A typical problem: When I'm in one place I'm often wishing I were in another. So I find myself now, sitting in my bedroom at Yale College and wishing I were somewhere else. This may be a symptom of the liberal arts education. How am I supposed to enjoy being here, in the dry shackles of academia, when everything that I study tells me that there is so much more to see in the world? How am I supposed to avoid wishing for elsewhere?
I never thought I would want to visit the middle east, for instance, until I began taking my Islamic art class. Guess what? Islam has such a remarkable visual tradition. Thank goodness there are classes around to teach me about it! Thank goodness that I've been given the distinct privilege to take such classes. But how am I supposed to continue enjoy something like a CLASS once I've been given a little taste of what's out there to be seen, when the professor is hinting at this vast corpus of knowledge available OUT THERE.
The same goes for my Radical Cinemas class. It's such a deeply provocative subject, but how misplaced it feels to be seriously considering radical representations of the plight of the poor when you're in a school that runs on a 30 billion dollar budget, where the walls are sprouting ivy. It's problematic, really.
I fear that I am becoming too suspicious of the establishment. How to solve this?
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Monday, September 7, 2009
Fluxx
I'm glad that's school's started. The summer ended with a weekend at Monica's, which good fun. It was cool hanging out at her place, which was incredibly comfy even though there were a ridiculous number of houseguests there at the same time. Easily my favorite part of the weekend was our ride down the Providence East Bay bike path on Sunday morning. I hadn't gone on a bike in a while, but we had a really lovely ride (quite long and grueling but fun) through some of New England's best urban scenery, arriving at a very old carousel and a private beach where the ground was like sludge but the water rang pure.
I took the Amtrak back to New Haven the day dorms opened. New Haven doesn't ever change much, except that the 'residents,' the people who hang out on street corners and park their bikes curbside, seem especially discontent. Must be the state of the country right now; it's got everyone tied up in knots. That first day back, I zipcar-ed to pick up Kirsty at the airport in Hartford, and we ate burger king and listened to awful music on the way back. That night BF performed, at later on we met up to hang out and watch planet earth. Things got weird after that though- I fear that they've even taken a turn for the worst, but that's another conversation, I think.
I picked up Ming in Newark a couple of days later. That was something of an adventure, in that I had no idea how to get there and found myself quite nervous to be on the toll road with such poor directions. I got kind of lost- but found myself again without too much trouble (and with Ming's help). At her place, her mom made a really delicious lunch of Chinese foods. I hadn't met Ming's mother before, but found it wonderful that the two of them looked so much alike. When all was said and done, we had quite a humorous moment in which, as were leaving, I went to give her mom a hug, but then demurred, and then was awkward, and then hugged her after it was already so very awkward. Good stuff. We made the long ride home, stuck on the highway for some 5 hours, then had Thai food and went to bed.
I love my friends. I love seeing them here, on campus where I shall probably always imagine them, incapable mostly to picture them tucked away in the corners of the world from which they come. We all try to make each other understand something about the place that we come from- I think of how Kelly tries to paint Lancaster (this is something of a shoutout to the only person who read my blog all summer) - yet we never quite get there, as I can probably tell you more about Kelly's Lancaster friends and family than I can say about the town itself. Perhaps these people are the place itself. Hmm...that sounds right.
So if people are what defines a place then Yale is a good place because I'm around good people. I can't deny, though, that everyone's changing bit by bit, and so Yale stands in flux, not getting any worse or better but qualitatively becoming a different experience. It's one that I'm determined to enjoy. I will love them all and I will love Yale because I cannot help but do these two things. But I find myself increasingly unsure of where everything will settle. I excitedly wait to see it play out, as it will do when Autumn sets in and leaves whir down from branch to plush grass.
I took the Amtrak back to New Haven the day dorms opened. New Haven doesn't ever change much, except that the 'residents,' the people who hang out on street corners and park their bikes curbside, seem especially discontent. Must be the state of the country right now; it's got everyone tied up in knots. That first day back, I zipcar-ed to pick up Kirsty at the airport in Hartford, and we ate burger king and listened to awful music on the way back. That night BF performed, at later on we met up to hang out and watch planet earth. Things got weird after that though- I fear that they've even taken a turn for the worst, but that's another conversation, I think.
I picked up Ming in Newark a couple of days later. That was something of an adventure, in that I had no idea how to get there and found myself quite nervous to be on the toll road with such poor directions. I got kind of lost- but found myself again without too much trouble (and with Ming's help). At her place, her mom made a really delicious lunch of Chinese foods. I hadn't met Ming's mother before, but found it wonderful that the two of them looked so much alike. When all was said and done, we had quite a humorous moment in which, as were leaving, I went to give her mom a hug, but then demurred, and then was awkward, and then hugged her after it was already so very awkward. Good stuff. We made the long ride home, stuck on the highway for some 5 hours, then had Thai food and went to bed.
I love my friends. I love seeing them here, on campus where I shall probably always imagine them, incapable mostly to picture them tucked away in the corners of the world from which they come. We all try to make each other understand something about the place that we come from- I think of how Kelly tries to paint Lancaster (this is something of a shoutout to the only person who read my blog all summer) - yet we never quite get there, as I can probably tell you more about Kelly's Lancaster friends and family than I can say about the town itself. Perhaps these people are the place itself. Hmm...that sounds right.
So if people are what defines a place then Yale is a good place because I'm around good people. I can't deny, though, that everyone's changing bit by bit, and so Yale stands in flux, not getting any worse or better but qualitatively becoming a different experience. It's one that I'm determined to enjoy. I will love them all and I will love Yale because I cannot help but do these two things. But I find myself increasingly unsure of where everything will settle. I excitedly wait to see it play out, as it will do when Autumn sets in and leaves whir down from branch to plush grass.
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