore myself from the library long enough to check out the Graduate English Association (GEA) at their first meeting of the year. It was a great opportunity to learn more about the MA/PhD program, meet students in various stages with various bits of advice, and get a first look at what social/academic events are upcoming this semester.

I really enjoyed having an opportunity to hobknob with my colleagues in a (nonthreatening) Q&A environment, with a social calendar to boot. They host Happy Hours, among other grad student and inter-campus events, and sponsor awesome nerdy things like book swaps and after-hours faculty seminars. (Remember how magically the national MLA conference is in Philadelphia this year? The GEA is negotiating Temple involvement!) As neat and helpful as it is, the group is somewhat disjointed: they don't have funding and are student reps, so evidently it becomes difficult to find committee chairs and volunteers to sponsor and set up events. At the meeting, for example, my mentor Caitlin reluctantly agreed to chair the interim Social committee position while they search for a long-term person.

I bet you can guess what came next. Say "Hi" to the newest member of the (Events) committee!

[Ed. Note: This might be grounds for an intervention.]

LOST is awesome and that's pretty much all

Michael Emerson is extra hot when he's holding an Emmy. Way to rep the best drama series on television.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

And the only reason Mad Men took the "Outstanding Drama Series" Emmy is because LOST is a sci-fi drama and THAT'S DISCRIMINATION YOU GUYS.

In other news: Temple provides free flu vaccines for its student/faculty community. It's like universal health care. Unfortunately it's Monday 9am and I'm already nursing a bruised shoulder. It hurts, you guys. I got the shot like a half hour ago and the bruise is the size of a nickel AND it really hurts.



In awesome weekend news: Diana came to visit! She came in Friday night and left Sunday evening. I got to play hostess/tour guide and it was seriously so much fun.
Highlights include:

• the Liberty Bell
  
• Temple's campus
• the Gay-borhood (and its unexpectedly phenomenal sandwiches)
  
• Washington Square
  
• Brunch in Manayunk
• A brief PMA moment
• The best pizza on the planet
  

Diana agrees: this city is awesome. Pictures going up on FB and I can't wait for next time! Living in Philadelphia is even more fun when I get to share with friends.

In sad weekend news: the Eagles suffered a humiliating loss on home turf. This has reignited even more inexplicable fervor for Michael Vick's eventual return to the field (I guess he was a good Falcon quarterback or something?), but in the meantime put Philly in a slightly sour mood.

So. This week could go either way, really.

whew.

This is the first time I've even looked at this in a while. Also: slowing down is relative, I discovered. No judging.

Some stuff:

- I got ALL my reading done this week! Plus I'm tearing through some great non-essential reading on the shuttle, since I commute a half-hour each way. This is a huge accomplishment of which I'm v. proud

- Dan and I ate at the swanky 10 Arts by Eric Ripert for Restaurant Week, where I was blindsided by the tiny detail that the chef de cuisine is Jennifer Carroll! Of this season's "Top Chef!" She totally made me lunch and it was phenomenal

- I got my first Phonathon call Wednesday night. I met a new caller, talked to three sups, heard the whole room shout "Hi Annie!" and only cried a little bit afterward

- My first conference paper presentation was pretty babbly, but went over well. My colleagues had some great questions and I scored some really useful perspective. It was awesome, if the most terrifying hour of my week

Grad school is awesome. It's a lot of fun and a lot of reading/writing, which I am apt to do too much of as it is. Admittedly exhausting, but not in the least bit similar to how drained I felt working behind a desk all day. I still work at least 40 hours a week, but it feels so much more ... tangible?

Everything I learn, research, read, write, and discuss is in some way affecting my field and how I move in it. In other words, I'm not working toward something anymore - I'm working in what I've been working toward, and it makes each day pretty cool.

But that's my new secret, you guys: Do what you love doing.

"quivering catalog of caustic vapidity" would be a great name for a band

Saturday saw my four-week mark come and go. To which I say: "Um, wow."

Four weeks of life in Philly. So: What I have accomplished? What am I doing right that I want to keep doing, and where can I change? Why is my blog so boring?

A moment of reflection claims this: while on the one hand I've been whirlwind-busy with classes and people and things to do, the other hand is pretty uncomfortable of late. There's something nostalgic about having every hour of your day filled up like a good little WM student, but I'm a Temple grad student ("adult") now; what's really going on?

My other hand is no fool: this is a juvenile defense mechanism.

It's lonely here, you guys. I've been blessed to have so many people to spend time with and get to know better, but in a sad rerun of May everyone is ultimately leaving me to fend for myself. Talk about abandonment issues. I've cheerfully avoided dealing with it, but you guys, it's hard to be on a campus where no one knows your name; I hate feeling generally invisible to the world. The easy way out is to keep busy, which is starting to crack. It's particularly hard to keep up the facade when your English grad-student peers spell out the same sentiments.

Jamie's right, per usual: the little moments are the ones that crack you in the face. It's getting on the subway alone at night to go "home," or having to ask where to go in the library, or not having anyone to get coffee with on campus that sting the most. They are the painful little reminders that you're alone and just trying to stumble through each day.

I've been racing through life here at breakneck speed so I won't have time to notice them. I've loved all the things I've posted about, but secretly I've been too busy on purpose. My blog is a sad series of "I did this today!" and "This person is awesome!" There is so very little "This is how my life has changed" or "This is a life lesson I have come to appreciate" to be proud of. This blog started as something I could use intellectually to explore human experience and has degenerated into a quivering catalog of caustic vapidity.

I'm disappointed with my self-celebrity narcissism, you guys. It's so blonde of me.

I am thus embracing the next four weeks in Philly with a new challenge: slow the fuck down and take a breath. My life is a lot richer than I give it credit for -- it's high time I started acknowledging it. And maybe making some Temple friends while I'm at it.

Preview of the joys to come: My bucket list (get ready to share yours!). Why I'm studying ModBritLit/Gender and Sexuality in the first place. Poverty in Philadelphia and what it's already taught me. The President and what he means to the City. What I tell people when they ask where my accent is from (hint: 4 different states so far, no challengers).

So. I welcome you to the next stage of the blog.

"i like aggressive women with a nerdy vibe"

Spending the entire morning/early afternoon at a Premodern Studies colloquium. The keynote speaker:

9am, Graham Hammill, SUNY Buffalo: "Was Jesus a Terrorist?"

Best. Day. Ever.

[Ed note: pretty uncomfortable/intense challenge to American idea of religious violence vs. what is "redeemable." Fascinating if sobering way to spend the morning of 9/11.]

Our President's message: Mark today as a National Day of Service and Remembrance

top temple shots

This is Broad Street. I live three miles up that way!
Downtown just behind you

This is the Baptist Temple (Temple's Wren Building)

This is where the English majors hide

It's no Sunken Gardens, but lots and lots of green space is awesome

I'll post all 100 of my other campus shots on FB too, if you're curious what a not-WM campus looks like.

celeb sighting #1: Paul Rudd

It was not that exciting. Especially from so far away (might have been a PA?).

Still! Real-life movie sets and movie stars = awesome. Hope Daniel Radcliffe makes it out here next

there is no end to philly's awesomeness

So I found out today that a friend of a friend at Temple is a Film Studies major (or something) and is filming on location in Center City. Rittenhouse Square is purposed today for an in-production movie starring Paul Rudd, Jack Nicholson, and Reese Witherspoon.

If I could just point out that Temple's campus is ALSO downtown. I am four blocks from Paul Rudd RIGHT NOW.

This is totally a legit excuse for skipping class, right? I look extra-cute today and Paul Rudd totally needs a cute, short, sardonic, geeky English Lit MA candidate in his life.

the view from my apartment is often stunning, actually

because we love unconditionally here

As much as there is to update (and as much as I love to talk about myself, seriously you guys), I sum with this:

Life is wonderful (JM). I have so much inspiring and creative reading to tackle this week, and my graduate program is like an alternate universe of awesomeness (if imbibed with Foucault - I share your pain, Jamie). Be warned: my excitement over my work in the program may begin to leak into this blog.

And as a note, I am so grateful to my friends who love me and want to share in my adventures here (first out-of-state visitors this week!) -- I'm terribly indebted to the Constant Readers who are just as much in Philadelphia as I am. That's you, you guys. Many thanks to you all for being so very supportive and excited and an indelible part of my experience during my year "abroad." It's hard to miss you when I feel so connected, which is awesome. So, I love you guys, with as much cheesy-ness as I can muster.

Keep me posted with your interests/questions (and visiting dates, my Fall is filling up fast) and I promise to keep in intimate touch. (SEXY TIMES)

#okaystopbeingsodramaticandtellmorefunnystories

finding peace. that elusive bastard

It is Saturday of Labor Day weekend, and I'm where any good little Yankee with an ounce of class would find herself today: At the Jersey Shore. MMM, fresh salty air and jubilant surf. The company is sexy, the weather perfect, and the food BARBEQUE. (Yes,with veggie options. Because I'm cute, and gifted with a winning smile, duh.)

It's been a while since I've had my feet in the sand and saltwater in my hair, so, naturally, I was soon blindsided: homesick. Bam. Thanks for being unexpected at the beach, homesickness. I hate you because it is complicated between us: it's hard to define what my roots are, making "homesickness" weird.

The ocean has a pretty good argument, albeit cliched. Having grown up in Virginia's most beautiful city (DROP), there is little I count more refreshing than reconnecting with the sea: "O ye, whose eyes are tired and vexed! / Feast them upon the wideness of the sea!*" VaBch the city is energetic and ever-changing, a huge benefit to someone as fast-paced as I. The ocean itself is my favorite mystery: the shore is but a whisper of what lies beyond, a prologue to endless tales of the sights it has seen ... on a clear day you can see miles and miles into the great blue unknown. Growing up on the oceanfront, the sound of the waves was a constant hypnotic force (terrorist seagull cries aside): the ocean will always be new, fresh, exciting, unpredictable, strong ... Sometimes, I need the ocean to go home to.

But I go home to the hills of Tennessee for the winter holidays. Nashville is home to slow-talking, kindhearted people with a belief in the strength of community. Good home cooking was born there, beside long conversations on the porch and loving your neighbors as fortuitous family. The mountains are solemn and ancient; you get a sense they've always been there and always will be, unchanging and proud. The skies are so clear and there are far too many stars to allow for darkness. My family has farms and fishing holes and soft accents and big hugs. There is snow, which Virginia only occasionally allows. Sometimes, and at least annually, I need to go home to Nashville.

In some ways this inconsistency and love of different cultures is a blessing. I'm embracing a terrific sense of wanderlust lately: I love to travel, look forward to exploring new lifestyles, and enjoy doing awesome things like eating my way through new cities with unexpected local fare. [Ed Note: This is a cheesesteak shout-out.] I am even so stoked to spend time in NJ: the Shore is pretty much totally awesome, if no VB.

Still the "where do I belong?" question persists and nags during beach time. Presumably, this has more to do with finding who I am and where I want to be than nostalgia. This in itself is frustrating, you guys: I am the person I want to be, even as I learn every day who that person is. I have the rest of my life to grow into myself and it's a journey that's already underway. Not that any of that makes sense, but whatevs. You get it.

I worry that this means I'll always be homesick. Or never find closure. Though maybe it means I just don't know what "home" is yet and that's part of the journey.

In any case, back to beaching it and maybe some illumination.

* John Keats, "On the Sea,"1817

"it's like ComiCon, but for English majors"

Today Temple gave me several great things:

1. My ModBritLit course is entitled "Fabricating Englishness: Modernism, Nation, Empire," and I fell in love. A whole course on the identity crisis that is British modernism - such a gift!
2. I'm the only gender/sexuality student (the rest are 19th century American, or Victorianists, or narrative theorists...), which is scary but empowering. My psychology background apparently adds credibility? People seem to trust what I have to say which is awesome
3. My advisor knows Suzanne Raitt (!) and is supportive of my thesis proposal. One down
4. The MLA Convention is being held in downtown Philadelphia December 27-30!

Life is but a dream right now, and it's freaking me out. I can't make this stuff up.

Professor Joshi asked us to choose a "keyword" as a research platform
in our MBL work, which will evolve into my master's thesis
(see: Fall 2008 colloquium)

the city that loves you back

Philly things I'll be adopting, Part I:

1. Cheesesteaks. I hereby shelve vegetarianism until I can find a cheese-veggie that's half as delicious
2. The Eagles. Yes, they signed Michael Vick, but no, I've never been to a professional football game and I'm totally stoked for the season!
3. The Phillies. I'm like 90% sure they won the World Series last year, you guys
4. A distaste for New Jersey (that remains unexplained)
5. A fiery love of hot street pretzels! Well, a continuing fiery love
6. Deep respect for Ben Franklin, the Thomas Jefferson of Philadelphia
7. The Philadelphia Museum of Art (many times over!)
8. An ability to ride trains? Yet another travel frontier
9. Yuengling! Cheers to America's oldest brewery (that's still American)!
10. Snow. It's inevitable, so I'm making the best of it: Ski trips!

List to be continued as I stumble my way through the City of Brotherly Love (and sign up for things I should schedule with you!)

Promise this is one of the last LOVE park photos.
For a while, anyway

little triumphs make all the difference

Today I ordered New York-style pizza from a New York-style short order cook without being sent to the end of the line.

"Good work today, sweetheart," he grinned as he handed my mushroom slice through the window. I proudly accepted my hard-won prize and tried not to skip back to the garden benches.

Plus the pizza tasted more awesome today.

also

Gmail is down, in case you missed that. Frig, technology

temple update

Temple experience thus far: orientation on Friday was an hour of "getting to know you" and a catered lunch on the 11th floor (guess which room?). We had our first happy hour that evening at a bar in Old Town, where I realized all at once how very sexy I find historic districts. (Evidently, colonialism = hot?)

Grad professors are hilarious and vulgar, though maybe that's Philly. Additionally, we're all guaranteed A's as long as we're producing work that furthers our thesis work. Awesome. My four classes each meet once a week, and each class requires 3 papers of 5-10 pages. Add a thesis due in the Spring and an hour-long translation exam in November, and boom goes the dynamite: M.A. 2010.

So I have interesting, not over-strenuous work weeks and four-day weekends. This is awesome: in addition to the many visitors I anticipate (open invitation to you all), there is so very much Temple U and Philadelphia to get to know better. Peter said it best: "Philadelphia is one of those cities you have to discover for yourself."

I'm learning the same is true of Temple. I can tell you the campus is way hot, and the weather beautiful, and the gardens refreshing, and the people sweet ... but it's hard to communicate that via blog.

If I have to convey something, this is it: it's good times, you guys. Good times. Oh, and I need to put more unnecessary pictures on facebook. Damn.

[Side note: the shuttle driver was wearing a Michael Jordan jersey on my first day. Points to those who guess why that's hilarious. Also guess which bus line is the Temple bus line (hint: same answer)]