the sea, the sea

It seems that Jason and Karen Sarah have gone away for the weekend, and Dan is ensconced in the Psych Department with his dissertation proposal, so it is rather quiet in Partridge this evening. I find it disconcerting when roommates disappear for the weekend without letting one know, but at the same time it's kind of a relief, because it means guaranteed sleep at night without two loud male roommates exuberantly playing video games.

I have nearly finished reading Iris Murdoch's The Sea, The Sea, and I bring you a quotation:

Some kinds of obsession, of which being in love is one, paralyse the ordinary free-wheeling of the mind, its natural open interested curious mode of being, which is sometimes persuasively defined as rationality. I was sane enough to know that I was in a state of total obsession and that I could only think, over and over again, certain agonizing thoughts, could only run continually along the same rat-paths of fantasy and intent. But I was not sane enough to interrupt this mechanical movement or even desire to do so. . .

work

So, one of the jobs Jan and I have at the Humanities Center is to take pictures of all the new fellows who come in. Most of them are the usual academic sorts--you know, varying degrees of attractiveness and sociability, a degree of arrogance, some friendly cute old people, some young or awkward grad students. . . but then, there is the Classics Man.

"Oh my God," says Jan as I walk in this morning, "I just took the picture of this new Fellow, and he was so hot. You know how someone is so hot that you know if you look them in the eye you'll just. . ." she giggles illustratively.

I laugh at her.

She continues on with the story:

Jan (gives him new fellow's packet, which includes a sheet to fill about about contact info): "If you could fill this out for me please, that would be great."

Classics Man: "Er, actually, I'd rather not fill that out, because I have a stalker."

Jan: "Oh, right. No problem then."


Maybe, suggests Jan, we should stalk him too, and await smiling in his office for him to come to work. "Good morning, ---," Jan suggests we say. "I'm wearing blue panties today."

sick?

I think I'm getting sick. I don't feel that bad, except that I can hardly talk. . . you know how that is when you wake up in the morning, thinking everything is more or less fine, and then you open your mouth and nothing comes out?

The highlight of the weekend was the stop to Cost Plus on the way back from an excursion to Half Moon Bay for firewood with Jason, Dan, and Karen Sarah--who knew they had amazing jewelery? I think I've looked at it before, but it was really good this time, so I got two pairs of earrings, one amethyst colored and the other a dark green, which are like, two of my favorite colors for jewelery ever since I was fourteen. When I was fourteen I was in the design-dresses-for-fantasy-characters phase, and I went especially for the purples and greens as well.


Oh--in more important news, i talked to Rovee about where to apply to grad school, so i think the list is looking something like this:

Princeton (good people; rovee went there. the Bird will have to tell me how it is.)
Penn (don't know that much about it, but it's on the east coast)
Berkeley (I want out of Calif!!)
Harvard (rovee says they're all full of themselves. but everyone says that. could i be full of myself too?)
UCLA (if i move to LA, I'm going to become a film director, not an english professor)
Virginia (i hear it's in the middle of nowhere?)
U of Colorado (Boulder) (sounds cool, but can't apply for PhD till have masters!! WTF???)
Indiana (Bloomington) (I think i slept through indiana. wait, did we drive through indiana? indiana??)
Michigan (Ann Arbor) (dunno. could be cool).
Wisconsin (Madison) (cold?)
Brown (don't know much about the program, but rhode island could be cool)
Rutgers (I don't even know where that is)
NYU (hm. is it a good program?)
UCSB (good? but again, cali problem)
UC Irvine (right. whatever.)

As you can see, I have some doubts.

And I really need to be working on the fucking things. ergh.

Maia

reviving

I've had this blog for awhile, as any reader can see from my first post (March?), but I didn't want to maintain it for awhile. . . but now that the great dispersal of friends has happened (is that a diaspora?), I like the idea that some people might be curious enough about how I'm doing to occasionally take a look at my blog. Also, I am jealous of Marie and her excellent blog, hence starting my own blog on the same website. Livejournal, I have decided, is irritating.

My roommates et al (Dan, Jason, Karen Sarah, Dan's sister, and Dan's sister's boyfriend) have gone on a road trip to Las Vegas for the weekend, and so I am using the opportunity of having the house to myself to play four Hilary Duff songs loudly on repeat! I swear, I don't know how I can admit this, but I think her song Come Clean is one of my absolutely favorite songs ever. Anyway, I would be far too embarrassed to play loud bad pop music if there were any human beings in the vicinity. . . but I think I do miss out on a large degree of fun.

I'm surprised I'm still up, because I was really tired today. I got up extra early (7 am) this morning to open up the Humanities Center since Jan, the other temp person there who is actually supposed to be at the front desk, had to go have her TB test checked. I fail to understand why the Humanities Center needs to be open at 8 am. Who on Stanford campus does anything at 8 am? Oddly, however, I rather enjoyed unlocking all the doors and such this morning and making coffee. There was something comfortingly routine about it, which I haven't experienced in a long time. I also felt more like myself today than I have in awhile. Maybe it was because I actually dressed like myself for once, and didn't limit myself to extremely boring work clothes. I was wearing that amazing turquoise/blue skirt I got at Urban Outfitters in DC, my mint green wrap sweater that Corinne got me at the Gap last December, over an ancient once-white Banana Republic knit top, with my silver/feather icicle earrings, and J. Crew boots for which I was charged L20 in taxes when my mom bought them for me and sent them to Oxford. And of course my BRIGHT RED hair.

Work was ordinary. . . I spent a lot of time writing email and occasionally doing something 'productive.' Jan tried to tell me about the history of the area she's from in Scotland, but I seriously was going to fall asleep. I was very sleepy all day. Oh, but what was great is that she's brought in a huge bar of Cadbury chocolate, and so in the afternoon when we get too bored she breaks off a strip of it for each of us and we stick it in our tea and let it melt before eating it. Sooo good. Oh, and then at lunch we started "movie lunch," which is apparently a Humanities Center tradition, and watched half of Roman Holiday.

Ran into Brad, a former TA of mine who is one of John Bender's advisee's, at Tres Ex after work. He's been doing work at the Humanities Center too, and we've kind of ran into each other variously over the past few months but always slightly confused about why we look familiar to each other, and so we sorted that out and hopefully he can help me with some advice about grad schools, since he does 18th century and such. Anyway, since I don't know many English grad students it will be good to talk to him, and he promised to stop and chat the next time he passes by the front desk.

Went home, studied for the GREs, watched the roommates run around packing. . . and now, Hilary Duff at top volume.

You know, this post is so trivial and self-centered. It's fantastic.

Maia