The · Anthropology · of · Myself

I know it's kind of like I've fallen off the end of the (livejournal) earth. I wrapped up my first semester in New York, and am in Columbus through mid-January when I head back for round two. My Columbus life feels so distant, four months have transformed me in ways both subtle and vast...but there's so much comfort in being in this house, sleeping in my bed, staying up late over peppermint tea with my mother telling my stories of the city. Moving out and far away has brought me closer to many of the things I tried to distance myself from for so long.

( and now for a monumental year, reduced to survey form )

Life here is at once entirely and nothing as I imagined. Some happenings, in disjointed list form, because it's about all I can muster:
- Walking constantly, everywhere, buying Metrocards and getting off the subway at all the neighborhoods I've never been to and the streets that sound interesting, spending too much money as I buy fruit and jewelry from street vendors (like the one at 112th and Broadway with his decrepit Chevrolet with the gargoyles artfully arranged atop it, selling wooden bead necklaces next to Goethe)
- Butler Library everyday, crawling stairs to obstructed lofts and cutout nooks, wandering through the cavernous stacks and feeling the strangest mix of completely intimidated and totally at home.
- Meeting Mark on the steps of St. John the Divine, wandering inside the cathedral to read Greek tragedy, the walk hand-in-hand, hip-to-hip down Amsterdam that makes me fall in love all over again
- School stretching me and challenging me in ways I didn't think possible but feeling myself learn so much and grow with every passing day
- My crazy Sociology of Health and Illness professor, with his Buddy Holly glasses, fascination with social epidemiology, and constant references to smoking
- My tiny room with its gigantic double window view of Broadway and TREES
- Elise, the precocious eleven year old fiery haired daughter of faculty members that I'm responsible for every Friday afternoon, who asks with the most sincere curiosity about my Butler reading for Philosophy of Feminism and coaxes me to the playground in Morningside Park, "even though we're both too old for it". Seeing myself in her, sometimes a little more than is comfortable.
- Getting my dream job yesterday as a Research Assistant for the Barnard Center for Research on Women
- Being a staff writer for The Columbia Spectator, roving around the neighborhood with my newly purchased Moleskine journalist's notebook always at hand and learning AP style, doing it because I've never done anything like it before and hell, I've never done anything like this before so why not?
- The Met for free!!
- Wondering why I didn't do this earlier

(My own) pictures will come, I swear.

I graduate in a week. I'm thisclose to leaving OSU with a 4.0.

Mark is in Columbus for the summer. When he returns to New York in August, I'll be coming along. In September, it will be four years.

Yesterday I chopped my hair off and dyed my brand new pixie cut golden brown.

In a lot of ways, I'm living the dreams I had when I was fifteen/sixteen years old. Despite the constant specter of money problems and my own nerves about the changes waiting in the wings, I'm in the best place I've been probably ever. (And everyone notices-- even my Mom, "You're so laid back all the time now!")

I realized that I have not given any type of update so far in 2006. There's a variety of reasons why (school being crazy, Mark being home through late January), but what's going on is this:

- I'm halfway through Spring quarter. Classes are okay, and actually quite easy when compared to last quarter's. It's good, because I can actually just sit back and enjoy learning, but there's also a really sick part of me that loves all-nighters spent writing about liberation theology. If there's any way that I define myself, it's through working hard and I haven't exactly been doing that lately.

- With that being said, I'm so ready to move on. This is my fifth quarter at Ohio State and my third year at the Graham School. I don't even want to think about how long I've been in Columbus. Part of everything at this point is figuring out that there are definitely things I love about being here but still coming to the realization that there's not much here for me at this particular moment. Maybe I'll be back after school in New York. I'm not sure. Everything here is so different now than it was even a year ago. I've watched all my friends move along to wonderful things, and it's my turn now. I guess this is growing up?

- My letter from Barnard is in the top drawer of my desk, and I can barely go a day without visiting barnard.edu or columbia.edu. I still feel undeserving. I still feel like I'm going to wake up any minute now and the Ivy League will revert to the hyperbolic patrician joke it was two months ago. I'm this outspoken, activist, loud mess of a girl who grew up eating tv dinners in lower middle class neighborhoods. Until I was about fourteen, I thought private schools and Ivy League universities were a historical relic that only existed in the books I read. Until I came to Graham, I was always the smart kid with serious underachievement issues. I didn't really excel in anything, I was a decent student in middle school despite never doing homework but mostly existed in the shadows of my peers.
The point is, in many ways, I feel like the last person who should be going to Barnard. How desperately out of place will I feel, surrounded by girls who all their lives have been pushed and told that this is something that they can and should do? Will I be swallowed alive by an institutional culture that is all about moving on to the next best, most prestigious thing? I see Barnard girls (and I'm probably wrong) as this epitome of perfection-- they picked the right classes, they got perfect GPAs and fed the homeless while doing it, dressed in sweaters and pearls. I'm this mass of imperfections. There are things I could have done better in high school. There are classes I should have taken, grades I shouldn't have gotten, things I could have changed or programs I could have started but I lacked the energy or just felt like hanging out with my boyfriend instead. Pre-fab Ivy League supergirl I am not.

- I am getting a lot more involved in pro-choice activism. I'm hopefully going to start being a clinic escort soon. Also, I may start interning for Ted Strickland's campaign soon which is exciting because I haven't worked on a campaign in over a year and I really, really want that energy again.

- I have also been cooking some pretty fabulous meals.

Today, I got into Barnard College of Columbia University.

Holy shit.

I am moving to New York City to attend my dream school in August.

Holy shit.

They are giving me thousands of dollars a year. It will actually cost less than OSU.

Holy shit.

This is the post I never thought I would get to make.

I cannot watch this news coverage. I will drive myself crazy if I do.

I phone banked all day and almost passed out on campus because I forgot to eat. And then I cried seeing Students for Kerry posters be defaced with "W the President" stickers. And then I cried thinking about Bush winning again. And then I cried thinking about how happy I'll be if Kerry wins. I think my obsession is kind of unhealthy.

Anything and everything that comes out of my digital camera leaves me totally unsatisfied and completely pissed off. I know I could do so much better, I used to do so much better before my film camera's shutter got stuck and something went fucked with the light meter on my digital, if it even has one of those. I think we all know I'm really just using it as an excuse for my creativity running on empty.

I visited Oberlin unexpectedly a couple weekends ago and have decided it's my new nUmBer OnE DrEaM coLLeGe!!11!! Definitely. I almost feel guilty about it, the whole $29,000 a year tuition thing. I'm determined to find a way to make it work out, though.

Late night VH1 is ridiculously comforting. Everyone goes back to school tommorrow or already has, I still have a month until the bulk of it starts and this alternately makes me incredibly happy, frightened, and pissed off. Saturday is my last day working at Starbucks, so I'll have my life back again, minus the weekly income.

If I've completely neglected talking to you this summer, it doesn't mean I hate you. Or even anything close to that. I've just been taking 15 credit hours, working full time, and trying to maintain a relationship (which is way too easy, sometimes).

I feel like, just now, I'm getting to know him on this level that no one else does. It's taken nearly two years but mygod every minute is so worth it.

This upcoming school year is going to tax me unbelievably. What it looks like:

AT OSU:
Women's Studies 110- Women, Culture, and Society (T-R 5:30-7:30 pm)
International Studies 201- Introduction to Peace Studies (M-W 5:30-7:30 pm)
Political Science 210- Introduction to Political Theory (T-R 1:30-3:18 pm)

INDEPENDENT STUDY:
AP English Literature & Composition

AT GRAHAM: (probably, based on my conversation with Greg)
Algebra II
Spanish II
Comparative Religions

and my internship on Tuesdays & Thursdays, either before or after Political Theory class.

I <3 school. Remind me of that when I'm going crazy in a couple months.