In which I find meaning in 90s teen dramas

Lately I've been watching "My So-Called Life" on Netflix Instant. I probably vowed at one point in my life that I'd never watch it, because I found Claire Danes so annoying or something, but I caved inexplicably and now I just wish that I had found it when I was in high school. The show is structured around Angela Chase's (Claire Danes) inner monologue (kind of like what Zach Braff did on "Scrubs" but takes itself a lot more seriously.) The things she says are just the kind of things teenagers say when they think they've earned the right to be world-weary. But I don't necessarily think that's a bad thing. It makes those times when she's happy all the more poignant, actually. Like there's this scene where she's in the car with Jordan Catalano, who's played by Jared Leto and is totally dreamy and lazy and doesn't give a damn. Also he wears a lot of flannel and doesn't talk too much. Anyways, the voiceover says something about that moment when you feel like your life is about to change, and you can feel everything turning around for the better.

As much as I hate relating to a 90s teen drama, I'm kind of having a moment like that right now.

In the past two days, I've landed a summer internship in New York and an official spot (with classes and everything) for the fall semester at Goldsmiths College in London. It's been a weird awakening that I live in a world where good things happen to me, and I'm a little worried that I'm going to get hit by a PVTA bus soon. When I was in high school, I didn't think I had what it took to live a life by my own standards. I lived for other people, and resigned myself to the supposed fact that I wasn't wired to get what I wanted. Lately (even as I type this) I'm feeling vibrations in the air because things are finally turning around and reshifting. I'm going to spend this summer in New York and next fall in London. It sort of feels like I shouldn't get to say that, like those are things that more fortunate people get to say and do. But then I realize that this is my life, and I do get to say those things because shit is finally coming together.

Library, 7:25 pm on a Friday night

I wish I could stop feeling so self-conscious about having no intention to leave this place for a while. My mod is about as as messy as my head, and the library is clean and neat. The fluorescent lighting feels institutional in a good way. I don't know if there are any parties happening tonight, and I don't really want to go to them. It's not that I'm becoming a homebody, because I plan on going dancing every night when I'm in London next semester, I think I'm just over Hampshire parties for a while. They're crowded and full of people I don't know. Also it's awkward when I do see someone I know and it's too loud to talk to them. If I see someone I don't know in the library, it's okay to share a table as long as you mind your own business. My headphones are helping me out with that. I'm listening to music from the 90s that I vaguely remember.

Thank goodness I've got nothing planned for tomorrow. The past two days have just been packed. I am so ready to spend the whole day at Amherst Coffee with my laptop and just work on this midterm I have due Tuesday. Hopefully I can knock it out in one day. But it's for a psych class, and I'm really getting sick of it. So much of it is too open-ended, which is good but I can't say I'm not relieved to have my history class right after this one every time. It's like I go from "what is power? we don't know" to "this is an event. this is what happened because of that event." Very refreshing. History is fascinating, and I like that it has a balance of theory and extrapolating, as well as concrete facts. There is so much resilience in it as well. Events that happened so long ago are still present in discourse because people worked hard to preserve the records of these events. It just reeks of passion.

Writing all this makes me even less excited about this psych midterm paper. When will I learn that psych courses at Hampshire=endless theory or endless neuroscience? Probably never.

Live from the Maho Bay Cyber Hut

Good Lord. Last time I was here I was bitching about the mistreatment of an Israeli soldier on campus, now I'm in a cyber hut at an eco-resort in the Caribbean, at which going on Facebook or Myspace will seriously damage the infrastructure of the computer system. Things change fast. Or maybe I just haven't updated in a while.

Things on vacation are typical. I have a terrible sunburn and sometimes my family and I get bored and bicker. But the beach is too beautiful to be real and also there are lots of friendly stray cats and pineapples. Also, glass blowing. I made a flower yesterday. This morning, my hands cramped from the pottery wheel. It feels good to make things.

But the real reason I'm here is to share some much bigger news, that I found out in this very cyber hut two days ago.

I'm spending next semester in LONDON.

I can't even believe it. I've wanted to study abroad since I was seven years old and now I finally get to, in one of my favorite cities in the world. Julia says I'd better find a British boyfriend. I say sure as long as I get to take him back here. But I'm still floating on this news. I wish I was there right now.

I should probably log off before this whole Internet-on-a-remote-island thing gets too expensive. More to come soon (I hopefully mean it this time.)

In which I try and talk about something important

Yesterday, an Israeli Defense Soldier came to my school to share his story and then take questions from students, faculty, and others in attendance. The shit hit the fan, and even though I didn't go to the talk, I still feel pretty affected by what happened. So I'll take my opinion here, because I tried to do it on Twitter and found that 140 characters wasn't enough.

The Israeli/Palestinian conflict is a very big issue at my school, and the vast majority of the student body has sided with Palestine. It seems that I can't go anywhere on campus without seeing evidence of this. Guys with moustaches and Buddy Holly glasses type away in the library on Macbooks adorned with stickers reading "Stop US Aid to Israel," banners hang on buildings advertising marches in solidarity with Palestine, bumper stickers on beat up Volvo station wagons in the parking lot tell us all that Israel is made up of terrorists. Last year I went to the Bridge cafe on campus for a turkey sandwich and found it was decorated with chains of small green paper ovals. Upon further investigation, I found that each oval represented an olive tree in Palestine that had been uprooted by Israeli Forces.

This would all be fine, if I saw anything at all on campus that showed the other side. There was nothing at all of that sort, until yesterday. An Israeli Defense Soldier was coming to speak at our Main Lecture Hall. Mind you, I didn't know about this until late last night when Facebook was flooded with responses to the shit that hit the fan upon his arrival. To make a long story short, The Students for Justice in Palestine came to the talk with signs bearing slogans such as "Stop the Show," whistles, and their opinions that wouldn't wait for the Q&A session. No one let this man share his story, which he has told as countless other colleges without much of a hitch. They treated him with complete disrespect, when he was not there looking for pity or even sympathy. I applaud my administrators (for the first time in a while) for inviting him to come and give us all a much-needed glimpse at the other side of this issue. My fellow students acted like stubborn, privileged, liberal brats.

Maybe I'm not the best person to be talking about this, because I didn't even go. What I'm writing about now is all based on other peoples' accounts. I didn't even find out about this event until later because I generally try to avoid the SJP group, for they have a history of acting like stubborn, liberal, privileged brats. I am wondering now if I would have gone had I known this talk were happening. I am also realizing that this issue has more of an effect on me than I've previously realized. I was raised Jewish, my mother's religion, after a few confusing years of not knowing what the hell I was. I had a bat mitzvah, and the synagogue my family attended was always in favor of supporting Israel, as were my friends at school. I never heard the other side of the story until I came to Hampshire, at which point I decided that neither side was right or wrong. All we can do, I said to myself, was do everything we can to hear both sides speak and try not to vilify one side or the other.

But I'm dancing around the question I posed earlier, and plan to answer. Do I wish I had gone to this? On one hand, I would have really liked to hear this soldier's story. I believe that supporting our troops is a moral, not a political issue and that honoring someone's testimony is one of the best ways to support them. But obviously none of this happened. Still, I would have liked to witness the events of the protest that erupted, just so I could better understand the ways that this conflict in the Middle East has reached Amherst, MA. I think that this refusal to listen to the other side is what was exhibited at the lecture, and it is one of the roots of the Israel/Palestine conflict. Which brings me to why I might not have wanted to go. I can see myself sitting in the Main Lecture Hall, on the brink of an anxiety attack as everything went to chaos around me, feeling sorry for the Israeli Solder onstage not for what he has been through in the army, but because he was given a platform to speak and a bunch of college kids who think they know everything took it away from him.

I'm a totally neglectful blogger

I can't seem to update this regularly, and I do feel bad about it. I really do. I'm not even that busy, it's just that I never really know what to write about here. Maybe someday I'll blog every day, but that day will only come when every day is blog-worthy. Argh.

The Spring semester is off to an okay start. I'm resigning myself to the fact that I probably won't get into that great-looking Writing World War 2 class, so I'll probably try and get an independent study together based of this course one of my professors taught a few semesters back called "Love, Sex, and Death." The name alone makes me want it.

Other than courses, I've been getting into award shows. I've always been big on them, and the ones now are my favorites because they give everybody wine at their tables. Nothing makes me happier than seeing Alec Baldwin completely toasted onstage, trying to accept an award. But I also really like seeing who wears what. My housemates think I'm completely cheesy for getting so into award shows, but they always watch with me and we always make fun of how Ryan Seacrest is shorter than everyone he interviews.

I need to stop rambling and eat something so I can be coherent for my meeting with the program representative at the Global Education Office in a little over an hour. We're going to talk about me possibly going abroad in the fall! But more on that later. Right now I'm just stoked to be putting my dream into action.

Snowpocalypse

Being on the second floor of my house means that the snow doesn't look so scary. But there's got to be at least a foot or two on the ground right now, and it's still coming down in clumps. I can't remember the last time I saw this much snow, and I've been living up north my whole life.

Of course, this inclement weather gives me a huge justification to sit on my bed in my big purple sweater all day. I've been watching way too much Law and Order SVU on Netflix, but I'm also putting together cover letters for the summer. Then again, that's basically been my whole Janterm. I didn't get into any classes but that's turning out alright. The universe wanted me to have a month sitting and knitting and working when I feel like it. It's nice to not have to worry about waking up for the same class every day, especially not when it feels like Siberia outside.

Speaking of which, there is a row of students outside trekking through the snow, trying to have an adventure of some sorts. They're crazy. But I had a snow adventure last night (or this morning?) in the form of a wintry walk in the wee hours, as the snow was just starting to come down. There were three of us out there, and it felt like we were the only people in the world besides the snow plow men. We threw snowballs at each other and wrote our names in the snow with our feet. It was so pretty out; I kept feeling like we were in Scandinavia or something. I felt like I was a kid again. Like cover letters didn't matter and the most exciting thing in the world was staying up late to play in the snow and then drink hot chocolate.

This is all even more poignant when I realize that I'm turning twenty this Monday, and Saturday is the big party night. We're celebrating two other mid-January birthdays that night too. There will be colored twinkle lights and a whole lot of floor-shaking dancing. It'll be the perfect Viking funeral for my teenage years.

JanTerm, beaking hearts all over town.

Janterm, you're showing yourself to be quite the heartbreaker.

I arrived here last night for January Term. All the lights in the mod were off, because I was the first to arrive. Also, I was the last to leave back in December. I guess I just love this place too much. I spent the first night here with my knitting, a big plate of spaghetti bolognese, and a Law and Order SVU marathon. I felt an overwhelming sense of hope for the coming month.

Then came the morning. I dragged my tired old ass out of bed for my 10am class for which I was waitlisted for. Then I proceeded to realize I had left a bunch of my clothes back in New York. But that soon became the least of my worries. In the next hour, I would slice my finger while opening a package of lox, and then rush to class precariously balancing a cup of coffee only to show up late.

This all would have been worth it had I actually gotten into the course, but upon seeing how many other people were on the waitlist as well, and seeing my spot in relation to theirs, the professor and I both agreed I probably wouldn't be able to enroll.

I'm miffed because this was basically the only writing class available this January that wasn't limited to first year students. I have a backup plan, and I'll give it a shot, but I really don't want to settle. So if I don't like the backup plan, I'll just spend this month bumming around, working on my Division 2 contract, and planning the summer.

It's good that I believe everything happens for a reason, otherwise I'd be really freaking out now.