Study break
Laugh. Under the plains of heaven and under the threadbare trees, laugh. Forget forget forget and just laugh laugh at the toil and the winter for they will not bring you down. Your head is filled with useless words and your feet are caked with winterfilth and your hair is crusted with tears and cold wind but your eyes are bright and your heart is not yet failing. Burn that light. Burn it to the end. Burn that light in the dark of the unknown and the horror of the possible, until the unknown is no longer dark and the possible is no longer before you but behind you. But to laugh you must first forget, and to forget, you must first know hope.

No business like SNOW buisness...
Now Playing: Stravinsky, "Rite of Spring," because I'm writing a PAPER on it!!!!
It snowed this afternoon! For a little while it was really coming down. Things would be so much happoer if it would stay on the ground.

Instant Poem for the Dawn of Reading Week
The carols are playing in the rooms of the dorm
And hot mugs of cider are keeping us warm.
There's laughter and music and toil and druge
And all we've been eating is cookies and fudge.
While visions of finals swirl 'round in our brains
We dream of the day we'll be free from our pains.
Our classes are ending, we're wating for snow,
And two weeks drags by fast and rushes by slow.

A quiz for finals month!

It's 12/1. Do you know where your mental state is?

1. It's December 1! How do you feel?
a. Only 15 days to go! I can make it!
b. Only 15 days to go?? Eeeeeeeeeeeeep. Better hurry up.
c. Time means nothing to you when you're in HELL!

2. How's that weather?
a. With the leaves gone, the buildings stand out so much better!
b. It's gray and gloomy outside. Bleh.
c. ::Cough cough:: It's virus season is what it is.

3. There are Christmas songs playing! How do you feel?
a. I love Christmas! It gives me hope
b. AAAAAHHHH it's coming too soon and I'm running out of time AAAAH!
c. If I hear one more sleigh bell jingling I'm going to poke my eyes out with those candy canes.

4. Any wishes for this holdiay season?
a. I wish they served eggnog in the dining hall like last year.
b. I wish I had taken classes with less writing.
c. I wish college had never come to me. I wish none of this had happened.

5. Complete the phrase: Whatever doesn't kill me...
a. ...makes me stronger.
b. ...might initially make me stronger, but over the long run gradually and insidiously weakens me until it finally does kill me.
c. ...doesn't make a difference. I might as well be dead.

6. What about those papers and finals?
a. They're tough, but if I put my nose to the grindstone I'll mangage.
b. Alternating between extreme stress and denial. And I seem to have lost my nose in the last grindstone (aka October).
c. ::mooaan::

Answers:
Mostly a: You're in good shape. Despite the challenges, you're optimistic and full of holiday cheer.
Mostly b: You're being realistic. Yeah, it may seem like a downer, but you've got a big job to do and it's just not gonna be cool.
Mostly c: Let me guess...do you go to Yale?

The Best Month of the Year!
Mood:  a-ok
Now Playing: "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen," Tim Snow (Christmas with Guitars)
So the winter has arrived at last! It's actually not snowing outside; it's pouring rain furiously, but I thought the blog was due for a revamping anyway. Maybe the new layout will inspire me to actually write this month.

I have been surviving this last week of classes before Reading Week (read: Cram Sessions) better than I thought. Maybe that's because I'm in denial; maybe it's because I have a better sense of perspective. I have a post-it note on above my computer that says: "If you DO IT, it's no longer difficult."

I've been devoting an inordinate amount of time to (what I would call "Life Musings" in Blog 1.0, which, if you remember, had topics. I've dispensed with those, because more and more my entries seemed difficult to classify. They were all about school, all about life, and for a while, all about politics, and they were certainly all "Random Ramblings." So the topics are no more. But I digress. I've been thinking about how I want to spend my one and only life, living in the most fulfilling way possible. I really have come to that place everyone talks about - the "crossroads." The world is wide. I'll leave it at that.

Happy December. I'd love an advent calendar. I wonder if they have them at Shaw's.

Why I Am Thankful
If the world were shrunk into a village with only 100 people, that village would have:
57 Asians
21 Europeans
14 from the Western Hemisphere, both north and south
8 Africans
52 would be female
48 would be male
70 would be non-white
30 would be white
70 would be non-Christian
30 would be Christian
89 would be heterosexual
11 would be homosexual
6 people would possess 59% of the entire world's wealth and all 6 would be from the United States.
80 would live in substandard housing
70 would be unable to read
50 would suffer from malnutrition
1 would be near death; 1 would be near birth
1 would have a college education, and 1 would own a computer.


If you woke up this morning with more health than illness... you are more blessed than the million who will not survive this week.

If you have never experienced the danger of battle, the loneliness of imprisonment, the agony of torture, or the pangs of starvation ... you are ahead of 500 million people in the world.

If you can attend a church meeting without fear of harassment, arrest, torture, or wrath... you are more blessed than three billion people in the world, about 60% of the world population.

If you have food in the refrigerator, clothes on your back, a roof overhead and a place to sleep... you are richer than 75% of this world.

If you have money in the bank, in your wallet, and spare change in a dish someplace... you are among the top 8% of the world's wealthy.

If your parents are still alive and still married... you are very rare, even in the United States and Canada.

If you hold up your head with a smile on your face and are truly thankful... you are blessed because the majority can, but most do not.

If you can read this message, you are more blessed than over two billion people in the world that cannot read at all.

We're a fortunate group of people...

AND THERE IS MUCH TO BE DONE!

(from http://www.kanji.org/kanji/jack/personal/100peop.htm)

This is really yesterday's entry...
One of the problems with Yale is that far too often all the best stuff happens at once. This is immediately apparent in the dining halls, when you have jus grabbed your cheesecake only to realize they have pecan pie too. Yesterday, I found myself having to choose between (1) tea with Judy Woodruff of CNN fame, (2) marching to the Yale Investments Office with a group of protesters (all friends of mine) to delliver a petition demanding disclosure of where Yale invests (it's not a pretty picture), and (3) hearing Howard Dean speak about the media and the election, accompanied by Evan Thomas of Newsweek and Martin Nolan of the Boston Globe.

So what was I to do? Well, since they were at different times and I didn't technically have any work due until after break, I did all three. Yay for politically informed, activist me. It was great. Coincidentally, I was eating dinner with the Treasurer of the College Dems, who was really excited about the fact that even though we'll be in the off season for a while, we need to do what the GOP did and work every bit as hard as we did during election season. Great. So much for the respite. :)

What is the good life? or, the Adolescent Existential Crisis strikes again
I don't know what I want to do with my life.

Well, I kind of do. I know I want to be an archaeologist, teach at a beautiful and conveniently-located university, work adjunctly at a museum, and write books.

At the same time, I get these strange, antithetical urges to break the rules. The rules that say that a smart, driven Yalie should get ahead -- not necessarily financially or prestigiously, but in terms of maintaining high acheivement goals. It's not that my goals don't sound incredibly fun; it's that they're intense. Every so often, I wonder about my ability -- or anyone's -- to withstand prolonged intensity.

One of these urges is to just have kids (and, I'm finally reconciling with this, getting married) and do a realtively simple job that allows me to spend as much time with them as humanly possible, such as teaching elementary school. Not that teaching is easy, but it's not exactly "publish or perish." Every time I see kid I want one, so I can vicariously enjoy the holidays through him/her. Is that wrong? I don't think so. Just to be at home with them, by the fire, making cookies...the joys of domesticity... WHAT am I saying??

The other urge is just to be a bum and travel around. I mean, who doesn't want to get rid of all their burdensome stuff save what they can stuff in a backpack, and live sub-simply? I watched a film in French class last year about how easy it is to get food without buying or stealing it. Agriculturalists reject so many fruits and vegetables that aren't shaped like the commercial standard, and just leave them in piles or in the fields. Some people even go through garbage cans and find fresh, obviously unspoiled food that restaurants and others have rejected. When I think about it, our consumer society makes me sick, I love traveling, I'm not materialistic, and I love just spending time thinking. I would be the perfect Kerouackian dharma bum. It's so exciting to think about breaking the system and just beeing free and guiltless.

Then again, what would become of my Yale education? We are SO entrenched in our society's expectations. And archaeology is just cool. And so on and so on...


...but still...

Let it snow...
Early this morning, a light snow, the first of the year, began to fall. It was beautiful, and almost (but not quite) seemed to justify the Christmas decorations strung along York and Broadway and the sickeningly premature barrage of holiday commercials. I swear they didn't appear last year until after Thanksgiving. I almost feel legitimized in my desire to sing carols and buy eggnog, but I should probably restrain myself. I don't want to burn out all the excitement. But I confess, I did order a gingerbread latte at Starbucks yesterday. Poor Thanksgiving, getting overlooked as the Christmas season starts earlier every year. Is it a sign of our culture growing more eager for the commerical blitz of December? Or are we just running out of things to be thankful for? Whatever it is, I'm fully guilty of it. I love Christmas so much that it's worth it.

So, perhaps to lessen the post-election blues (man, am I still moping about that?), life has decided to give me a break. School has been much less stressful since the last of the midterms passed, and despite the looming specter of the big research papers, I feel pretty good. I even want to continue environmental and other activist campaigns. Best of all, I get to go home in 10 days. It was 27 degrees outside this morning. Eeeep.

Wasting time is back on the agenda! For the first time this semester I feel generally relaxed. It hope it lasts. I'm thinking it won't. :)