Today's big news is that I got my assingment for my PRP. PRP stands for Policy Research Project, and it's a year-long project, culiminating in the publication of a book or articles or professional report, on any one of several subjects. Yesterday we had a PRP Expo in which all of the faculty who are leading PRPs told us what their specific projects would be about. Then we turned in preferences and today we got our assingments. I got my first choice.

Have I bit off more than I can chew?

My PRP is called Regulation of Gender II, and the sheet I have in front of me has this to say:
"In 2003-04 we hope to have team members author creative policy proposals by developing a series of political analogies that could apply to people who don't perfectly fit the enforced binary gender system. Current policies might be addressed in terms of:
treatment of visibile minorities
(un)equal opportunities for persons with Disabiltiies
protection of human research subjects
separation of Church and State
Freedom of Expression and Association (1st Amendment)"

Basically, the course is about how to best make policy concerning intersexed individuals when "gender binarism is actively maintained by public politics."

I'm so excited I could just wet myself.

Tomorrow at 8am I register for my other three classes. I am hoping to get into Political Economy, Political Financial Management and Political Administration.

Between this and my job interview on Tuesday (yay!), I feel like I am really doing quite well. Life is good.

I'm slacking off already, I guess.

Classes start tomorrow. I wish I felt more anticipation than dread, but I don't. I'm getting bogged down in the financial mire again, too. I need to not let it get to me--with my loans and everything I will be OK. Still, it worries me. I would really prefer not to have to live hand-to-mouth all semester (though I know that what I am thinking of as I type "hand-to-mouth" is a really rich white Westerners version thereof and I should be ashamed to complain about it).

This morning has a very Sunday kind of feel about it. Mark is off walking Chance; when he gets back we'll go on an errand run (grocery shopping, Target, etc.) Then later we have a play date with Chance and Tosca, and Mark wants to make a Sunday fried chicken dinner. What could be better?

The only problem is that my neck is hurting like a mofo again. Dammit. I am trying to figure out if it's better with my hair up or better with my hair down, but I think it would be better with my hair off completely.

My interest in actually doing the reading for my classes next week has dwindled to sort of a sad trickle. I did the reading for my Monday night class, but haven't cracked a book for any of the others, and it doesn't look like there will be tons of time to do that today. Oh well, at least I had four weeks at the beginning of the semester of pretending I am a dedicated student.

I wonder if anyone is reading this thing? I kind of feel sorry for them if they are--it is so rambling and so very uninteresting.

Someone on the Ms. boards called me inauthentic the other day. Is inauthentic even a word? I felt like an imposter Van Gogh painting or something.

Today's shopping delimma: Does (fruit flavored) nonfat yogurt WITHOUT artifical sweetners in it exist? If so, why can't I find it?

Things that say Sunday morning to me:

The Sunday Times
Waking up with the sun streaming on to your bed
Sitting around in pjs or whatever passes for them for hours before you take a shower
A long slow stretch and the feeling that although you should probably do something productive, you don't really have to
The church bell down the street

Yay. Monday morning. :)

I actually kind of like Mondays. The big chunk of time to myself in between my morning class and my evening class is nice. And it's especially nice this week, because I actually have almost all of my reading for the week (everything except for economics) done, so I don't have to feel guilty about napping instead of reading during those precious afternoon hours.

There was a big beautiful storm here last night. Thunder and lightening and the whole 9 yards. It has faded into drizzly rain today, which isn't so cool, but it's worth it. I am grateful that Chance isn't afraid of storms. He doesn't seem to even notice them, actually. When I get home and the whole house smells like wet dog, though, I'll probably be less pro-rain.

Still, the weather here is certainly nothing to complain about. I hear there are parts of the country where you have to wear a coat! :)

I am stressed. I am not enjoying it. I have that water-rising-above-my-head-too-much-to-do-not-enough-time feeling. SO perhaps a to-do list will help. Perhaps it is just a waste of time, but I'm done for the night either way, and I'd like to be able to sleep, so here goes:

Annoyingly long list of things I need to do in the near future:

1. Work all day Thursday
2. Go to POWER domestic violence event Thursday night
3. Work Friday 10-2
4. Meet with internship coordinator Friday at 2:30
5. Read 4 chapters and an essay for policy development, then check out a webpage, then email my group with my thoughts. Do this by Friday.
6. Draft a memo topic for public financial management by Monday.
7. Do my economics problem set, at which I have not yet glanced, by Wednesday.
8. Read three articles for Regulation of Gender, email Aditi at least once, and do at least three free-writes, by Tuesday.
9. Read Lessons from the Intersexed, or at least get a good start on it, this week.
10. Do my economics reading for Wednesday (two chapters).
11. Do my PFM reading for Monday, then for Wednesday.
12. Wash the filthy floors in my house.
13. Do laundry.
14. Write a 500 word essay about my dreams and how I plan to achieve them in order to apply for some scholarship I don't remember the name of. Due 10/21.
15. Get together some care packages for some folks who I know could use them. Get these in the mail by Monday.
16. Wash the dog. He is filthy.
17. Make something to take for lunch next week.
18. Finish reorganizing/cleaning out the office.
19. Make an appointment at Planned Parenthood to get my cervix scraped and see if I still have pre-cancerous growths there.
20. To to Pier One and scout out things for my relaxation kits.

I could go on, but I won't. It isn't helping, and I sound so damn whiny. The upshot is that I have lots to do, mostly stuff I don't want to do, and I am afraid the stuff I really think is important, some of which I didn't even list, now that I look at it, will fall by the wayside.

I have to get used to never being finished. That is what school is all about. There's always some project, some reading, some writing, something you should be doing. It took me two years to get used to that in undergrad. I had no idea I would forget so quickly.

I want to hang out with Susan this weekend. I want to watch the Red River Shoot-out (it's the game of the year!). I want to go to the one-night-only mother and daughter themed play at the Blanton. I want to go see the Warhol exhibit before it goes away. I want to take a bath and read the new Bitch that came in the mail today.

But something has to give.

There is lots floating around in my little head this morning. Walking Chance was great--beautiful weather, he was well-behaved, and my mind just wandered. I had no idea having a dog would offer me this particular chance for peace and reflection in the mornings. It's so nice. I'm sure that once it gets into winter and it's dark and shit when I need to walk him I'll be less all about it, but for now it's lovely.

Why is it that no matter what time I get here on Wednesday, there's never any place to fucking park? I always have to park illegally in the library lot during my first class. Makes me crazy.

Susan and I went to see Ani last night. She was good. I've seen her better, but she was good. Very mellow, just her and her guitar. I think I liked her best with just Andy, or maybe with Andy and Sara Lee. I certainly like her better by herself than with the full horn section and all that crap, but she loses a bit by not having a rthymn section.

Someday, I will learn to spell rythme. Rythmn. Was that right?

Anyway, I think Susan enjoyed the show and I was really happy she came. I had been worried for days that she wouldn't like it, and with the tickets being so spendy, etc., I was going to feel terrible if she didn't. She did though, so all is well.

I honestly don't understand how anybody could not like Ani, but I'm biased.

I really don't want to be at school today. Wednesday is always like this.

Next semester's class schedule is up, so I'm trying to figure out what to take. There are several interesting sounding seminars. Maybe I should email some professors...I have one extra space in my schedule, so I can take something fun, rather than a core course (because I didn't take AQA last semester). I'll pay for it by having to take PE II and AQA II next year, but whatever. Spread that nasty shit out. :)

I'd like to take something in the women's studies department. I keep thinking about joint degrees...but then I realize that I have already bitten off more than I could possibly chew and really I should just leave well enough alone.

I have a lot to do, school-wise. I should probably be stressed about it, but I'm really not. I am too freaking tired to be stressed right now. I have no idea why, but I'm exhausted.

I think changing my work week so that school and work are seperate (school Mon-Wed, work Thurs-Fri, weekend Sat-Sun) will help. I hope so...

I walked Chance into an amazing golden sunrise this morning. It almost made being up at 7:30 when I don't have class until 2 worth it. Almost.

I have a stupid group project meeting at the massively inconvenient hour of 9am this morning. Then I'm coming back here and working (read: coming back here and taking a nap) before 2 o'clock class.

So far, having my schedule split into work week and school week seems to take a lot of pressure off.

I am trying to decide if I want to submit a paper/which paper I want to submit to the Women's Studies Colloquium thing. I am tempted to submit an abstract of the paper I am going to write for PD on HPV, since I would like to get more into women's health policy work, and presenting some would be good for the resume. However, I feel weird about signing up to present a paper I haven't written yet. Hrm...The deadline for abstracts is Nov. 14, so the chances of me writing it before then are pretty low, too.

Still, I think that's what I will do.

I am going to try to have grits for breakfast. We'll see how that goes.

Update your blog, she says. So update my blog I will.

School is just kicking my ass. There is no other way to put it. Suddenly I have rounded the corner from happily overwelmed to freakily overwelmed, and I am not enjoying it. If I could just get a good day's work done I know I'd feel much better, but I am so tired and so distractable...it's not happening. I work for a little while, then I check my email, read The Phoenix, see if anyone needs to be authorized, pet the dog, get some cookies...it's ridicluous.

To be fair, though, I did crank out a PFM memo in fairly short order this morning. I have no idea if it is any good or not (my guess is no), but it is one more thing I can cross off my list. If I have time to go back later and edit it, all the better. If not, so be it. I have other stuff to do.

The Phoenix is rocking and rolling with 75 members and over 700 posts in the past 3 1/2 days. I feel a sense of accomplishment, which is nice. Unfortunately, I am letting it keep me from stuff I really should be focusing on, like my fucking econ midterm. Oh well.

The weather here has turned a little chilly and windy, as if it's really fall. As long as it doesn't last too long, I'm all for it. The trouble is that it feeds right into my urge to curl up in the papasan and read, not do the work I need to get done. Esh. Are you sensing a theme, here?

I did school Day of Service volunteer stuff yesterday. It was pretty much a waste of time. My group was assigned to paint this multimedia room at Johnston HS, which would have been cool, except the guy in charge of the project was in no way ready. He didn't have neccessary supplies, the room wasn't cleaned, blah blah. It was a hassle. I stuck it out for almost three hours, but then I bailed. I got a pretty cool bright green tshirt out of the deal, though. Next time I will follow my gut instincts and go for the library book-sorting project. :)

OK. Back to work. I swear.

So there is something wrong with my shoulder. It's like the pain that I had when Chancey pulled my shoulder out that one time, but a bit less. And it's persistant. Taking a shirt off over my head just about makes me cry.

Great. A health problem. Just what I don't have time for.

Finally, some progress on my paper. I'm halfway through page 7 and things are moving along much more smoothly. Thank God.

Getting into all this HPV stuff pisses me off to no end. I wrote an impassioned thing on The Phoenix about my HPV experiences the other day, and it drew very few responses. It doesn't seem to be much of a resonating feminist issue. Makes me wonder if it's really all that important, or if I just think it's important because it has affected me personally?

I do think it's important, though. Something about millions of women trooping dutifully in every year to have Pap smears when they have no fucking clue what they are being tested for rubs me the wrong way. It seems unethical. Don't people have the right to know what the fuck they are being tested for? Or do only men have that right?

The reasons for not making the connection more explicit make some sense, but they all come down to stigma against female sexuality. Unlike breast cancer or endometrial cancer or whatever else, cervical cancer isn't a "blameless" disease. You got it from sex. No, you didn't necessarily h ave to have multiple partners or even have gone unprotected, but the bottom line is that saying a woman has cervical cancer is saying she has fucked, and nobody wants to admit that women fuck. It is supposed to be burnt or frozen off quietly and not mentioned, rather than talked about, because while cancer makes you a martyr, sexually transmitted infections make you a whore.

So what happens when the two collide? Lots of lying and looking the other way, apparently.

I'm not sure the paper is going to be any good, policy-wise. At least not in this incarnation. Hopefully I can have it whipped into shape for either or both of the conferences, though, if either of them accept me.

I'm increasingly interested in lesbian health issues. Again, the whole idea of stigma and misinformation. Hopefully I can get further into that in the future.

A lot of people think that public education campaigns are "soft" policy. What do you think?

The problem with Do Whatever I Want Day is it is directly followed by "Do All The Stuff I Should Have Done Yesterday Day." Damn I wish Mark would get better so I'd have some help with all of this shit.

My current plan is to skip PFM (it's a guest speaker, something about taxes--I feel guilty for not going, but this is the first time I have skipped without a legitimate reason and I just can't go to campus and come back three times today). I have a meeting with my PE group at 2, but I can do housework and get things back into shape until then. Then hopefully I can work on my PFM problem set, which sneaked up on me and is due Wednesday.

Fascinating, I know. I don't know why I feel the need to post the intricacies of my daily schedule on my blog. Mmm...narcissism.

I am tired of Mark being sick. It's horribly selfish, I know, but I was so looking forward to his return because then I would have some HELP, and instead all I got was more work. But at least I am not feeling sick myself. I can handle it.

I am so thankful.

This has been an amazing Thanksgiving. Mark and I did a great job with the food and we've just had a wonderful day. I'm really really happy we decided to stay home and just have it be us. We even gave Chancey a big plate of food, which he demolished in 30 seconds or so. It was hysterical. And Mark and I both conked out for like two hours after dinner. We're going to be eating leftovers for a month.

In a more general way, though, I am very thankful for my life. Things are going well. In general, I am happy and healthy and stable and secure. Mark and I are doing wonderfully and we feel permanent to me. I'm worried about my mom's back, but there is really nothing I can do about that from here, so I should try not to worry about it more than I have to. Hopefully she can have the surgery while I am in Oregon over Christmas. I want to be able to help her...

My presentations this week have stressed me out, but things are going very well. I am really happy with both of my groups. Group work experiences have been so up-and-down (mostly down) for me in the past, group work was something I was really worried about at LBJ, and I these experiences have made me feel much better about it. This is good.

I'm attempting to get my internship requirement for the summer waived. I'll try to do an internship anyway, but if I do it for credit, as is required, I have to pay out-of-state tuition on it, which amounts to about $2,000. That's a huge fucking waste. So hopefully they will waive me on the basis of the work I am doing at Texans Care now. I doubt they will, but it's worth a try. That will mean I have to take one more class next year, but that's really no big deal, especially since it won't change my tuition costs (and I get a waiver on the out-of-state portion for the academic year). If I get the waiver it will also allow me to be more creative in what I decide to do for the summer. So I'm going to finish the waiver app this weekend and hope for the best.

It's amazing how cold it feels in here when it's 53 degrees outside. My feet are like icecubes.

Mark is doing better this week with work/school stuff too, which is really nice. I worry that he'll resent me if he doesn't like it here. I know he likes Austin, but the school thing is so mixed. I have high hopes for Hitoshi's lab, though. Hitoshi came over the night for a few minutes. He's really funny. Japanese James Cagney is exactly the right way to describe him.

I haven't been writing in my blog as much lately because I have been busy, but there has been another reason as well. I have blog-envy. I read Flea's blog and it's so damn good--interesting, funny, well-written...makes me wonder why I bother with it when all I do is blab on and on about my not-very-interesting life. Then I feel really stupid for my envy, because honestly, I don't want a kid that puts shitty underwear in my coffee pot*. And if I had one, I don't think I'd find the energy to write about it like Flea does. I really admire her.

Anyways...blabber blabber blabber. Mark is on the phone with his parents. Chance is curled up on the floor. All is good.

But I need to go put some socks on.

* Actually, I just don't want a kid. The shitty underwear and the coffee pot are side issues. And I don't even have a coffee pot.

My stomach is upset, my glasses are dirty, the sound of South Park filtering from the other room is irritating me, and I really want to go to bed, even though it's not even 9:30.

On the upside, though, my first semester of classes at the Lyndon Baines Johnson School of Freezing Your Ass Off is over. PE was my last class today, and what a way to go out! The presentation went well, we turned the paper in, and everything is all wrapped up in a nice, tidy bundle. One class completely finished. And the most difficult class, at that.

So why am I so cranky? Decompression, I suppose. That and I have eaten nothing but absolute garbage today (really, it's been terrible), so I just feel like general ass. I'm going to do better tomorrow, I swear (she says, knowing full well she has NOTHING in the fridge to take to work for lunch tomorrow).

I am strangely nervous about going back to work--after being gone for two weeks, I feel like it is going to be uncomfortable or weird or something. That is dumb, I know, but there it is.

Ick. My stomach is really queasy. Maybe Mark can walk the dog by himself. I so just want to curl up and sleep.

I'm feeling better about the weight stuff--I am much more confident that I can do something about it if it's that important to me. And given the very important point Mark brought up about the vericosity in my legs already and the compounding effect extra weight has on that problem, it is becoming very important to me.

But enough about that.

I am finished with my first semester at LBJ--the final yesterday went fine and now I really do have time off. I'm already nervous about the prospect (yeah, right) of learning enough calc to take the validation exam in January, but I'm going to give myself a couple more days before I start freaking out about that or my PRP paper. This is, after all, supposed to be vacation, and it's bad enough that I have to work 3 days/week during my supposed "vacation."

I'm having a good morning at work this morning, though. I finally found data for two of the things that were hanging over my head from the maternal and child health indicators list. I knew they were there all along, it has just taken ages to find them. I should take another look at the JJ stuff while I'm on a roll.

My baking bonanza was a partial success. My biscotti didn't meet the Mark test, and some of my shortbread broke and thus became Mark's tea biscuits, but I think everything else is OK. The gingerbread men and sugar cookies look nice, and I'm pretty confident the pound cakes will be good. The fudge is a little bit soft, but it should harden over the next couple of days, and soft fudge isn't the worst thing in the world. So tonight I need to start getting it all packaged up and sent off. The problem is that there are other things I wnat to send to some of the folks I am planning to ship it too. I think I might just skip that, though. No need to let Christmas be overwelming. I got about half a dozen cards sent out on Tuesday as well, so that's going pretty well. Need to do some more tonight. Writing out Christmas cards makes me feel strangely grown up, and signing Mark's name to them as well as my own makes me feel...married. It's odd, but sort of nice, in the same way it's nice to refer to Mark and Chancey as my "family."

Emily is off to stay with her parents for a few days. Her mom really sounds like she's not doing well, and I apparently I am talking about it a lot, because Mark said something last night about how surprised he is at the effect it's having on me. It's really two things, I think. The first is Emily and wanting to be able to make her feel better and knowing it's simply not possible, and the second is fear that this means my mom could get sick, too. I simply cannot fathom my mother being terminally ill. It's beyond my capacity to comprehend.

Classes start back up tomorrow. I'm not even a little bit excited, but I'm sure I will be once my schedule gets straightened out. Tomorrow I take the validation exam to see if I can take AQA I--I'm not expecting to be able to, and I'm really excited about my "back up class," so once that's all done I'll be a lot happier, I think. I know it is irresponsible to put AQA off until next year and all that, but I don't see how I am going to learn calculus tonight, so that's just how it's going to be.

Tony and Susan are here! Pizza and movie time!!

It gets better after the first day, right?

Today was pretty much a disaster, no two-ways about it. And for some reason I am other-wordly exhausted tonight. I feel like I ran a damn marathon. It's ridiculous.

However, I will not be taking the quantative class, so that's good. I couldn't even do one problem on the validation exam. I heart humiliation. Guess I'll be looking into an online calculus course, perhaps? If anyone has one to recommend, I'm all ears.

Day two of el sucko semester. I now officially have three classes, which is good. I'm the first person on teh waiting list for class number four, and I have a back-up plan for if that doesn't work out. This is also good. However, I am going to have missed the first meeting of at least one and probably two of my classes (and these classes meet only once a week), so that's bad. Especially because one of the one's I missed was economics (for some reason, the sheet said Tuesday and my brain read Wednesday--I have no idea how that happened).

So...all in all, it's still a big mess. If I actually get into the radicalism class, I'll be thrilled. If not, the international journalism class I have as back-up sounds interesting, and it's not in the morning.

So why am I still so stressed?

My evening class today was a mind-blow. It was three hours of sort of overstimulation of the empathetic system. Yes, I know the empathetic system is a figment of my imagination, but I don't really know how else to describe how I felt. First, we watched a short film about the School of the Americas. School of the Americas is something I sort of knew about in the back of my head, where my long list of government attrocities is filed, but nothing I'd ever given too much thought or study to.

Jesus H. Christ. It should be unbelieavable, but sadly it isn't.

That segued into talk about human rights abuses worldwide, inequality, etc. etc. etc. All of that stuff that makes a nice, comfortable, happy liberal like myself feel really fucking guilty, and for good reason.

In the midst of my class notes, I jotted this down:
Get out of your own head and start actually doing something. Walk the talk. Being indignant is not enough. Being outraged is not enough. There is so much that needs to be fixed, sitting here in your comfortable life and whining is NOT ENOUGH. Wake up!

Obviously not great prose, but you get the idea. I feel really strongly that I need to stop pretending that "caring" in some abstract way is enough while not being willing to make any sacrifices in my own life. I shop at Old Navy for God's sake! If that's not explicit support of the entire system of global repression of the poor, I don't know what is. There is just as much blood on my hands as on anyone else's and pretending that I believe that what I choose to do doesn't make a difference doesn't change that. I'm not fooling anyone, and I'm really not even fooling myself.

So.

What to do?

I'm going to start a list. Please feel free to add to it in the comments. I need all the help I can get.
1. Stop buying clothes and other items that I know good and goddamn well were manufactured in countries with unprotected work forces. There's no fucking excuse for me to be doing that. I have the time to find better places to spend my money.
2. Educate myself about what's going on worldwide. Stop being so American-centric with my interests and politics.

Actually, I am going to stop with just those two things, because if I can incorporate those into my life successfully, that will be a good first step, and overwelming myself with a whole big list will just give me an excuse to slack off about it.

Rene Descartes walks into a classroom. The instructor asks if he would like to give a lecture. Descartes replies, "I think not," and vanishes.

What does it say about me that I find that amusing?

I got some interesting news today. I was accepted as a member of the 2004 class of Oregon Performance Interns. It sounds like a great opportunity--training, good work, possibility of making a lot of connections, pretty decent pay, etc. The downside, of course, is that it would mean spending the summer in Portland, with Mark and Chancey staying here.

So it's a big decision to make. Not mine alone, of course. Mark doesn't seem to keen on the idea, which doesn't much surprise me. I feel selfish as all hell for even considering it. But on the other hand, if it's a good opportunity and it's only 11 weeks...11 weeks really isn't that long, is it?

As of right now, I don't have other offers, but I am hoping to have a summer offer from the great organization where I currently work. It would be less money, but it would be here...

Ag. I'm probably going to be obsessing about this for awhile. Feedback much appreciated.

I just went to a meeting and got a couple of nuggets of internship info:

1. I'm going to get an out-of-state tuition waiver after all, so tuition should be $1360, rather than $2300.
2. The internship is required to be 12 weeks long. 10 week positions will only be considered on an individual basis and you have to make up the extra two weeks somehow (with research or a paper or something).

In other news, tomorrow is Ash Wednesday. Anybody giving anything up for Lent? I usually do. I'm not Catholic (or Lutheran, or any religion), but I really like the idea of Lent. I wonder if that is insulting to those who are actually practicing? I certainly don't want to take over anyone else's holiday. I just like the idea of giving something up for a number of weeks and really having to think about the way I live...

Jeez! I just realized that tomorrow being Ash Wednesday means today is Fat Tuesday. Happy Mardi Gras, everybody! Too bad I'm not in much of a celebratory mood.

I found out today that my abstract on HPV and cervical cancer in lesbian women has been accepted to the Working Together to Create Healthy Lives 2004 lesbian health conference in Chicago. I'm so excited! Huge thanks to Frog, who made this opportunity known to me in the first place.

So, between now and May, I've got to get my shit together. Actually, I have to do it before that, because I have a trial run presenting the same paper at a UT conference in late March. Basically, I'm talking about HPV as an example of a health risk that lesbians are very often misinformed about (by their doctors, no less) and how this is one example of the necessity for lesbian-sensitive health care policy in this country. Anybody want to read and critique? Next week is Spring Break, so I plan to do most of the work then.

Also, I have to figure out logistics. This conference coincides very nicely with a trip I was already planning to make to that neck of the woods (to visit both online and RL friends), so that's cool, I just have to figure out how to shuttle myself back and forth between the three relevant cities in question.

Ah! I'm so excited!

So I am awash in questions and contradictions having to do with my summer internship. As I think I've mentioned, I declined the position in Oregon. Spending the summer away just didn't feel right, and I think that was the right decision.

But now...well, I'm second and third and fifteenth guessing myself. I have a sure thing--an offer of a decent-paying position at the non-profit where I currently work. Upsides: it's stable, I love my coworker, I know what I'm getting into. Downsides: I don't really think I want to do non-profit work long-term, I'm not sure the boss likes me and I'm not sure I like her (but I'm not sure I don't, either), I'm not totally sure what I'd be doing, there doesn't seem to be anywhere to advance to within the organization (and I don't think I'd want to stay there after I graduate anyway).

And then there are the plethora of other things I am applying to, but I have nothing yet (not even an interview) and I can't count on being offered anything. There's a legislative aid position, a position with the Dept. of Insurance that would last through next year and culminate in my professional report, a position with the state council on local governments, a position with a state women's organization...these all carry different levels of pay, etc., but I think they'd each be financially doable.

Ag! I don't want to give up my sure thing, but I feel like I owe it to the org. where I am currently working to tell them sooner, rather than later, if I'm not planning on working there over the summer. I'm afraid of burning bridges, but I'm also afraid of taking the "easy way out" (i.e. the sure thing).

Suggestions? Comments? I'm stumped.

I feel like absolute ass. I didn't feel well last night--just achey and tired and grouchy and not quite right. But I work up this morning in pain. All my joints hurt. My back is killing me. My HAIR hurts. I feel feverish. I really really want to get back in bed.

So I can only assume I am doing what I do best--getting sick. Why is it that I have a 90 year-old immune system in a 24 year-old body? I honestly don't get it.

My macro midterm is this morning. I can't stay home. So I'm all wrapped in my new fuzzy yoga pants and my fuzziest hoodie and I'm going to campus. I'll do the best I can on the test, then come back and go back to bed.

Please let this be brief.

I am home today, rather than at a "New Scholarship in Women's and Gender Studies" conference that I really wanted to attend. Rather than at work. Why? Becuase I am presenting at same conference tomorrow, and I have not yet written my talk.

Am I writing my talk right now? No, I am not. I am staring at a blank screen, I am falling asleep, I am going to get something to eat, I am reading blogs, I am checking my email, but I am not writing my talk.

This is bad. In less than 24 hours, I have to have something to say. But my brain just isn't working and I want to go back to bed.

Fuck.

I haven't been posting anything of substance here lately, as some of you have noticed. There is really one simple reason: The Man is getting me down. I don't know what it is precisely, or more I can't put a neat label on the combination of things it is, but I'm wearing a little bit thin. School is overwhelming me, which makes me feel lame. I'm exhausted all the time, which is probably just from allergies, but it still makes me feel lame. Work is...gray. It's fine, but I feel guilty for being here when I have so much school shit to do (and of course I feel guilty for not being here when I'm at home). I'm tired of doing all the freaking housework. I'm tired of exercising and trying to eat well. I'm incredibly tired of bleeding and of the pain that comes with it every. freaking. month. Mostly I'm just tired.

So yeah. I'm in a funk. If I snap at you, I apologize in advance. I'm trying not to be a pain, even though I feel like being one all the time.

So I have alluded a few times to my massive stress level of late. Well, I just spent all fucking weekend reading, writing, and worrying, and things have reached a pretty critical point.

I have too much shit to do and not enough time to do it in nor energy to do it. Looking at my calendar for the next two weeks makes my stomach hurt. I only managed to write nine not-very-good pages this weekend, and I have 50ish to go in the next two weeks, plus two finals and countless other crap. Things look bad.

I don't know how this is happening now. My undergrad was fucking intense. It was way, way more work than grad school. And I survived it. And I don't remember more than a couple of times I felt this hopeless at the end of the semester. Maybe I just forget too easily. Mark says this happened every semester. Maybe I'm just getting too fucking old for this shit.

Or maybe it's the fact that I've been sick all fucking semester and I have the worst allergies of my life in this hellhole and the Claritin I am taking every fucking day is doing fuck-all to stop it. Maybe it's that I have a house and a dog and a relationship now, and I feel like they deserve my attention too, so I can't dedicate myself soley to school the way I could in undergrad.

Whatever it is, it's running me down, and scenarios that include "take an incomplete" are running through my head more often than they ought to. I've never, in my entire life, turned something in late. The idea of starting now is just more than I can fucking bear. One of the reasons I came here (albeit a minor one) is that I thought it would be a walk in the park compared to what I went through in undergrad. This isn't about academia, it's about certification. To be defeated at this point, to turn something in late, or take an incomplete...It would be a fucking humiliation. School is supposed to be what I'm good at, for God's sake.

You know what's pissing me off the most right now? Feeling that I'm being stupid by pouring this all out in a blog entry, because I know I am opening myself up to ridicule from some of the nastier elements of the internet, who prey on weaknesses people display in their blogs like bleached blonde, Ugg-wearing vultures. Well dig right in. And fuck you in advance.

I'm calmer this evening. I finished one project, got a relatively decent start on two others, had one due date extended, and generally feel like maybe there is some hope after all. I'm sure I won't be saying that in a day or two, but for now, I feel pretty OK about things.

Partially it has just been a good day. S. and T. got their referral, finally. They will be bringing their daughter home in only a couple of months. I'm so excited for them I can hardly stand it. I of course wanted to rush right over there tonight when I heard the news, but they need time to themselves now, I think, and we will celebrate with them tomorrow night.

In other good news, I got my financial aid stuff for the summer and next year, and I am getting a hefty sum in subsidized loans, which is good. Enough, actually, that I could not work next year if I didn't want to. So that's a nice option to have, particularly because I don't think I am going to get a TA'ship (supposed to hear about that tomorrow morning).

I'm also getting really excited about my trip in a couple of weeks. I am hoping to get to meet some online friends. A bunch of online friends, actually! Can't wait.

OK. Shower. Sleep. Yes. Good.

Once again, I am struck by the overwelming urge to do more. I am not doing enough. Not doing enough to better myself, not doing enough to better the world around me, not doing enough to help people, not traveling enough, not loving enough, not living enough. I want to do more.

But it seems so difficult just to do what I must to get by, doing "enough" would be impossible. There is never enough time or enough money or enough energy. The whole situation is very frustrating.

This is stemming from a wonderful class I had tonight. My last class of the semester, and it couldn't have been better. I put myself on the line a bit and took a journalism class this semester--the subject was coverage of international crises. As one of the (many...I still have 30 pages left to write...) requirements for the course, we were to do 20 hours of volunteer work somewhere in the community and report back on it (write a field report and do an little informal oral presentation). Today, our last class, we had those presentations. And the organizations people worked with were so fascinating, so vital, and so in need. I ended up wanting to volunteer for all of them. And I ended up feeling really, really bad, because I just used the non-profit job I already had to fill the course requirement. I wasn't cheating or anything--the professor OK'd it--but I feel like I should have done more.

So I'm trying to figure out how to do more. Now is the absolute worst time to be thinking in these terms--I've got PLENTY to do in the next week or so, thanks! But I am thinking about the summer. Yes, I have to take a calculus course, and yes, I have to work full-time, but what else can I do? My reasons are fairly non-philanthropic--I want to contribute because I don't feel like I am pulling my weight, and that makes me feel like ass. But whatever my reasons are, one more volunteer body is one more volunteer body, right? And it's about damn time I got involved in something beyond myself.

That being said, I move on to the subject of friends and my not having any. It's quite strange. I went out to lunch today at a campus place (between work this morning and class this afternoon), and I ran into a group of acquaintances from school there. I talked to them some, but sat by myself and read my paper for the most part. I go to lunch by myself often enough now that I don't really think of it as weird, but today I was very much aware that these people were thinking "Poor pitiful Grace, doesn't have any friends to have lunch with," or something of the sort. And it's true. There isn't a single person at my school that I would call a friend. There are a handful of people I say hi to or am happy to have class with, and I'm doing better with school-oriented social events (such as going to Happy Hour after class yesterday), but basically, I have no friends.

The really surprising part, though, is that having no friends doesn't bother me at all. I feel like I have lots of friends. I have my online friends, and I have my real-life friends, most of whom happen to be far away at this point, rendering my relationships with them very similar to those with my online friends (although really, reading my blog and being in my internet community are the only ways to communicate with me from afar on anything resembling a regular basis--I don't even talk to my mom on the phone more than once or twice a month). I absolutely adore the friends I have and hope they will always be my friends, geography be damned. But not having friends at school here just doesn't bother me. And it's not that I don't think tere are people here I'd like to be friends with--I'm sure there are--but I don't know how to form friendships intentionally, and I can't be bothered to figure it out.

Is that severely misanthropic? Maybe it's because I have Mark and we spend a ton of time together, but I honestly don't think that's the bulk of it. I just don't consider geographic nearness to be a particularly important factor in friendship, I guess. And at this point, I don't even consider regular communication to be that important a factor--as seeing Howell and Melinda and Ron and Sandy in D.C. the other weekend demonstrated to me, we fall right back into the same friendship no matter how recently or not we have talked. And to me, that's what it's all about. If they need me, I'm here, and if I need them, I trust they'll be around.

Still, I should probably attempt to be at least marginally social here. I'm really not an anti-social person. Just lazy, I guess. Or guarded? I don't know. Mostly I think I just don't have the patience to develop friendships over a long period of time--I love hanging out with good, close friends, but I'm not exactly enamored with the first date-esque stages before that. And making new friends really does remind me of dating, another activity I would never be good at and I'm kind of glad not to engage in.

This all reminds me of how strange it is to meet people IRL whom you have interacted with for a long period of time online. The idea that you are just now "meeting" them is so strange, because chances are you know more about them and have shared more with them than is true of most of the people you see quite often in your everyday life (at least in my circles, this seems to be the case). So it's not really meeting them. Ani has a line that goes, "I have only just met an old, old friend," and I always think of that when I meet someone whom I already know I like. It's a strange dynamic. On one hand, you wish you could just brush away all the preliminary getting to know you stuff that is inherent in meeting someone, but on the other hand, you don't want to be too familiar with someone who you "just met." And I know that I am far more open online that I would be in relationships with people in person, so it's weird to meet someone and know how much they already know about me. It's this strange feeling of not knowing what face to put on, because they are going to recognize that your public face isn't you--after all, they've never seen it before.

Actually, that makes it sound like it's a really excellent way to meet people, doesn't it? No pretenses that way. Why doesn't it actually work like that?

Or maybe it does.

I rock the house. I even rock the Casbah. Here is how much I rock the weekend:

1. 32 page paper on media portrayal of inner-military rape, not started until Friday night and not due until Wednesday night? Done.
2. Brunch with Renee and Sofiya? Attended.
3. Annual LBJ Follies? Also attended.
4. Alcohol consumed? None.

I would like mad props now, please.

I do still have stuff to do--two finals this week (one Wednesday, one Friday), and one of them requires a pre-written essay of a few pages that I will need to at least get started on this afternoon. Still, the fact that I worked my ass off all weekend and actually finished this paper (yes, this is the one I was whining about maybe having to take an incomplete or get an extension on or whatever) not just on time, but ahead of time, makes me giddy. Plus it's actually pretty good, or at least I thought it was last night at midnight or so when I wrote the conclusion. I'm actually sort of scared to go back and look at it now.

My last final (economics, the one I have been the most worried about) is in less than an hour. In less than four hours, I will be completely finished with my first year. NO. MORE. SCHOOL. for several months.

This is tremendously exciting to me. The nap I am going to take after this final will be a whole new level of sweet.

There is a plan in place for next semester. It involves me working 30 hrs/week and taking 10 hours of classes. This includes class from 10:30-12 and then 2-9pm on Tuesdays. That ought to be fun.

I'll graduate a semester late under this plan, which is really no big deal. I'll also save enough to pay off a huge chunk of my undergrad loans, which is a big deal.

All in all, I'm psyched. Worried as all hell, but psyched.

I just wish the possibility of quitting school completely would leave my little head...

I haven't been much for the blog updating recently. I'm not sure why--it's not that I don't have anything to say, it's more that I don't have words to say things in. I feel strangely mute recently.

My birthday has come and gone. Through no fault of anyone's but my own, it was less than I had hoped. I had a very nice dinner party the night before, and my friends were great and the food was good, but my heart just wasn't as in it as I'd have liked. Part of the problem was that Mark and I spent a large part of the weekend arguing (arguments for which I am probably mostly responsible). Part of was just...me.

I did get really fabulous birthday presents, though. The greatest thing was that they were all from local/small businesses, which I think is great. I got some beautiful earrings and a book from Siobhan's family, a spa gift certificate from Mark, and a donation to Blue Dog Rescue from The Princess. Then I got a package from my mom, containing soaps and pottery from my home town. So that was all very nice.

The next big thing is that classes start tomorrow. From here on, I work four days/week (Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday) and go to school one day (Wednesday, in case you couldn't do the math there). I don't actually have class Wednesday afternoons--just Wednesday morning from 9-noon and Wednesday evening from 6-9. So that should be an OK schedule--I'm looking forward to having an afternoon off every week. Of course that will just give Mark one more way to foist all errands and chores off on me (this was the subject of most of our weekend arguments, and I guess I'm still sore).

I have never been ambivalent about starting a new school year. Always, from first grade up through my first year at LBJ, I've been excited. I'm really not very excited this time around. Mostly, I just want to get it over with. Partially I guess I'm not excited about anything right now (it may, perhaps, be safe to say that the Wellbutrin isn't working so well this time around--damn), but partially it's that I know I am going to school for something I am not the least bit interested in. That being said, I got the syllabus for my Family Policy course this morning, and it looks to be both extremely intense (several hundred pages of reading a week in a lot of sources, plus a 2-3 page memo every week, plus a hardcore sounding final policy research project and proposal) and fairly interesting. So perhaps all hope is not lost. We'll see.

It has taken me a long time to get here (four years since I graduated, and it seems like longer), but this fall I really, really miss Reed. Acutely. I wish I were there. I mean, I know I don't really wish that--I've been through it once, and it wouldn't be fun a second time around--but I'm very nostalgic for it, both in terms of looking forward to real academic classes that I can guarantee are going to kick my ass and make me think, and in terms of the comraderie and friendship of the folks I was surrounded by. It's ridiculous, really--I know intellectually that I hated living communally (the mess!), that Reed's pretention annoyed me to no end, etc. But I miss it right now.

Though I have always liked school, my excitement about it has waxed and waned over the years. I think I liked early elementary school, probably less so as I got older. I hated the great majority of late elementary/junior high, and I despised high school, though high school at least taught me something occaisionally. I adored college. My first year of grad school had it's moments, but mostly felt like mediocre job training.

But things are looking up.

I am only taking two classes this term, and neither one of them seems, so far, to be bullshit. This is a great improvement over my first year. One of them will be challenging. Really challenging. Challenging like Reed. The other will probably just be not so bad, but the not-so-bad will culminate with a final project on subject matter that is interesting to me, so I'm not complaining.

The challenging class, though, has me thinking thoughts I had assumed were behind me for good. Thought about going back to real school after I finish my Baby Beaurocrat masters degree. Thoughts about having those three magical letters after my name that mean I can force people to call me doctor. Thought about classes that would take me back to the way things were at Reed and even help me move beyond that. Thought about reading thick books with colons in their titles and slaving away on a dissertation.

When I pull my head out of the sky, I realize that that stuff comes at a really high cost. Years more of being broke, for the final result (if I'm lucky) of being given a piece of paper that only qualifies me for jobs I don't want and couldn't get it if I did want them, at least not without moving to BFN. Ending up with a career that competes with Mark, with none of Mark's passion for the career. It is just not responsible to get a Ph.D. for the sake of getting a Ph.D. After I finished my bachelors-for-the-sake-of-a-bachelors, I promised I wouldn't do it again. Why do I want to do it again, and on an even larger scale?

And for what? Why can't I be satisifed with reading the books on my own? Is it really necessary to sit through classes and write papers in search of a degree that I don't need? I'm 26 years old. I have a mortgage. I have a family. I am too old to be in it for the journey.

It has not escaped my attention that the extreme majority of what I have posted here lately has been silliness, song lyrics, and pictures of my pets. It's not that I'm brain dead--really!--I'm just...dulled, recently.

That being said, I have an interesting exercise. In my Family Policy class a couple of weeks ago, we were asked to list all of the families (or, if you prefer, households) we've ever lived in. Basically, just make a list of all of our living situations. The point that was being illustrated was about lack of family structure stability, but I sort of found making the list useful in and of itself--I hadn't realized how many situations I've been able to call home.

So here's my list:

ELKTON:
1979, for a few weeks (months?) post-birth: Lived with my mother and my grandparents, at my grandparents' house
Fall 1979-Summer 1983: Lived alone in a house with my mother.
Summer 1983-Spring 1985: Lived in a house with my mother and stepfather.
Spring 1985-Summer 1997: Lived in a house with my mother, stepfather, and brother.

PORTLAND:
Fall 1997-Winter 1998:Lived in a college dorm room with a roommate, C.
Winter 1998-Spring 1998: Lived in a college dorm room alone.
Summer 1998: Lived with mother, stepfather, and brother again.
Fall 1998-Spring 1999: Lived in a college apartment with two roommates, J. and M.
Summer 1999: Lived in a duplex with three roommates, B., S., and K.
Fall 1999-Spring 2000: Lived in an apartment with my then-boyfriend, S.
Summer 2000: Lived in a college apartment with my then-boyfriend, S., and another roommate, J.
Fall 2000-Spring 2001: Lived in a single dorm room by myself.
Summer 2001: Lived in a duplex with two roommates, J. and N.
Fall 2001-Winter 2002: Lived in a duplex with two roommates, J. and N., and Mark.
Winter 2002-Summer 2002: Lived alone in an apartment.
Summer 2002-Summer 2003: Lived in an apartment with Mark, a roommate, E., and a cat, Potter.

AUSTIN:
Summer 2003-Spring 2005: Lived in a house with Mark and Chance.
Spring 2005-Summer 2005: Lived in a different house with Mark and Chance.
Summer 2005: Lived in a house with Mark and Leo.
Summer 2005-present: Lived in a house with Mark, Leo, and Atticus.

So what does this all tell me? I'm not sure, other than I haven't spent much time living alone. I've moved around a good bit. In 26 years, I've lived in three "cities" and 15 different locations, by my count. Two boyfriends and eight roommates. Two dogs and two cats, not counting my childhood pets (which I don't count because they lived outside and weren't really pets). Some of these living situations were good, some had big problems. A few had really big problems, mostly on the neighbor frontier (see Won't You Be My Neighbor?). I'm sure they all taught me something, though I'd be hard-pressed to tell you what.

Actually, maybe I'm not so hard pressed. I think what they've taught me, and what looking back on them is teaching me all over again (because, you know, I can't just learn something once and be done with it), is that there are many, many ways to be home. I still miss Portland, and refer to my upcoming visit there as "going home," but in truth, Austin is home now. Specifically, Mark is home. The house we're buying together is home. My dogs--first Chance, and now Leo--are home. Atticus is rapidly becoming home. And all three stanky dorm rooms I lived in where home, as were both even stankier Reed College Apartments (TM). The studio apartment I rented by myself, so proud and my mom so scared of the "bad neighborhood", was home. And the falling-down house in the little town where I spent my incredibly painful formative years will never be anything but home.

Maybe as we get older we collect concepts of home. Maybe this helps us be more at home where we are, or at home with who we are. I hope so.

Nods to Sofiya for the brilliant title.

I have a problem, and that problem is calculus.

See, it's like this: I am approximately 2/3 of the way through my Master's degree, or will be after this semester. I presently have no reason to think that this semester isn't going just fine and won't end with my having 6 more hours of credit on my transcript. My plan is to continue taking 2 classes/semester for three more semesters, while continuing to work, and then be ready to graduate in Spring 2007. Brilliantly easy, right?

Not so much. See, my requirements are done and I can take whatever I want for those remaining credits, except...

except for my quantitive requirement. I have to take two quantative classes to get away with my degree. And in order to enroll for the first of those to classes, I have to have either:
A. taken a college course each in statistics and calculus
or
B. pass a validation exam each in statistics and calculus

I suffered through a statistics course while I was in Portland (in between Reed and here), but I have never, ever taken calculus.

Well, that's not strictly true, either. I've enrolled in and then dropped an online calculus course, because it made no fucking sense. But I've never completed a course in caclulus.

My math education ended in the 11th grade, with a not-particularly-impressive Algebra II course. Not only have I not taken calculus, I've never learned, or at the very least forgot, several steps leading up to calculus. I'm at somewhere around calculus-minus-3.

But the fact remains that I need to either take a course in calculus (business calc counts), or learn enough to pass a validation test. And, in order to graduate in time with my plan, I need to do it no later than this summer, so that I can take my first quantitive course in Fall 06 and my second in Spring 07 and then graduate.

I am so, so fucked.

I've explored my options. Self study? Hardly going to work, both for lack of discipline and because I truly have no knowledge base. Similar story with the online course. So I need to either find a tutor (horror of horrors), or enroll in a class and hope I can magically catch up with everything in between where my math knowledge ends and where calculus begins.

Or I could blow off the rest of this degree. But I really don't want to do that, since I'm 2/3 done and working and going to school simultaneously seems to be working out alright.

Fuck.

These are the first three books we've read in my U.S. Policy History course this semester, and once I get this review up, I'll be all caught up!

by Julian E. Zelizer
Cambridge University Press, March 22, 2004

Don't read this book. It's boring. I'm interested in policy history and how Congress works, and I was bored out of my mind. It's also a lousy primer, because it skips around in time and doesn't spell things out clearly. It's a book all about Congressional reform written for people who already know all about Congressional reform. With that audience of around 13, Zelizer ought to be rolling in dough.

I wrote my first anti-uniform piece when I was 16. I was a member of a local newspaper's teen team, and I fought to be assigned the anti-uniform stance in a point-counterpoint article (front page of the section!). As a picture to accompany the article, the girl who wrote the pro-uniform side was given a small budget and told to go to Target or Wal-Mart or wherever and buy clothes she would consider an appropriate uniform for high schools. I was told to come in my own clothes, whatever I thought best reflected my typical style. Then they took our pictures back-to-back and printed our pieces. She came in navy pants with an elastic waist, a plain white polo shirt, and plain dark shoes. I came in jeans I inherited from my stepfather, a hand-tooled leather belt from the 70s (with someone else's name on the back of it), a striped v-neck, and Birkenstocks. We were equally comfortable and able to move around. We were equally "covered up." We both felt, I assume, that what we were wearing said something about ourselves as individuals.

More than ten years later, I have no idea what my "opponent" (whose name I've forgotten) thinks about dress codes and uniforms. As for me, though, my stance hasn't changed much. Now, as then, uniforms make my skin crawl, and I abhor dress codes. It's not so much about the mystical ability to "express myself" through my clothes as it is about control. The way I see it, dressing is an extension of body autonomy, and I don't want someone else telling me what parts of my body need to be covered, by what, etc. It irritates me in employment situations (which are, mostly, voluntary) and it enrages me in schools (which are, mostly, not).

I spent much of high school pressing the dress code issue. My high school did not have a particularly stringent code, but certain things (midriff tops, shorts or skirts that were too short, spaghetti strap tanks, hats, etc.) were not allowed. I wore all of them at one time or another. It wasn't about being sexxxxeeee, or about showing off my body. It was about testing boundaries. It was about exercising my own autonomy, and seeing how far I could push.

Interestingly, when I moved to college, where there was no dress code (literally none, we had naked students at Reed), I started caring a lot less about my clothes. I had my own uniform, of a sort--baggy cargo pants or BDUs, a t-shirt, a hoodie. I did a few wild things with my hair, pierced my navel (not allowed in high school), got my first tattoo (also not allowed), but basically, I kept myself covered up and didn't think much about it. As an adult, working in professional environments, I wear clothing that is, by and large, appropriate. I do wear sleeveless shirts and dresses, which some people find inappropriate (particularly because it shoes my upper arm tattoo), but none of my employers have had any problem with this, so I guess it's fine. Having the freedom to dress the way I see fit hasn't turned me into some kind of monster. If anything, it's let to me chilling out about the whole situation.

Dress codes and uniforms, in most cases, are about control. They generally come about through dictates rather than community processes, coming down from a superior as rules for inferiors. This is the case in schools, in places of employment, and in prisons. I object to this kind of control. I buck against this kind of control, and I think a lot of people do. And moreover, I think we should, particularly women. Because in truth, there's not much difference between someone with power over you telling you to cover it up and telling you to take it off. Either way, someone who is not you is exercising control over your body decisions, and I think it's right to fight that.

My basic premises are as follows:

1. People should be left to dress as they see appropriate, with the exception of dress codes needed for safety reasons and uniforms needed for identification purposes (i.e. police officers, fire fighters, etc.);
2. If left to their own devices, people will generally dress in a way that is deemed "appropriate" for whatever their position/station is;
3. If left to their own devices and not dressing "appropriately," people generally aren't hurting anyone or anything anyway.

I honestly don't understand what is so hard about that. It seems to me that uniforms and dress codes are just unnecessary rules in nearly all cases, and I don't see any point to restricting people unnecessarily. The so-called benefits of dress codes seem mostly invented to me (safer? less distracting? less classist? really? are you sure?), and the drawbacks are much larger than people realize.

Can I just say how wonderful it is that it's only Saturday morning and I feel like I've already had a full weekend? Extended weekends are possibly my favorite thing ever.

I do have a good bit of work to do this weekend--revisions on my PR--but I can't even get worked up about that, since I feel like I have plenty of time and I'm still faintly interested in the project and I know it will be completely done forever in just a few days.

My blogging guru The Princess upgraded us to Movable Type 4 last night, so as I'm posting this, everything looks totally different. It's kind of disorienting, actually, and I think it's causing me to write in a semi-disoriented way, so I apologize. I have already noticed a couple of excellent-seeming new features, including post auto-saving. So I'm sure I'll get used to it.

Today we're making turkey pot pie. Doesn't that sound good? It's all rainy and nasty outside--what could be better than a pastry crust to deal with that?

I had fantastic luck thrifting yesterday. Not much for myself, but several cool swappable things. I also shopped some excellent online Black Friday sales at small shops yesterday, which I shouldn't have done, but couldn't resist. I should be set for bath products for some time. And a few gifts as well. I love Etsy. Speaking of, have you heard of the Buy Handmade Pledge?

I suppose if I am going to be typing, it ought to be on the PR. Or I could nap...it will be very convenient, as I've not changed out of my pajamas yet.

The same month I started this blog (August 2003), I began my master's degree in public affairs.

Today, I finished it. I just got back from turning in my final paperwork and a copy of my final report (sort of like a master's thesis). My i's are all dotted, my t's all crossed, all the signatures gathered. I'm finished. Once everything is checked off on somebody's list, I will have a master's degree.

It's been a long road. I went full-time for a year, did my summer internship, and then...scattered. I took a job and started taking classes part time, and then not at all for a while, and then part time again. I put off calculus for as long as humanly possible. I dallied on my final report for two semesters. I really disliked a lot of it, thought numerous times about just quitting. But as much as I procrastinated, I didn't quit, and today I legitimately finished.

I'm proud of myself.

At the beginning of my senior year in high school, I put together a list of colleges to which I wanted to apply. I'd always assumed I'd go to college far away, but once I actually had to start applying, I surprised myself by wanting to stick close to home. My list, if I remember correctly, was comprised of University of Oregon Honor's College; Stanford; Reed; Lewis & Clark; and The Evergreen State College. In the fall, before the early decision deadlines, my mom and I went to Portland to visit Lewis & Clark and Reed.

And on that day I fell in love. I spent about 10 minutes on Reed campus before I knew that was where I wanted to go. I applied early decision and was accepted in January. I withdrew my other applications. My decision was made.

That was in 1996-1997. If I am remembering correctly, the total estimated tab for a year at Reed (including tuition and fees and room and board) was about $30,000. In what I can only consider an irony, $30,000 was almost exactly the same amount as my family's total annual income, as per the endless financial aid forms I filled out.

But it was OK. Because, back then, Reed had a policy by which, if they accepted you, they offered some sort of financial aid to cover your estimated need (given, of course, that estimated need is calculated in a very different way by an admissions counselor than by an actual family with other bills to pay). With a family at home living under the poverty line, my estimated need was complete, and my acceptance came with an offer of complete financial aid. They covered everything--tuition, fees, room, board, and even some living expenses. There was a letter along with my acceptance letter outlining the funding I was being offered. Part of it (I think about $4,000 that first year) was a federally guaranteed Stafford Loan, and part was a Pell Grant, but most of it was just a big fat grant from the college itself. A new version of that same letter cam every semester I was at Reed, and while the loan amounts did increase (I left with a total of about $30,000 in loans), I never had to make a hard decision, or scrounge for tuition.

Things have changed. As per an article in the yesterday's New York Times, more than 100 students otherwise deemed good candidates were dropped from Reed's accepted freshman class for next year, due to financial need. The total cost of going to Reed is now estimated at about $50,000 a year, and students are not only not being offered all the help they would need to pay that amount, some of them are simply not being accepted if they can't pay it.

Reed has for now cast aside its hopes of accepting students based purely on merit, without regard to wealth, and still meeting their financial need. Only the nation's richest colleges do that. What's more, when Reed turned to its waiting list this year, it tapped only students who could pay their way.

To say I am disappointed would, I think, be an understatement. I understand that the recession is taking its toll, and that the money has to come from somewhere. I'm skeptical that Reed couldn't find a better way to come up with some of it (the article mentions that plans to build a new performing arts center on campus are moving forward), but I do get that cuts have to be made. The thing that infuriates me is not that Reed can't offer aid-as-needed to all accepted students, like they could when I went there. It's that the response to this, rather than accepting those students anyway, offering them the aid that is available, and letting them decide how to proceed, is not accepting them at all.

That is simple discrimination. Leaving 100 plus students off the acceptance list (and everyone off the waiting list) because of their income is, to my mind, exactly the same as leaving them off due to their race, gender, or religion. While it is not Reed's responsibility to offer aid to everyone (and aid can be reasonably based on merit as well as need), how can it not be the college's responsibility to offer admission with a blind eye to money? How can it possibly be justified to have "ability to pay for it, based on our analysis" be an admissions criteria?

It is true that if I hadn't been offered the aid package I was at Reed, I wouldn't have gone there. It simply wouldn't have been possible without taking out huge unsubsidized loans, and I wouldn't have been willing to do that. But shouldn't it have been my choice? Accepting me and not offering me aid would have been harsh, but reasonable. Not accepting me based on my perceived ability to pay, though? That's just wrong.

I loved, and still love, Reed. I got the best education I can imagine there. It was absolutely worth the loans I'm going to be re-paying until I'm 40, worth the four years of too many books and too little sleep, worth the class-based chip it wore into my shoulder, worth the guilt that comes with being over-educated in an under-educated family. I've spent quite a bit of breathe in the last few years defending Reed from the critics who find it both too pompous and too permissive. I believe in the way Reed has historically conducted itself, at least by and large. But this isn't the first time since I graduated that I have been massively disappointed in my alma mater. Just a couple of years post-graduation, I wrote an incensed letter to the Board of Directors about Reed's shoddy treatment of their non-faculty employees. (The letter, by the way, was met with an extremely snarky and disrespectful reply from one board member, against whom I hold a grudge to this day.) Looking at the students chosen to profile in the most recent Reed magazine, I'm left wondering what, exactly, they are trying to become (Why is everyone so normal looking? Where are the freaks?). And now this. Not just a choice to put buildings and keeping the endowment up ahead of students, but an actual policy of exclusion of low-income attendees. People like me. People like some of the best friends (and most dedicated students) I knew while I was there. If they are looking for a fast way to destroy the good in what Reed has historically been, this just might do it.