Bottoms up.

One of my finals got pushed up to this coming Wednesday (from Friday), so that means I’m going to be done with college in about 64 hours.

Holy crapstick, the closer I get to the END, the more time seems to dilate, and the more desperate and distracted I get.

Mind you, I don’t think most people will consider me truly finished for another two weeks. On June 13th, I’ll get handed my diploma, and that’ll be that in the books.

But really, that shit is totally going to be anticlimactic (assuming it is like the other ceremonies I’ve been through, which I was excited for beforehand), whereas come 3:00pm (or slightly after that) on June 3rd, I’ll be fucking breakdancing because I will never have to slog through all the blah-ness of classes at the god damn University of Chicago ever again. That time is going to be the closest thing I’m going to get to that ecstasy of hearing the bell ring and being a part of the rush of children flooding out of the school building.

Two finals. I just need to pass. It would make me feel good if I could actually do well (especially on my Japanese exam since I genuinely enjoy that class and really like and respect the professor and you know, the things in the lessons are probably going to be quite practical when I’m over there), but I’m not going to hold my breath. Having the knowledge in my head that it doesn’t really matter is the start to killing any desire in me to study, but what’s really quashing it is that I know I’ll be done in a few days; that is, I keep imagining myself as the version of me who’s done, because she and I aren’t different, and I just get so relaxed and I go all apathetic. In my other class, a molecular neurobiology class, I tune in and out of lecture, so my notes are very poor and we have no textbook, and since this class mainly requires that you remember every single thing that was said, even the little side bits, verbatim, I know the effort needed to get myself up to speed is not worth the time or pain. I’d rather daydream, and think happy thoughts, and just feel carefree for a while.

I suppose I am being very childish. A lot of the people in my lab are new parents, and the comedians/actors/other nerds (particularly if they have a blog) whom I admire are popping them out like crazy (I guess what the lab + famous-y people groups have in common is that they are Gen X-ers and for some reason that I don’t know I am more interested in them than kids closer to my age, but that’s old shit that’s been alluded to before). I guess one of the stereotypes of Gen X, at least when they were in their twenties and early thirties, is that they were a bunch of irresponsible slackers. Children in adult’s bodies. A good chunk of them are now in their late thirties and forties and at least among the ones I think are cool, they seem to have settled down and gotten their act together. Is this going to happen to me someday, too? I can’t even imagine it. What is going to change so that happens? I’m pretty scared that I, as I am now, am not going to find it a positive change.

Today, I went to see a ballet the school was putting on. It was all right. A lot of parents with their kids there. Noisy, writhing little things, those five-and-unders. I tried to remember what I’d been like around that time, and while I’m pretty sure I would have been bored and not having much fun since I wouldn’t have understood anything of what was going on, I doubt I would’ve said anything. I might have fidgeted, but that would be like, sitting in the chair making circles in the air with my dangling feet, or playing with my hands. None of this standing up in the chair making remarks every two minutes or wriggling around in my mother’s arms (not like my mom would have patience for a ballet anyway, since she has no tolerance for any of this "high culture" kind of stuff). Well, I would’ve been pretty well behaved, unless I’d been in one of my imitating moods, thinking to myself, "Is this something you can do? If I do this, will you like me better or will I get something nice? If they’re acting the way they’re supposed to, should I do it, too?" Maybe I am giving the little me too much credit, but I think these kinds of thoughts made it through my head. Also, notice that the thoughts are all comparisons to what’s going on around me! Yes, it could very well be I’ve constructed my memory to remember it that way, but I have a feeling it was a very rare occurrence for me to personally come up with notions to do "bad things."

Now I am trying to remember how I felt about other kids back then. For instance, I’ve got a pretty good inkling that at least the nine-year-old me would be pissed at twenty-two-year-old me for calling small children "noisy, writhing little things." Having had my third grade teacher read us Roald Dahl’s Matilda and The BFG, I would’ve been thinking about awesome, pretty mature children like Matilda or Sophie. But I think if you’d poked and prodded a bit at that version of me, especially bringing up her classmates, she probably would have had to agree that some little kids are just shits or not people she wanted to associate with because they were too weird or ugly or whatever. I wonder if she would’ve felt bad if she’d been confronted with that latter tidbit. Worse yet, I still do that! Sometimes, in awkward new situations, I end up with the leftover people, and I go "Aww, fuck, I don’t want to be with you; I’m going to keep being a reject loser if I hang out with you." Yes, I know I am not so desireable on the face of things, but that only makes me want to find the quick and easy way out of my situation. It is a funny piece of hypocrisy, and one that took me a long time to realize (I had just worked it out on Friday!). I was with some friends from work, and the issue of how unhip our boss is and how lame it is that he thinks he’s "cool" had come up, and I trotted out a mention of how he had not hired somebody because the potential person was too dorky (someone else in the lab told me the story originally; this was several months ago) and I think my thoughts must have drifted to something from earlier in the night about me and some stuff that happened in kindergarten (I’ll tell you some other time) and I was like, "Oh, shit!" (in my head). Haha, pot kettle black, but at least I’m feeling more sympathetic towards my PI and I won’t be making remarks about that shit for at least a long while.

Oh, and I spoke too soon about prospects of my upcoming vacation. Apparently, I shall be cramming in a visit to the blood motherland. My first time. I’ve never felt confident about my skills in the language, so that’s going to be embarrassing as fuck. And guh, I thought about seeing my relatives, and that’s going to be a doozy. And the living accommodations are going to be ass.

And my mother, my insane, benighted mother. Love her to death, you must understand, but god, we’d certainly never have any reason to know each other if I hadn’t slipped out of her hoo-hah all those years ago. Recently, I’ve really started to wonder if I hadn’t been mixed up at the hospital with some other baby. Sure, I share some personality quirks of my parents, but I think those can all be discounted via nurture influences. Even considering my higher level of education and more personal attention and care compared to their upbringings, how am I the spawn of the man and woman I call father and mother?

What do you mean I look like a perfect blend of the two people? Fuck off, let me have my escapist fantasy! (Oh, George Vaillant would be so disappointed.)

Ah, hell, I have used not one, but TWO hackneyed ass story motifs in the span of this one entry.

As summer begins to rear its head around here, I come upon the strange sensation of being in that tropical place again. I know that I’ve hyped this long-awaited trip to such an extent that it’ll never live up to my hopes, but 1) never say never, and 2) it’ll be at least good, I think.

On a related note: in a continuing trend, my concentration is still shot. In spite of the remaining work that obstructs the way and my misgivings, I can’t help but be excited about what’s to come. One does sometimes feel all too encumbered by reasonable expectations, and has to just allow oneself to burst forth in a shower of ebullience. Mind you, it is a totally private ebullience. Nobody who knows me in the real world would ever apply that word to me. And it’s not that I don’t want them to know this side of me; it’s a number of things, but one of them is that I don’t know how to show it. I could shout and jump about in glee, but such an action isn’t a natural one for me; I’d have to force it more than I am comfortable with doing. Though really, the main problem is that I am indeed quite sullen for the bulk of the time I’m outside the comfort of my room; the dominant trait supersedes all others, as if to blot them out.

But back to the point. I am so close to the end that all my thoughts become consumed by fancies of what I will be able to do in my newfound leisure time. Already, I am returning to old projects and hobbies cast aside for the Fulbright and graduate school applications, and the feeling of homecoming is so warm and exhilarating.

Alas, contentment at this hour only breeds indolence. I spent nearly the whole of yesterday catching up on Reaper. I had only seen this season’s premiere, and made my way through episode two all the way to episode twelve which aired on Tuesday in the span of slightly over twenty-four hours. I am now ready for the season finale on this coming Tuesday, which I have a bad feeling will be the series finale as well. That Bret Harrison needs to find himself something more stable, yeesh.

Onward to June 5th.

Oh, goodness me. I am approximately three weeks from freedom and I can’t concentrate to save my life. It’s absolutely boorish of me, but I am willfully refusing to pay attention or give a damn anymore.

Unfortunately, there are things that remain to be finished, so I do have to care just a tiny bit, but that tiny bit certainly has a loud voice. Mostly, I just don’t want to look bad and have people think that I don’t like learning or something. All I need to do is pass, but that goes against all that shit I’ve slung before about trying even when it externally doesn’t matter. You don’t just throw your principles out the window.

I really hope this school hasn’t soured me completely on taking aboard new information. I do believe that I’m just burnt out after high school and all that jazz and that I haven’t had a proper vacation in a long while. I’ll be visiting family out in the motherland again, and I’m looking forward to all the cheap junk and great food and weird smells.

Also, I am getting fat. Stress eating (especially when I binge and then immediately take a "nap") and no exercise. Fuck, I hope that a year in Japan will turn the tide back.

Also, little old virgin, non-tampon-using me FAILED her pap smear yesterday; i.e., even the student care lady’s finger was too big. She was absolutely weirded out that my hymen was intact. I’ve made another appointment with the gynecology department, but I have a feeling it’s not going to be terribly successful—I did a teeny bit of internet snooping and read all this junk about Kegel exercises and stretching things out with my fingers and child-sized speculums and Valium and lidocaine and that was already beyond the pale, but since the school hospital is a research hospital and not like a regular clinic, I know they won’t do me any favors, so I’ve decided I’m fucked. Ah, well, it wasn’t for my health that I was getting one anyway; it was a Fulbright requirement. I didn’t mind the other medical clearance stuff and thought the pap thing was just kind of weird, but even just for the regular physical, people were like "the fuck?" and then the nurse-midwife was absolutely flabbergasted that I needed the pelvic exam to go overseas. Of course, I am the type more likely to submit to the whims of Big Brother for the sake of making things easy.

Geez, that sounds like the makings of a rape fantasy coming from what preceded it. Well, I do enjoy The Dream of the Fisherman’s Wife, which I just found out is called 蛸と海女 (Tako to ama) in Japanese, Octopus(es) and Woman Shell Diver, though the characters for "woman shell diver" are literally ocean + woman and I like that idea better.

Wednesday, May 13, 2009, 22:08

The past couple of days have sort of been just one giant undifferentiated glob. The "nap" thing is really fucking me up. I am trapped in an extended "bad day getting worse."

Friday, May 15, 2009, 22:06

Well, at least I’ve gotten my defense over with, but as is the way of self-fulfilling prophecies, I am still a sodden lump.

Care of Kottke, I read this article featuring this longitudinal study that’s been following these Harvard guys for like seventy-two years, and man, I miss psychology. Just as far as the ideas, and the kinds of problems they’re trying to solve. I said in my grad school essays that my original love was psych; I left out that I’d probably be doing that if I didn’t think the state of the art (the methods) was shit in that field.

But anyway, it looks like George Vaillant thinks adaptations (a vague ass way of saying defense mechanisms) can explain everything, which sounds so cuckoo that I’m just going to assume that things had to be streamlined and simplified because a magazine article can only be so long. I thought the idea of categorizing them into psychotic, immature, neurotic, and mature was interesting. Can I say, heck yeah for suppression (which means, using the article writer’s words, "a conscious decision to postpone attention to an impulse or conflict, to be addressed in good time")? Saved me from cutting a bitch many a time.

And you know me, just the mention of the Up Series at the beginning brought back a rush of memories that made me all giddy. 2012 until the next one! Wonder if Charles Furneaux will ever come back. He was looking hurt last we saw him, but that was back in what, 21 Up? It’s been thirty-two years or something. Also, that brings me to Nick Hitchon, this adorable interview with him, and the strong desire to figure out if a trip to Wisconsin is feasible while I’m still living in the Midwest. It’s not stalking if I keep a reasonable distance, right? Gee, he’s got a son, a year younger than I am, I think. Perhaps I’ll uh, tap into that. (Could I be the Nicolas Cage to his Lisa Marie Presley?)

Anywhodle, I think I did the bastard fake nap thing every night this week, so my brain is pudding at this point. Good night.

It’s weird how much I enjoy making PowerPoints. I guess it’s the little mix of graphic design with putting together information so that other people can learn something. I haven’t been this meticulous about anything in a long time, and it’s nice to just get back in that way again.

It also helps that while I’m putting together these slides and trying to figure out how I want to present my story, I’m in this fabulous late eighties + nineties music time machine. Well, really, it’s more the music of my childhood and through the beginning of high school, so there’s some outliers from the "oughties." It’s music that makes me think of sunshine. I want to make a mix tape, and tell people, LISTEN TO THIS, but those kinds of things always end badly, like they’ll just hate it and hate me by extension, or in reality, I am just a pretentious prick and my mother should have just aborted me when my grandma said she should have.

Putting that aside, it’s really just a collection of music from The Adventures of Pete and Pete. Plus No Doubt and the Red Hot Chili Peppers. With some bits and bobs that are hard for me to classify. (As an aside, that one friend who I’m trying to take to a proper rock concert, I was thinking maybe No Doubt, even though I’m not a super fan or anything but I understand their reunion tour is pretty much just the hits, anyway, and damn, they got some good singles, but the location is way out from the city and all the decent cheap seats are gone.)

I’m so eager for this quarter to be over. College has got to be one of the strangest fucking life experiences. Nothing turned out as I thought it would. At least I can say that is true in both good and bad ways.

What was I expecting? I guess the obvious one is a boyfriend, but there’s always internet dating. And more friends, or at least a couple of close ones. Don’t get me wrong, those who I consider my friend, I do really enjoy their company (I suppose my roommate absented; I’m peeved at her presently), but I don’t see them regularly and I am doubtful that we will keep in touch (but really, that just means I should stop being a wanker and be proactive). And cognitive neuroscience, like the John Cacioppo stuff. But this detour(?) into evo-devo has been mind-blowing, and I’m glad I got into it. And I would’ve taken Self and read proper philosophical books, rather than a butt ton of psych papers that I don’t remember anything about now (except for the Piaget, but that guy is fucking awesome and I knew about him before I got here; okay, the Sapir-Whorf shit is cool, too). I wanted to do sociology, too, but that didn’t work out at all. And study abroad, though the Fulbright more than makes up for it because it looks way better on my CV and hey, I get to do science! And participating in scav hunt, which has come and gone for the fourth (and last?) time in my life. And more extracurriculars; a club or volunteer work. That one I really farked up.

But maybe I should put aside regret. I’ve got my "bucket list" (god, what a terrible phrase) for this place written up, and by gum, I’m going to get it done in the time I have left.

Wednesday, May 6, 2009, 9:38

I am here to limber up the fingers and the part of my brain that shoots out words.

As is my way, I’m feeling all grim and lousy.

I no longer respond to my alarm clock. The damn thing can be right next to my head and I’ll find myself still in bed hours later. I think it rouses me from the deep sleep, but I plunge right back in, so I don’t remember waking up. A nap is never a nap now, just one long cycle of waking up and fits of unhappy slumber.

Oh, I think I’m in cretin mode again. You know, when everyone else just seems so hateful. It’s hard for me not to have a freak out when I’m outside, as I get to thinking that everybody is in my way.

I used to be so good at segregating work from play. I could set aside time to do both, and everything would go along swimmingly.

Bah, I must be looking at this through rose-colored glasses.

Saturday, May 9, 2009, 17:23

While devising my thesis defense is infinitely more enjoyable than writing my actual thesis, it’s still some shit.

It’s still a bit far away. I can tell, because I’m not nervous yet. Presently, all I can think about is that I am going to have fun with this, what the program director thinks be damned.

So far, I’ve been pretty bored during the other students’ presentations. It’s one part "I don’t care about this subject," one part "you aren’t a very good public speaker," and one part "I have checked out of college and don’t give a hoot anymore."

I’m still riding that Smiths wave (it’s Death of a Disco Dancer, now). It is perhaps in my musical interest to check out the Morrissey solo stuff, though I can pretty much tell you now that he’s not one whom I’ll love through and through, as a person and as a musician. From songs like Meat Is Murder, you know he’s kind of santicmonious, but then I watched this Jonathan Ross interview with him, and he’s just so darn obtuse. Pot kettle black, yes, but it turned me off extraordinarily, all this "I don’t like people; I’m a difficult person" kind of thing. It comes off snooty and stubborn to the point of detriment.

Which isn’t that much different from me, but maybe this saves me from hypocrisy: I’m not a big name singer; I don’t put on concerts and put myself out there (and he insists that for him it is very natural and it isn’t posturing, but pish tosh) for people I don’t like. It’s wrong of me to presume he’s being disingenuous about it, but I feel that the odds just aren’t in his favor. I did envy incredibly (if it’s true) that he just has to write and that the words come out beautifully without too much massaging or coercion.

Later in the day, 23:53

I’ve not been long back from a party at my Japanese professor’s house. I was having a lame-to-okay time for the first 3/4ths, I’d say, but enjoyed myself a lot in that last bit, so it wasn’t a waste at all. I thought most of these people were pretty all right to begin with, having seen them in my classes for the last two years or so and at the very least not terribly offended by them, but I actually really like some of them now. I imagine things are going to go back to same old shit by Monday, but at least I had a nice time tonight and a pleasant memory to hide away in my treasure box.

It reminds me of my graduate school interviewing period last quarter. I wonder how much I missed out on by dodging all those social events. The ones I did attend were a good experience and humanized the previously 2D and unknown "other people there." The grad school stuff helped me see how I could personally gain from going to parties, anyway.

Guh, it looks as if I am slowly getting extracted from the comfort of my shell. Mind you, I think I’m still a bit hard for average Joe to take, but for me, it’s a step up if I can at least socialize with the other freaks and weirdos.

"You do not do, you do not do/Any more, black shoe," which is misquoted in my head as "You do not do, you do not do/You old black shoe."

Well. I am absolutely shattered. We have not even begun attempts to pick up the pieces.

Unfortunately, the pile of work never ends, and it is up to me to either put up or shut up.

Earlier in the day, I was so looking forward to making this gushing entry about what a crazy day I had yesterday. It was to be an attempt at collecting my thoughts and putting myself on the road to getting my head back in the game.

But no, right now, I’d rather be obtuse. I had to choose between going hard or going home. I went home. Literally. I felt such a spoilsport—and that didn’t matter if I stayed or if I left—so I did what was easiest for me.

They said that the environment was everything. It just wasn’t working for me. And there is always the fear, like I’m standing on the edge between one thing and the other. Of course I don’t know for certain whether 1) things will actually change and 2) the change is bad. Anyway, I decided to decline.

And all that praise and admiration; call it impostor syndrome if you like, but I think they were trying to prop me up a bit. A nice gesture, but I don’t want nice. Nice is just pity, with a bland name slapped on top of it.

I think that, and the stress, just totally put me out of sorts. I slept most of today away. A decision I already regret, but as I feel like I’m losing my mind, it is only a disquieting numbness rather than overwhelming panic.

And the usual balms aren’t working at the moment. For the first thirty seconds, I think that it’ll do it for me, but then it slips into triteness and cliché. I haven’t listened to anything new in an appallingly long time, so perhaps I’ve just exhausted the reserves. I am a bit fickle, in that way; all the flavors of the week join the stable, of course, but they sit there for a long while before I stumble upon them again and they go out into the paddock, trotting around all refreshing and lovely. That is, until they’re not anymore, and back they go, to repeat themselves at some other time.

For that matter, I have not done anything good for myself in a long while. Reading decent books, eating healthily, at least trying to live to some approximation of my idea of a well-ordered and productive life. There’s just not a whole lot of ambition left in me. I hope it’s just senioritis, and temporary wear and tear from a tough couple of years. As much as I am shit-scared about next year and that whole living-in-Japan debacle, advice from predecessors indicates that it is very much a prestigious-looking vacation, so I think I get a bit of a grace period to recharge before I launch into the great unknown of grad school and a career and growing up.

On the whole Fulbright thing, I was totally expecting it to be a much more serious affair. At first I felt bad that I’d gotten it, because I figured the other kids were very focused on their research and had more legitimate Japan-specific topics of study (you can do science anywhere there’s a lab…) so I was just taking an opportunity away from somebody, but at least from what the previouslies have said, it’s very much a self-directed thing with little to no accountability. Also, I had no idea that my application basically hit every point in this guy’s statement.

I suppose there is still time to feel bad, though. Maybe this year’s crop of kids will be all about the business and I’ll be even more the odd one out (most proposals are social science/public policy-y—I reckon I am going to have a hard time keeping my eyes from glazing over as I speak with the other students). And my medical examination forms are incomplete, though I’m hoping they won’t notice (yeah, right). Which also means I have yet to receive a placement, though it is totally retarded to me that they would accept my proposal and put me some place I’m not expecting since I was very clear about where I needed to be (I might end up in Wako, but I totally, totally want to go to Kōbe even though Kansai-ben is going to be a bit of a trip; I think these little kids being attacked by a zombie are speaking in it, and I was able to get the gist of what they were saying). Also, the guilt of spending US and Japanese-taxpayer money on a fancy vacation for me. The aims of cultural exchange are sweet and wonderful, but does it actually work? I am reminded of these programs that are hosted to get Middle Eastern (Arab and Israeli) students to interact with one another in the hopes that this will allow them to form friendships and learn to stop hating the enemy and to be stewards of future peace. They cost a shit ton to put on, and they are completely ineffective—they hang out for a summer and they never talk to one another again (not to mention, a lot of the participating teens are children of the well-off and educated who aren’t really the ones that need to be reached). I have been searching and searching for any kind of reference to confirm that I didn’t make all that shit up, but I can’t find anything, so take it on with a grain of salt. In lieu of that, here’s something along a similar theme. Gross ass resumé-padding ("leadership conference") with a whole bunch of stick-up-their-ass teens (rich, not-terribly-special-but-seem-to-think-they-are kids).

Ah, look, the sun is rising.