Shopaholics Anonymous
Now Playing: "The Wind," Cat Stevens
The joys of the first day of classes. I can't begin to be coherent right now, so I'll just summarize each class experience in its own paragraph.

"Language, Culture, and Society" (Anthro 118): A good course that I would be happy to take. I wasn't enthralled with it, but the lectures seemed interesting and the prof gave me a good vibe. He played a Monty Python clip for us. A number of my friends are in the class, which is always helpful. Reviews seem positive, but the negative ones complain about the course being too broad, disorganized, or dry. The subject seemed really interesting, but I'm not exactly sure where he'll go with it. Final Verdict: Pending

"Structure and History of English Words" (Linguistics 108): At first I really didn't like this class because the prof spoke in a flat monotone, but as it progressed he seemed to let his guard down and reveal his sense of humor. The material seemed to take a similar trajectory -- dry and abstract at first, then more intriguing as the examples got specific. Like the previous course, this is an interactive lecture, but it meets in a smaller room, which is comfortable. Unfortunately, it meets on Friday, but the sections are optional. It will be offered again in my senior year. By the end of the class I was feeling positive enough about the course to oeruse the texts, which seemed both dry and fascinating, paradoxically. It was just so wholly new. I'm still not sure how I feel about -- I really wish I felt passionate about spending my time doing linguistics problem sets so I could learn all the wonderful insights into our rich language. Final Verdict: No.

"Fictions and the Forms of Narrative" (Lit 120): This was a really good experience. Whenever a course declares it will change the way you look at stories, it had better have something to say or else it just sounds pretentious. Apparently it used to be so controversial they listed it as "Lit X" in the course book! I was impressed by the lecture, though. It actually did put some new ideas into my head. I wish I could reiterate them in an intelligent manner! I'm very excited about this course (it's team-taught and mixes lectures and seminars) as well as the reading list. Final verdict: Yes.

"Shakespeare and the Canon: Comedies, Histories, and Poems" (Harold Bloom): I came into this course when it was halfway over, and I literally could not fit in the tiny seminar room. I had to stand on my tiptoes to see Bloom and strain my ears to hear him. It's supposedly a seminar, but the whole time I was there no one talked but Bloom, so I think they should hold it in a lecture room. From what I could discern, Bloom seemed lucid, funny, and deeply brilliant, but he seemed to expect us to have read all the plays he was talking about already. Maybe that's just because it was an overview. Anyway, I didn't stay long because of physical discomfort, and I like Lit enough that I can pass on this. I don't particularly feel like studying the Bard this year after last year's saturation with the English tradition, and his spring course on the tragedies would be more up my alley anyway. Final verdict: No.

"Archaeological Ceramics": Wow. What an amazing class. I was so intimidated to discover all the middle-aged people in the course! That's what happens when your 300-level class is double-titled as a 700-level. There is another D-port soph in the class, though, so we'll help each other out. Everyone seemed so knowledgeable! I felt that the class would be doable and wonderful, and I was praying not to be cut, since there were 18 of us in the room. The prof was very nice, and knew everyone except me, so I asked if he wanted to go to lunch later in the week to get to know me. He responded eagerly and seemed glad to have me in the course, suggesting that he would try his best to accommodate everyone. Looks like we're in the clear! Yay! Final verdict: YES!

Phew. Three more tomorrow!

So many classes, so little time!!!
I'm so excited to start classes tomorrow! I'm praying that I get in to Archaeological Ceramics, because the texts and syllabus look phenomenal! I also want to take two archaeology classes that meet at the same time. One -- Foundations of Modern Archaeology -- is Anthro, while the other -- Ancient Painting and Mosaics -- is art history. Decisions, decisions! The other two anthro classes I'm looking at are Language, Culture, and Society and Ancient Civilizations of the Andes. I think I would prefer the latter because it got better reviews and is more archaeological, but I don't want to OD on native America this year. Although, I really don't think that's possible. I think I've found my calling. I bought am American Indian Art magazine (who knew that existed?) and wanted to cut all the pictures out and put them on my walls, but I restrained myself.

But I digress. Classes, yes, that was what I was raving about. I want to take Listening to Music for sure, and also might take a linguistics course, Structure and History of English Words. To satiate my literary taste buds I might try the intro lit course on form and narrative, which has a great reading list. Alternatively, I've been thinking about shopping Harold Bloom's Shakespeare class. Even though he is old and sick, he seems to be getting great reviews on the course evaluation website. I like the sound of his spring class on the tragedies more than the fall one on comedies and histories, but my spring schedule is booked and I feel that with Bloom every year you wait you take a chance that you might miss out on the opportunity. The downside is that I might like to get a flavor for something other than English lit after last year. Finally, there is Ancient Greek History with Donald Kagan, whom my favorite history teacher from high school recommended. It is supposed to be a great class, but extremely hard, which might not be what I need now. I'mn thinking I will audit the lectures. Shopping is going to make all of this so much clearer, I hope.

I love school. What a nerd. :)

Flip-flopping up in NYC
Mood:  lazy
Bush has repeatedly said he would not politicize September 11 this election. By choosing New York for the Republican National Convention, he is already on shaky ground. The city, though overwhelmingly liberal, is still deeply feeling the 9/11 attacks. On top of that inevitable association, the GOP plans to feature 9/11 victims' relatives the first night of the convention. So, when Bush says he's not going to politicize 9/11, he means he actually is gong to politicize it. Hmm.

A Whole New Year
It's so great to be back and see my friends again! My room is beautiful. Well, it will be when I've finished organizing it.

As I prepare for my second year, I have come up with a list of goals -- call them new school year resolutions -- for myself.

I. Inward: the goal here is balance:

A. Get into a flexible routine. There are a number of things I want to try to do every day this year:
1. Excercise 25+ minutes
2. Drink tea
3. Free reading 25+ minutes
4. Write for 20-60 minutes (blogging counts)

II. Outward
A. Articulation: I want to try to stop swearing (including "sucks") as well as saying "like" as a filler. There are so many better words to use!

B. Conversation: I want to be better at adjusting my conversation level to that of the discussion as a whole. Often I find myself being too quiet and pretty silent in group situations, while in different groups I end up doing most of the talking and being loud. I would like to be able to blend up or down to fit a given discussion.

Let's see how it all goes.

FOOT-loose
The blogmistress is back from the Berkshires and getting settled in the city once again. We had more fun on support crew than I can really relate here, but it was surprisingly stressful as well. We spent more time driving and shopping than we did in the woods, it seems.

I must say I am very pleased with our performance -- my support crew visited my hiking group once; we visited one group 7 times! This group really took advantage of support crew. We brought them a bear bag rope the first day, then we helped them while they were lost on the trail. We brought them an extra fuel bottle the next morning. We ran into them while climbing Mt. Greylock. We woke up at 5:45 to hike eggs and avocados into their camp to make them omelets (at one of therir leaders' demands). We bought them extra pasta. On the last night, we let them take a shortcut by using one of the two campsites we had reserved, and then they asked to drop off a bunch of equipment for us to drive back to school so they wouldn't have to hike it out in the morning! Oh, and to top it all off, they were impatient waiting for their own bus, so they hopped onto another trip's bus and forced us to call the bus company and clear things up for the confused drivers.

We brought birthday parties and dance parties to other groups by hiking in coolers of ice cream and soda, a pink Disney scooter, and a ten-dollar boom box which we hooked up to iPods and dubbed the Ghetto Blaster. The freshmen were appreciative and looked like they were having fun.

I have heard it said that support crew is more fun than leading, and I hope that's not true. I enjoyed it a lot, but I have a feeling leading will be even more up my alley.

Happy Feet
Mood:  a-ok
FOOT has officially begun! These past two days were dedicated to intense first-aid training, which is not necessarily how I would choose to spend my time, but it's actually pretty fun. I really hope I never have to deal with any medical crises on my trips. Especially not anything resembling the drawings in the margins of our textbook. One of them has a picture of a man's leg fully impaled by an ice-axe. The funny thing is, it's the handle of the ice-axe that's impaling him. In fact, it's running straight through his thigh. Ugh.

Last night a large group of us broke into a variety of buildings (okay, "broke into" might be an exaggeration)in search of a TV where we could watch the Olympics. This was not my idea, but it sounded fun, and it turned out to be AMAZING! As the ever-profound Yogi Berra once said, "It's never over 'til it's over," and never was that more true than in the Men's Gymnastics All-Around Competition. Paul Hamm just rules. There are come-from-behind victories, and then there are come-from-12th-place-in-two-rotations victories. Speaking of Men's Gymnastics, did it seem strange how mean the NBC commmentator was to Hamm's teammate Brett McClure? He wasn't very kind to any of the athletes, but he just never seemed to let a moment pass without throwing McClure a backhanded compliment or a jab. Maybe he didn't like his unusual hair. Oh, and American Women's 4x200 Swim Team set a new world record. These sprint relays are the swimming events to which I find myself most easily relating, perhaps because of all the exciting 400 and 800 relays I ran in track.

Support crew is going to rock. Our new FOOT t-shirts are absolutely adorable. Unfortunately, they are also school-bus yellow. So it goes.

I Love New Haven!
Mood:  happy
Ah...

I am writing from the beautiful confines of Sterling Memorial Library. Since the hideous plane flight yesterday I have had the best time here. Despite arriving an hour late in Hartford I made my limo with plenty of time, and he took me right to Phelps Gate without my having to call a cab from the limo station. As soon as I saw the university buildings I was filled with delight. Even the humidity felt nice and homey. The hotel I stayed in was nice -- all to myself! -- and served me a wonderful dinner (very, very important when one has been eating airplane food, balance bars and taffy all day).

In the morning I slept in, showered, ate breakfast at the hotel, checked out at noon, and walked around town (or rather, down the road) with my huge backpack and duffel. I sat on the bench outside the art gallery and read until I got hungry for lunch and went into Atticus (yay!) for curry chicken salad. I figure I'll use every opportunity to eat meat and vegetables before FOOT sticks me on the bread, nuts and cheese diet. I finished some errands at the post office and such.

I was hesitant to give up my solitude, but carrying my luggage around finally got to me and I decided to seek out fellow FOOT folk. Duncan, Claire, and Liba were waiting on the steps of Bingham when I showed up, with hugs and questions and a key to my Vanderbilt room, which I moved into. Apparently I was only the 17th person to arrive. Now I am free until 8 am tomorrow. I think I'll call Anny tonight to see if she's arrived yet and wants to do dinner.

Did I mention I love FOOT and Yale?

Leaving On a Jet Plane
Now Playing: "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue," Bob Dylan
It's back-to-school time for me. Waking up at 4 am, driving to the ariport, flying for four hours, getting off the plane, waiting, getting on another plane, flying for two more hours, waiting, getting in a van, driving for an hour, arriving at school, realizing I just lost three hours of my day, being the only one on campus...

Ah well. I'm eager to be on support crew for the FOOT backpackers. Word has it that support crew is more fun in many ways than leading. It'll be a nice transition back into the groove.

Moving in will be hectic and probably hellish. I hope I won't have a nasty cold like I did last year.

One thing's for sure -- I'm glad to be finished packing. Goodbye sweet west coast!

Five Rings to Rule them All?
It's hard to believe that until the last decade, the Olympic Games were always held in Presidential election years. Even now the Summer Olympics coincide with elections. I realized this in my effort to figure out why the Games seemed so uninteresting this year. At first I assumed that the election had overshadowed them, but clearly it can't be that simple. True, this is the first election that I have been old/informed enough to seriously follow (okay, obsess over). However, this does not explain the lessened interest of my parents, who always used to watch the Olympics with us kids on TV. I don't think it's just my family, either -- media attention seems half-hearted, a side note, as if they feel obligated to cover Athens.

Maybe it's the fact that performance enhancing-drugs have tarnished the glory of the Games. Maybe it's the timing: summer is almost over after all. But then again the 2000 Olympics in Sydney began even later.

I think that the problem with the Olympics this year is not that they coincide with an election, but that they coincide with this election. Nobody knew in 2000 how unfathobably important their decision that November would become. Now, everybody knows. And unlike other tense times for America, we cannot rally behind our athletes in pusuit of a rival, such as the USSR. We are a nation at war, with no clear enemy. There is no "Terror" team to defeat in Athens, unless you count the real terrorists some have feared might try to sabotage the event. Finally, unlike in 2002, when we were still basking in the post-9/11 sympathies of the world, who will root for America now? Not our alienated allies. Not the Middle Eastern nations who have been devastated by our foreign policy. And sadly to say, a fair number of Americans, good patriots all, feel uneasy about cheering for a country who has done so much damage in the world. It's not that cheering for America equates with cheering for Bush. Rather, the symbolic implications of "America vs. the world," even in sports, echo the attitude of our leaders in war. Until our government makes it clear they know that war is not a sports game, I for one will never feel right about keeping track of America's Olympic medals.

Love and Marriage in a World of Judgment
In an ideal world, this entry would not be called "political." Of course, in that world I would have no need for this entry at all. Sexual orientation should not be a partisan issue, but like race in the 1960s it has become one of the most divisive.


First, I'd like to give a shout out to one of my political heroes, Mayor Gavin Newsom of San Francisco. I was saddened to hear that the California Supreme Court voided the 4,000 same-sex marriage liscences Newsom issued this spring. The court ruled that the mayor overstepped his bounds, which may be true, but calling the marriages "void from their inception" is just wrong. We should not live in a world where elected officials have to overstep the limits of their authority to affirm basic human rights. A friend of mine flew from Connecticut to San Francisco to marry at the time. When he returned, his joy was heartwarming, proud and infectious as he showed us the wedding band. Now the court is trying to make that ring mean nothing.

In New Jersey, Governor James McGreevey announced his resignation after admitting an affair with another man. I suspect that the hype and scandal surrounding this would not have been the same had the adulterer been straight. Infidelity is contemptible, but is it enough by itself these days to ruin a career? Think about the outcome for Bill Clinton had Monica Lewinsky been male. We live in a world of double standards. If all men are not created identical, let them at least be treated as equals.