An Unwelcome Message

Well, for once I am writing an opinionated blog post. I took a break from my desk in the English Office to visit the ladies' room, only to find an unsettling flyer taped to the door.

It read: "Food For Thought: Did you get into Skidmore because you're smart, or did Mommy and Daddy buy your admission? Think about this the next time you question whether students receiving financial aid deserve to be here."

I almost tore the damn thing down. Now, I am attending Skidmore on financial aid. A LOT of financial aid, without which I would certainly not be here. I am under the impression that I am receiving this aid because my family is in a situation of financial need and, perhaps, because I have maintained a 4.0 as long as I've been here. Sentiments like the one on that flyer make me sick. I do not need some anonymous outside party to defend my right to be at Skidmore; I'm confident that my past academic achievement got me here, and that my current academic achievement places me on a top rung here.

But what really gets me is that an attacking message like that sparks anger on both sides of the divide. I do not like to think that lots of students are here just because of the wealth of their parents. I like to think that Skidmore accepts students based on academic achievement, as all college should. But if I were a student from a wealthy family, a flyer like that would most definitely NOT make me think twice - it would make me angry. The simple fact that a student's parents are wealthy by no means indicates that the student isn't smart, or that the student is just getting a free ride based on their parents' income tax bracket.

If you're a student on financial aid, one sure way to get people to question whether you deserve to be here is by attacking other students who you have never met and probably, because you are probably classist, will never meet. Class generalizations go both ways, Skidmore - your assumption that a wealthy student is stupid or doesn't deserve to be here is just as bad as, if not worse than, the (supposed!) assumption of wealthy students that you do not deserve to be here. Honestly, such a message is a declaration of class warfare; sentiments like that draw a dramatic and uncrossable line between classes, barring communication and understanding while encouraging broad generalizations, bias, and outright hatred. If you don't want generalizations and unfair assumptions made about you, don't make unfair assumptions about others; don't make enemies out of your classmates.

In any case, if you're the kind of person who would put up such a nasty flyer, maybe you don't deserve to be here. You should know better, Skidmore.

Extremely Sad and Incredibly Happy.

This weekend I finished a book by Nicole Krauss called The History of Love. It is the most wonderful thing I have read in a very long time, and I was reminded of that bittersweet moment of ending a beautiful story, unwilling to let the characters go but glad to see them through to the end - a moment that I do not believe I have felt since I read The Neverending Story (over and over) as a kid. Although I guess The Buddha of Suburbia by Hanif Kureishi was bittersweet to finish as well, but mostly just bitter - I dragged out the last pages for a week.

In any case, The History of Love is an indescribably beautiful book that I shall, at this moment, feebly attempt to describe. I could not put the damn thing down. I spent all weekend reading it in my window-seat, ignoring much more urgent homework (yes, the glory of being assigned a novel for homework is a double-edged sword). It tells the story of an old man, Leopold Gursky, who survived the German invasion of Poland with the sole motivation of a girl, Alma, who had left their hometown in Poland for a school in America shortly before the Nazis arrived. It also tells the story of a young girl, Alma, whose father has died and whose mother refuses to fall in love with anyone else. It also tells a story of a book, The History of Love, which Alma's father gave to Alma's mother in the first days of their courtship, and for which Alma is named - you see, each girl in The History of Love is named Alma, who the author describes as "the first girl." Alma's mother is asked by a mysterious benefactor to translate the book from Spanish to English as Alma tries to find the real history behind The History of Love. Meanwhile, Leopold lives his life alone, alternately awaiting death and celebrating life. The stories are tied together in beautiful linguistic subtleties, words and sentences appearing in one section and then another, a theme from The History of Love repeated by one character or another in conversation or narration. Also, the passages from The History of Love that are revealed in the novel taste of a magical realism, reminiscent of but more tender than Gabriel Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude.

It occurs to me that I have said almost nothing here about the enchanting, magnetic nature of the story, and why it made me sob outright in my window-seat and turn the final pages with an anticipation that might have been appropriate only if I was actually a character in the book and ache inside as if the book had put love there, or at least reminded me of the love that was already there. And the truth is, I have no idea. It's books like this one that both remind me of why I wanted to write in the first place, and fill me with despair that I will never, ever write anything as good. But it's just gorgeous - the language; the humanity and mystery of the characters; the carefully interwoven web of story, themes, and language; and the astonishingly accurate account of what love feels like, looks like, sounds like, and is. I was consumed by a ferocious desire to read the book, The History of Love, that is mentioned in the novel, as well as a childlike sadness knowing that it isn't a real book. However, the actual book The History of Love was plenty satisfying. I only wish that there were more of them... although, upon reflection, wouldn't they all be the same?

Interestingly enough, I discovered that Nicole Krauss is married to Jonathan Safran Foer, most famously the author of the novels Everything is Illuminated and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. I have only read a couple of his short stories, my favorite being "Here We Aren't, So Quickly," but from that beautiful piece of work I would have to say it's a lovely match that makes me deeply envious in a way that I don't entirely understand. She dedicates The History of Love "For my grandparents, who taught me the opposite of disappearing, and for Jonathan, my life." Ah, to be writers in love - especially writers of such lovely things.

So, everyone who is reading this now ought to go out and read The History of Love and be ready to put aside a whole weekend and, most likely, if you are as sentimental as I am, a box of tissues.

You're welcome.

Ha Ha Ha.

That's the London Eye. I learned this fact in a book called Netherland that I read for my Contemporary Imaginations course. It is not a Ferris Wheel at all. How foolish I feel.

By the way, Netherland is by Joseph O'Neill and it's quite a good book, in addition to its inclusion of trivia about the geography of London. I shan't go into it now as I should be doing various and sundry other tasks.

Also, these various and sundry tasks include researching the pragmatic (as in, belonging to pragmatism, not pragmatics, which is different) take on the philosophy of language and language acquisition, and this leads me to recommend another thing to my loyal and I'm sure by this time immense group of readers: WNYC's Radio Lab, specifically an episode entitled "Words." Well, I told you I was an English major, didn't I? Here I am doing a philosophy project and all I can think about is language. And Public Radio. TYPICAL. But anyway, that episode of Radio Lab discusses oodles of interesting things, such as how Shakespeare originated an absurd quantity of our current familiar phrases and aphorisms in English, AND the startling question of whether pre-verbal children actually "think" or not - the conclusion of one scientist being that they do not. Check it out.

Now I return to my studies, hoping to have left you all slightly more enlightened. (TYPICAL)

Off To Sea Once More.

Well hello dear readers, it looks as if a more interesting blog is once again on the horizon.

This morning I got an e-mail informing me of my acceptance to King's College London's Study Abroad program - so in early January I shall be off overseas again, this time in London, where I will speak the language and thus (I hope) have even more exciting adventures than the ones I had in Paris.

I will also (I hope) have a better camera by that time, so the quality of the pictures on this blog should improve.

So aren't we all terribly excited about these new and wonderful things to come? I'm sure we are. However, I am still at Skidmore College in lovely Saratoga Springs, so I predict a prolonging of this somewhat dry spell in this lovely blog I have here.

Nonetheless, Halloween may be interesting enough to document, and I'm sure I'll be bored enough (or procrastinatory enough, as the case often is) to write occasionally between now and January. But until then, wish me luck with regards to getting the courses I want :)

That seems to be all for now, folks.

Oh, but here's a picture of King's College:

I wonder if the enormous Ferris Wheel is there all the time...

I lied.

That was not all. That was not it, at all.

Here is a link to my new favorite webcomic, at the beginning of a strange and entertaining series that warmed my little English-major heart:


Pictures For Sad Children

However, I suggest you just go ahead and read the whole damn thing. That's what I've been doing anyway.

And It All Begins Again...

Well, here I am at Skidmore again, already two weeks into the fall semester. Oddly enough, I have little to write about, or perhaps not oddly at all, as I have been ungodly busy since the semester began. But I still have time to put off starting my homework for this evening, thus I have time to post a long-awaited (but by whom, really?) new entry in this blog.

And what, you might ask, is the occasion for this post? Surely not simply procrastination? Well, not entirely. I could post about the exhilarating hike I took the weekend before last, in the White Mountains in New Hampshire. You see, I'd never hiked a mountain before, but jumped at the chance, not fully realizing how large Mount Lafayette is. But I did it - and lived to tell the tale. Honestly, it was an amazing experience, looking out not only across a huge, picturesque mountain range, but also at the long uphill trek we'd taken to get to the top, and the long, irregular ridge we still had to cross before beginning our descent. Even below the treeline the views were absolutely gorgeous, and I took a few pictures at a peak (Lincoln, I believe?) across the ridge from Lafayette. I will most likely deposit them at the bottom of this post.

In any case, while climbing, and especially while crossing the ridge, I couldn't deny the alarming comparison of the path up and over the mountain to a semester in college - or the whole college experience, for that matter. You start out easy, and when it starts to get steep, you put some effort into it but you think you can handle it. And then it evens out again, and you breathe a sigh of relief, only to see another steep face up ahead of you. The steep bits start to seem endless, but when you take a break and sit down, you get a second wind that lasts for a little while before petering out again. You finally get to the top and you're unbelievably happy and proud, but then you realize that there's another peak you have to cross, and another, not as large as the first, but given how tired you are... you get the picture. And then, you hit the descent (here I'm thinking that year or two you take off after college and before grad school), when you think it will be easy going, but it turns out that it's way easier to fall or sprain your ankle, and your toes start to get blisters, and the sun's starting to go down... and the next day or two you're SUPER sore, but still feel great that you did it. And a while later, you meet up with those same friends and say "let's do that again!" - Bam. Grad school. I am indeed my father's daughter - by which I mean my father is a master of the metaphor, and that I spent half of my time climbing a BEAUTIFUL mountain and thinking about a metaphor for the higher education system. What an English major.

But, now for the REAL reason I began this blog post. Out of curiosity, and over-thinking, and the fact that I inhabit the future more often than I do the present, I went on Skidmore's website to look at the academic calendar for the next couple of semesters. And I discovered that, if all goes as is (tentatively) planned on the Skidmore College website, my college commencement will occur in 606 days. Scary, isn't it? Well, not for you, for me. Actually, maybe for you too, because my mother makes up about %33 of my readership. Anyway, here's to worrying about the future.

And speaking of the future, I have one last bit of news before signing off. Tomorrow morning I will be submitting my application to study at King's College London this spring. If I get into the program (fingers crossed, everyone!), I should have oodles of things to post about come January - January 3rd, if I understand correctly, and am compulsive about dates.

Somehow, I feel as if the fall semester should be ending already, given that I'm already planning for next semester. But it is not, and for now I am stuck in America, so I shall try to find a few things to write about and keep this thing active until I find myself overseas once more.

Anyway, here are the pictures from New Hampshire:

That's all, folks.

Grapefruit Moon

Hello again, yet another lovely summer afternoon on which I happen to have nothing to do. The thing is, I was doing some thinking about where this blog ought to go now that I'm back from Paris and won't be going abroad again until January 2011, and I realized that maybe it could use some poetry. This relates to the blog title how? Well, first of all, the moon was full last night (or almost full, I never know about these things, in any case, it was lovely). But more importantly I once heard my most recent (and most favorite) poetry professor singing "Grapefruit Moon" (a Tom Waits song, for those of you who are not familiar with it, though I doubt anyone reading this wouldn't know) in the hallway, and that is how she became my favorite poetry professor. See? It relates to poetry. Also, I just really love that song.

You know, to follow this vein a bit more, I got Tom Waits' The Early Years, Vol. 1 for my birthday (the counterpart to Vol. 2, on which "Grapefruit Moon" can be found) and I am simply loving it, so I figured it deserved a little plug, no matter how long ago it came out. The Early Years set shows off a really interesting, softer side of Waits, one that's more traditional rock, and one that is arguably quite a bit easier on the ears than the likes of Bone Machine or The Black Rider, for which even I have to really be in the mood. I would have to say that my favorite song on the album at the moment is "Ice Cream Man," but "Had Ma A Girl" is also bouncing around in my head. And one really can't forget about the sweet, tender strains of "I'm Your Late Night Evening Prostitute" (sounds sarcastic, doesn't it? Funny thing is, it's not). By which I mean, whoever happens to be reading this should really give the album a listen, if they haven't already. Also, they should buy it.

But, back to the future of this blog. I suppose I could keep on rambling about what's on my mind day-to-day, but I really would like to include some actual writing. So I think I will start out just by posting a link to my deviantART account - a website where artists can post their work, supposedly to get feedback from other artists, but in practice rather overpopulated with largely unhelpful pre-teens. Anyway, you can find my poetry here:

http://white-apple-parasol.deviantart.com/

Maybe as new work arises I will begin to put it here, or maybe I will just go back to summer adventures with food and philosophy. We'll just have to see, now won't we?

Here's to Waking Up Old and Responsible...

Yeah, so catching up on the events of over six months ago is hopeless at this point. But now I'm on summer break and I have time to at least put something up here - which is to say I have yet to find a job and have a lot of free time on my hands. So, I went to Dublin in October, I spent five glorious days there, I stayed in a hostel (Jacob's in fact, quite a good place, and cheap too - with a sauna and everything), I met a gorgeous guy named Fabio (no, really, I actually did), I danced to bad American music in various pubs, I took way too many pictures to put up here, I went out on Halloween, I got poured on and destroyed an umbrella in Wicklow, I went to the Dublin Writer's Museum, I got to see an excellent exhibit of Edvard Munch's prints (for 3 euro!), and on my last night I slept in the Dublin airport to save a day of hostel fees. An excellent adventure, and I can't wait to go back.

Also, on December 18th, I inevitably left Paris for good. During my last week I went to as many museums as I could, some of which were adversely affected by the museum guard strike going on at the time, and many of which were free. In fact, I had my very first experience of Parisian rudeness the week I was about to leave: I went to the Palais de Tokyo, a lovely modern sculpture museum, most of which was roped off "because of remodeling" or some such excuse (you would think Paris would be proud of its striking reputation by now...). I had gone to see an exhibit called "Chasing Napoleon," which included, among other things, a terrifyingly accurate life-sized model of Ted Kazynski's cabin in the woods, and some horrible little frozen room you could sit in while alarming lights and machinery (which you could not touch, or you were responsible for your own injuries) made startling sounds - really a lovely afternoon. In any case, on my way in I asked the desk attendant (in what I thought was rather good French) for one ticket to the exhibit. She proceeded to try to sell me a magazine about all the exhibits for that season, which I did not want of course, and seemed to think I was awfully stupid when I insisted that I wanted a ticket and asked me in loud, ticked-off English "DO YOU EVEN SPEAK FRENCH?!" When I admitted only "un petit peu" she declared "WELL THEN LET'S JUST DO THIS IN ENGLISH." Fine send-off from the city, right? At least it was a neat exhibit.

BUT I did leave Paris and then spend the first week or so at home in a state of disbelief, then spend my first month or so back at Skidmore explaining that, no, I had not just become a recluse during the fall semester, I was in fact in another country. Lovely semester on the whole though, and a gorgeous spring break. But then, suddenly, it was finals week, and I found myself with only one final exam (on the Monday of the week, at that), and then I found myself moving out of Howe 223 and back to my old room in Connecticut. Time does fly.

And now, as of 8:45 pm on May 25th, I find myself twenty years old. Twenty years old. Still getting used to that one. Lots of pressure, you know? The twenties. They're supposed to be the BEST YEARS OF YOUR LIFE. That's really a lot to live up to. But hey, I have ten of them after all. More alarmingly, I'm realizing that I will return to Skidmore as a junior - an upper-classman. Now that's frightening. It seems like about a week ago I was a junior in high school. But that is a train of thought I am trying desperately hard not to follow out. And to make it even more surreal, I've been working a bit at my old elementary school, Oak Grove Montessori. Easily the most pleasant job I could ask for, but I graduated from there eight years ago. And now I'm there with actual authority! How very adult of me. So I suppose I did wake up "old and responsible" on my twentieth - let's see if I can keep this up. Maybe by sort of maintaining my blog? Only time will tell, I suppose. In any case, here is a memento from the nicest evening-before-birthday ever.


Thank you baby :)

Until next time, au revoir. (Oh yes, relish that delicious redundancy)

Oh No...

I knew this would happen. Look at me; it's January 25th and this blog is backed up to mid-October. Ouch. Something of a self-fulfilling prophecy. I mean, I have excuses: I was busy when I got back, there was too much to write, I had homework, I was busy spending every weekend exploring Paris's museums and graveyards, I was busy all break baking cookies and going out with friends I had been an ocean away from and spending quality times with my parents and my dogs and my full-sized mattress (you saw that picture of my apartment in Paris), but the fact still stands that I have left quite a lot out between now and then and I still would like to get most of it down for posterity. What to do, what to do? I left off right before I headed off to Dublin, and I suppose I'll have to start back there.

Actually, I could start before that, since the Monday before I was supposed to depart I had a doctor's appointment, something to do with finishing up the absurd visa process I went through in order to stay in Paris a mere two weeks longer than the 90-day-we-don't-care-you're-only-visiting-thus-do-not-need-a-visa period. Well I got on the metro in the morning for my 10am appointment and found the street I was looking for in my handy-dandy Paris Pratique map, but the address I was looking for was not there. I double-checked the letter I'd been sent, and it turned out that the address was actually in Montrouge, just South of Paris. Great. I find the nearest metro station, meanwhile calling the program director in Spain, which was not at all helpful, figure out how to get to Montrouge, and that it will take me an additional 20 minutes. Needless to say, I am quite late. So I call the office that I'm supposed to be finding, in hopes of notifying them that I went to the wrong place and was getting there as fast as I could and was not blowing off my appointment. Of course, I must do this in French. I was pretty sure I got the message across that I would be late, but the response of the irritated-sounding woman on the other end of the line was entirely a mystery to me.

Finally, I get to the right stop, find out that the building I'm looking for is only half a block away, get there, wait in line, and entirely break down in tears in front of the receptionist. It may have had something to do with the fact that I'd gotten hardly enough sleep, was probably a little hung over, had been running all over Paris to find the damn place, and had only eaten a baguette for breakfast. Luckily, she was a very kind woman and spoke English, and she assured me that my tardiness was not a problem, I could just go sit in the waiting room until I was called, which I did. Finally I am brought up the stairs into a strange assembly-line-like medical examination procedure, where in one room my height and weight were taken, in another I took an eye exam (during which the nurse said things like "do you really think that's a three?), in yet another I went into a little stall to remove my shirt and undergarments but not my jeans or shoes and then had my ribs and lungs X-rayed by an Indian man, then I went to one last room where a Chinese woman looked at the X-ray, listened to me breathe, and made strange jokes. I got to keep the X-ray as a souvenir. As exciting as all of that sounds, the real story begins now. I took my signed bill of health and went into one more waiting room. When I was called, I went into an office to get whatever amendment to my visa that was needed for me to travel outside the Schengen States (yes, Ireland would be outside of that area), only to discover that I had neither the necessary proof of residence in France, nor a proper photograph of myself, nor the 55 euro stamp that for some insane reason was not sold there but only in tabacs and treasury-type establishments. I freak. I am trying to explain to this woman in French that my host family is in Venice and thus cannot sign a statement that I live with them, and that I am leaving for Dublin on Wednesday and am terrified that I will not be allowed back into France. After this goes on for a while, she finally finds someone else who speaks better English, and it is explained to me what I can do to get these documents and where I can find the elusive, ridiculously expensive stamp. I am told I can come back tomorrow, and I go on a quest to find all of these items.

1: Proof of residence. I go to the office of the "Gardien" of the building to ask her to write that I live with the Bijassons and she knows this because she is the gardien of the building. I also have to get a copy of her ID to prove that she is such a person. I must explain all of this in French to a person I have pretty much only ever said "bonjour" to. She does this for me, though she seems a bit confused, and I find out later when I come back that "gardien" does not mean landlady like it does in the States, it essentially means cleaning lady. She was apparently very alarmed and embarrassed by my request, which Geraldine informed me (somewhat angrily) after my return. Oh well, one document down.

2: Absurd stamp. I go to a tabac and ask for it, showing them the picture I got in the mail. They say they don't sell it, but another place does. I go towards (or what I think is towards) the other place, and stop at yet another tabac on the way. They don't have it. I continue to look for the one I was told to look for, and realize that I don't exactly know where I am going. Somehow, miraculously, I end up at the Nieully treasury office. I go in. They have the stamp. I fork over 55 euro for a tiny little piece of paper with adhesive on the back side and some purple French person on the front. I am furious, but also relieved.

3: Passport-sized photograph. They have these machines in the metro that take your picture, since apparently in France you need passport-sized pictures pretty much daily. They need them for everything from government forms to job applications (can we all say "discrimination"?). So I went to the nearest metro stop. They didn't have the machine. So I take the bus to where I get on the metro to go to school. They don't have the machine. I take said metro to the stop I get off of to get to the Skidmore center, where I am sure they have the machine. I get in, pay my 2 euro, and pose. The machine takes the picture and prints out 5 passport-sized copies. But I don't know where they printed out. I spend at least 5 minutes trying to find the slot in the little booth and finally decide to go to the desk in the station to explain that the damned machine had just cheated me out of 2 euro. On my way out, I realize that the strip of photographs comes out a little chute in the front of a machine. Idiot. At least I look like I'm heavily drugged in my picture. Again, great.

So now I have to go back to the OFII office the next day to give these pieces of evidence for my eligibility for a French visa. I go in and although I have been told I can just go up the stairs any time after 9am, I am told that no one is in the office and I must wait again in that waiting room. I am finally let up and go back into the other waiting room. Then I go into the little office and make a fool of myself in French in front of probably the most attractive man I have ever seen. Ever. He looked at my documents, he put a funny yellow sticker in my passport, then covered it with another, clear sticker with one of those holographic un-counterfeitable designs, smiled at me, and sends me on my way. I am off to Dublin!

I think I will end this post here, in order to create the illusion of my actually putting up separate posts for my adventures. Also because maybe I should get ready for class... But more because I am further procrastinating about writing out everything I did for five days in Dublin. Sorry, that's all folks.