"I will have an undergraduate class, let’s say a young white male student, politically-correct, who will say: “I am only a bourgeois white male, I can’t speak.” … I say to them: “Why not develop a certain degree of rage against the history that has written such an abject script for you that you are silenced?” Then you begin to investigate what it is that silences you, rather than take this very determinist position-since my skin colour is this, since my sex is this, I cannot speak… From this position, then, I say you will of course not speak in the same way about the Third World material, but if you make it your task not only to learn what is going on there through language, through specific programmes of study, but also at the same time through a historical critique of your position as the investigating person, then you will have earned the right to criticize, you be heard. When you take the position of not doing your homework- “I will not criticize because of my accident of birth, the historical accident” - that is the much more pernicious position."

--Gayatri Spivak

(via WYSIWYG)

Basically...

Reblogged from Tudo Bom(b)

#projectsIwantoseebecomemovies

My fingers started snapping of their own accord at "Can we get a movie with characters in it, rather than stereotypes wrapped up in Christian dogma?" By "There's no need for a 'Dear Black People.' Cops, reality tv, and Fox News already let us know what you think of us," I was metaphorically on. the. floor. I love this. I love everything about it. 

Is it problematic? Maybe a little. Sure. But life as a Black student at a PWI is pretty damn problematic sometimes, and that's something I want to see addressed in things other than scholarly journals and weird corners of the internet like this. This film, if it goes to full production, will address issues like tokenism, hair, Greek life, "being Black enough," "ways to be Black," and whether Black people can be racist (answer: for damn sure), among others. And it'll piss off some White ignorant blissfully-uninformed-due-to-the-privileges-of-their-identity-categories people in the process. It will call attention to these issues in a public platform, whether it reaches only indie fame (a la Pariah) or national fame (a la Precious).

One of the white frat guys calls Sam, the main character, "Spike Lee and Angela Davis's pissed off baby." First off, I muthafuckin wish Spike Lee and Angela Davis had a kid, because that kid would run shit. That kid would be the Blue Ivy of and for the people. That kid would come out of the womb with its fist raised high and a full fro. But more importantly, we need Spike Lee and Angela Davis again. (Yes I'm fully aware they're both still alive and kicking, but go with me here.) We need the era when Do the Right Thing and Bamboozled were blockbusters, not just Black cult classics. (Confession: I've still never seen Bamboozled or She's Gotta Have It. They're on my to-do list.) Yes we are living in a time when Blackness is being re-examined (a la Toure, Baratunde Thurston, Issa Rae, and others), and I LOVE IT, but when my 21 year old cousin who's a student at Rutgers has never heard of Awkward Black Girl, we need to be doing more. 

Dear White People could be it, if it has the chance to come to fruition.    

But as much as I want to say it's impossible

to let go of a place (and/or people) that made you who you are, I can't without feeling dishonest. To some degree, I have already done this. I think about the people who were my best friends in high school: TJ, PD, and RB. These guys were my whole world. We were on the phone for hours every day, hung out after school and on weekends at each others' houses, passed notes back and forth in the hallways... I would have been hard pressed to tell someone about myself without talking about them. Those friendships and the way I developed while I was in that tiny group was, at the time, entirely indicative of who I am. If you'd asked me then, I couldn't imagine not being friends with them any more at X point in the future.

...And now I barely even talk to any of the three of them. PD and I stayed the closest throughout the past four years, but even that closeness is like, months and months of not talking and then a very long and emotional catch up session, often in person. TJ and RB and I are still all totally cool with each other. We hang out in groups when we're home and it's really easy to fall back into familiarity with each other, even as we change, but that bond we had is gone. The people we were then are gone. Erased. Forever. Changed immutably by the new places we've gone, experiences we've had, people we've come to know and love and define ourselves according to our relationships with. I don't regret being the girl I was when that was my life, but I also wouldn't want to go back there for a second, even if it meant regaining those friendships and that experience, even though they once occupied nearly the entirety of my heart. 

There are friends from high school with whom I did keep in fairly regular contact during high school: TN, SH, and FO. TN and SH are the two people in the world I've been closest to for the longest period of time, and though our friendships have gone through lots of changes over the years, I'm pretty damn confident they're going to be my friends for the rest of my life, though the contexts and contents of our friendships will change. FO and I didn't really become friends until after high school, when I was already in the process of undergoing substantive Princetonian change, so he fit right into my "new me" life with all of my friends from school.

And then I changed from the person I thought I needed to be to be a Princetonian (aka "Freshman Year Maya") to the person Princeton actually made me. Remember, in the acknowledgements of my thesis, I thanked the University as a whole "for introducing me to myself and allowing me to reintroduce myself". In so many ways, from what's on my head to what's in it, from what I wear to where I am, from intellectual development to more intimate ones, I feel in this moment as though I was never in my life as "me" as I am now, as these four years have made me. 

...The only thing that keeps tripping me up is this: I don't feel like four years ago, when my family sat on the bleachers at Oakcrest High School for my graduation like we did for my little sister on Thursday, I would have told you that I *didn't* feel like myself. Perhaps, had I already absorbed sociological/psychological language, I would have said that I often felt like a passive participant in the construction of my self. If I was feeling particularly introspective, I could have told you I didn't feel like I was my WHOLE self with anyone. But even that didn't make me feel like who I was wasn't "real", even if that realness was separated into bits and pieces to be shared in different spaces. So if that self was real and this self is real, but somehow to a higher degree than the old self because I'm actively working to make and maintain the person I am now, then there's no way of knowing whether in 2, 5, or 10 years I'll still be this self. Well, okay, actually it's a pretty sure bet I'll be different in a lot of ways, but will I look back on these old blog posts and still recognize myself in the person I am now? I don't know.

And that terrifies me. Not because I'm afraid of change or because I absolutely love the person I am now (though I am pretty happy with myself, if I'm being honest), but because I don't want what happened with my friendships with TJ, PD, and RB to happen with my friendships with KS and EY. I'm scared that my deepest closest most intimate friendships are the ones that are most vulnerable to falling apart when I undergo deep intimate change. I mean, it makes sense, right? When the whole of who you are is wrapped up in this friendship and then the whole of who you are changes...I think only time can tell whether the friendship is strong enough to stand the change.

But you know, I think there is one thing that I share with my college friends, both the closest of the close and just the people I'm good friends with (hell, and even with all the random internet people who read this blog), that I didn't have with even my closest friends from high school. It's a word I toss around in the classroom a lot. It's a word that interests me when you put an identity category in front of it or the word "politics" behind it. With these people, I feel authentic. I don't feel like I'm taking on roles I don't want or playing up some aspect of myself to fit in...I feel like I just kind of came along and laid myself bare on a table or something and they were like cool and rolled with it. I don't ever feel like I'm frontin', and though I would never have been comfortable using the word frontin' four years ago, I couldn't have said that about the vast majority of my closest friends from home at the time.  I was able to be vulnerable with those people like I am able to be vulnerable with these people, but not wholly, not in all the ways I needed to be. I wasn't able to be strong when I needed to be with them either, sometimes. I had to pretend sometimes, like I don't know. Like I don't want to in the future. Like I refuse to in the future.

So, am I going to stay absolutely as close with my best friends from college as we were in college for the rest of ever? Of course not. That's absurd. We're in different places and leading separate lives and off on our own great adventures. We're going to figure out how people in "the real world" make friends and make new best friends in our respective places. I certainly wouldn't be upset if EY and I talk every day like we did when she studied abroad junior fall, but I'm certainly not going to demand it either. The demand I will make is that I never want to fall out of touch with the people who mean the most to me right now. I never want to not know where they are or what they're up to; I don't want it to be weird if I call/text/email/facebook/tweet them on a whim. I also want to let myself grow in ways only DC can make me grow, like Princeton made me grow in ways only Princeton could have made me grow. There's no point in starting a new chapter if you don't give it the opportunity to affect you deeply, right?       

Things that make me feel old:

My little sister's boyfriend coming over to meet the family. I'm no longer the only one whose relationships are subject to my mother's scrutiny.

This morning, my little sister needing help filling out her FAFSA. Realizing that I don't need to file a FAFSA this year because I won't be in school next year. (Graduation is imminent.)

Things that make me feel poor: mentioning the above sentiment to a friend over dinner, and him not sympathizing because he's never had to apply for financial aid.

Things that make me feel privileged: Being able to take things like financial aid for granted.

"I guess one shouldn't make one-night stands a habit,"

K said, after I detailed my adventures from last night. 

Adventure summary: 

So, let's start by saying that (after a USPS faux-pas in which my costume, which was supposed to be here by Thursday, and is stuck in purgatory the post office in town) I was wearing my shortest freakum dress (which is luckily partially red, and thus appropriately festive) and four inch studded stiletto pumps; I might as well have been wearing a sign that said, "Fuck me, puh-lease" in flashing red and green letters. And one of my closest gay friends was drunk as shit and after a game of beruit, I started the night off by dancing with him as nastily as I've danced with anyone, while he fondled my breasts through my dress and detailed how he wished I made him hard because I'm so fucking hot and he wishes he could fuck me. And then I went outside with a few other scantily clad girls to ask random passerby if they were feeling naughty or nice, and inviting them to come inside and be naughty with us. So that should give you a good idea of the mood I was in.

Anyway, so I was on the dance floor getting my groove on, minding my own business, trying not to awkward dance near people who are dancing together, and then he came up beside me and did a little like, hip bump, which made me laugh, and quickly turned into us like, backwards grinding, ass to ass for the rest of whatever song was playing. When guys have done that with me before, it has led absolutely nowhere, so I'll admit I was a bit surprised when I turned around and cautiously backed it up, and he was right there ready to actually grind me with. 

So we're grinding or whatever, and I'm pushing back on him and he's leanin up on me and I realize that this is a BIG dude, because I'm a little over 6'1" in those heels and he still had inches on me. And when the first song changes, we blend seamlessly into the next, and the next, and eventually his hands start roaming, sometimes to find mine to hold them while we dance, sometimes to run up and down my thighs/torso/chest. He surprised me with an over-the-dress boob-squeeze, which actually caused me to arch my back and moan audibly. He held my hand and started to raise my arm up, and I caught his drift and moved my hand to the back of his neck, both giving myself more leverage and, according to some blog I read once, exercising the universal dance floor sign for I want you tonight. At some point, he decided to make his move and very delicately kissed the back of my neck. He moved from there to my shoulder, up the side of my neck, and finally started to nibble on my earlobe, and I was done. The safety was off and all hell was officially allowed to break loose: I stopped giving a shit about how high my dress was riding up (my friend Kelsey actually came over and reached her hand between my legs to pull it back down, because evidently I was trying to give the whole room a show) and started bending over to grind on him with my hands around my ankles.

When he starts kissing my neck again, I make my move and turn around to face him so I can kiss him properly, and tentative kisses turn into more ravenous kisses with a quickness. (Remember that at this point, I don't even know dude's name.) We alternate between grinding and making out, and he wins further cool points when the DJ plays Nelly's "Ride Wit Me" and I start rapping and homeboy jumps right in--he knew all the words! (Any White guy that knows 90s rap has gained awesome points in my book. Oh, yeah, did I mention he's White?) As the DJ wound down from the last song, I turned to face him to ask him name and tell him mine. We stayed through Pianoman (as a ritual, my eating club ends every night by singing Billy Joel's Pianoman in a circle) and he knew all the words to Pianoman as well, and had no problem joining the circle. At that point, I had basically decided I was going to take him home with me. (As C said when I told him this later; he was obviously a keeper if he Pianomanned with us that well.)

But I realize that I have no idea how to tell this guy I just met that I want to keep this going past the party. He goes to the bathroom and I run upstairs to get my coat, and I go back downstairs and he's lingering, so I start talking to some friends, and then he makes his way over towards me and sort of nods in my direction and I smile and say bye to my friends and start walking towards the door, making sure he's right behind me. We get out the door and his jacket-less self starts commenting on how cold it is, and I use this insertion of normal conversation to ask a few questions about him: year, major, where he's from. He was with a friend inside, and I'm wondering whether we're waiting for that friend or standing here for no reason when he kisses me again, and we make out for a long time in the cold in front of my club before I decide to accelerate this process, and I grab his hand and start walking. 


On our way down the street, we pass the guy he'd been with earlier, who isn't looking all too hot, and he stops to talk to his friend. He looks like he needs to be taken home, or perhaps even to Health Services, and in my officer-of-an-eating-club's-responisibility-mode, I suggested that we could get him taken care of before we went about our impending business, but he waved us off. [I'm guessing that it's written somewhere in guy code that a true friend never cockblocks, even when he needs help.] So we left him somewhat reluctantly, and M (which is how dude will be referred to for the rest of this post) extends him arm for me to link mine through as we walk. He asks where I live, and I say we're going to Edwards, and we chitchat about our majors and plans for the future and whatnot while we walk. 


We get back to my room and the first comment out of his mouth is about how high my bed is, so I guess there was no mistaking what was about to go down. I take off my coat and shrink out of my heels, and he kicks off his shoes and throws his sweatshirt in the chair, and suddenly we're making out again and he's walking me backwards to my bed. (Shoutout to that awkward moment when he's laying you down and you feel something cool and rubbery under your hand and realize you left your hot pink vibrator out in your bed, and quickly shove it between the wall and the bed, hoping he didn't notice.) I'll gloss over all the details, but despite some technical difficulties in the beginning, I was left incredibly satisfied. It was pretty vanilla, but he was wonderful with his hands, and after I teased him by focusing on myself he gave it to me right. Afterwards I directed him to the bathroom and he called the friend we'd kind of abandoned earlier, to learn that he was basically incoherent and had thrown up a few times, and so after talking about how much of a compelling argument I was providing to stay (even though verbally I was telling him to go play hero), he eventually left many many more kisses to go save his friend. 

So I, uh, went to the online roster of the sport he plays to figure out his last name this morning (shameful, I know) and friend requested him on Facebook. We'll see if anything comes of this...


...but I think the reason I wanted to talk about this, besides the fact that I generally allude or refer directly to my sex life often on le blog, and the fact that K thinks this is particularly interesting because "when do you ever hear about White guys hooking up with Black girls on The Street?" (which I think happens fairly often, but anyway), is that not having known his last name when I fucked him is the only thing I really feel any shame about with regard to this entire situation. Even if nothing happens, and M doesn't accept my friend request or we otherwise never interact again, I'm pretty sure I'll have no regrets. I have none now, because there was absolutely no emotional connection. It was really just I'm horny + you're into me = we can make this work for both of us. 


I like, am wondering whether I'm okay with how comfortable I am with the fact that I slept with a stranger. The sociologist in me is all, No Maya, you've only been socialized by a hating-ass patriarchal society to believe this isn't acceptable behavior, and you should be glad you've embraced yourself as a responsible sexual being, but still, I wonder. Me from as little a six months ago wouldn't recognize me from last night, and would be highly judgmental. But I don't see anything destructive or morally wrong with what I'm doing. It's...interesting, I guess, how your thoughts on things can change with experience. It's also funny how much the name we give something affects our reactions to it: "one-night stand" sounds so foul, whereas "hookup" is perfectly normalized.

Routine and the Never-Ending Quest for Balance

I had lunch with a good friend of mine yesterday, and I realized that I hadn't had a legitimate conversation with him since before classes started, despite the fact that we live within a 5 minute walk of one another and have a large mutual friend group. Talking to him felt almost nostalgic, and took me back to times freshman year when I was so welcome in his room I might as well have been one of the roommates. And then I realized there are other friends I actually haven't talked to except in passing since last semester. I have only seen/hung out with one of my 6 ex-roommates in the last three weeks. There are some very good friends of mine on this campus with whom I only interact via Facebook. What kind of friend am I? When did this happen to me? And how?

And then I realized that I basically do the same thing every day. I wake up, I go to Quad, I go to class (if it's one of the three days I have class), I go back to Quad, repeat the previous two steps as often as necessary until dinnertime, eat dinner, chill at Quad, and then if it's a work day, go to work. If not, be at Quad until it's time to go to bed, lest I have a meeting or something that requires I be elsewhere. 

That means I see Quad people. And people who are in my classes. And occasionally people who are in the same non-Quad clubs as me. And...basically no one else. 

How did I used to see people? Ah, we used to eat together in dining halls, and who you were eating with was a big deal. There would be texts and agreements and waiting. It was kind of a big to-do. But those days are over. And most of the friends I never ever see aren't in eating clubs, so eating with them would require using one of my two guest meals a month (which go SO FAST) or...going to a dining hall. That's only really cute for breakfast/brunch, haha. 

But...I guess I'm going to have to start going to dining halls. Or find out what my friends from my life before Quad do with their free time and start doing that with them. Once upon a time I just sat in people's living rooms and chatted. I...miss my friends. I don't want to lose people BEFORE graduation (or after either, but that seems less feasible...).

This makes me wonder what else I'm missing out on due to my routine. Not only seeing my friends, and all the laughs and thought-provoking conversations we might have had, but perhaps developing other friendships further, perhaps certain events or outings, perhaps...I'm not sure, but I think it's interesting that that which makes us happy may also be working directly against other routes to happiness. There are no takebacks for time passed, and thus doing something you love works directly against opportunities to do other things you might love. Conversations you have and time you spend with one person can bring you great joy, but are simultaneously preventing you from spending time with someone else. Can there be room for spontaneity within a daily routine? 

I suppose what I'm struggling with here is balance. It seems like that will be the keyword of my senior year. Balance. 

It's fall break and I've done work every single day, but even now I can't find the right balance between work for class and work for thesis and work related to seeking future employment. I wanted to get so much more done than I've gotten done, but I can only keep thesis-ing through tonight, or I won't finish my reading for next week's classes. I want to implement thesis Fridays Friday mornings/early afternoons to help keep me working on long-term goals as I meet short-term requirements, but I don't know if that plus breaks is enough for this semester. And I'm good about getting applications with established deadlines in a few days before they're due, but what about positions that are "open until filled" or have rolling deadlines? I wish I could take like, a 24-hour period off to just tweak cover letters and send my cover letter and resume to all the jobs that just require that, but there always seem to be more pressing concerns. Balance.


I'm taking four classes right now, because I thought it would be better to front-load my senior year so that in the Spring I'd have a very light classwork-load and could devote two or even three days a week to Thesis. That was a great plan, until the Course Offerings list came out and there are WAY TOO MANY AWESOME-SOUNDING CLASSES for me to pick just two. I've whittled my list down from 12-ish to three classes that I feel like I absolutely have to be in, but...I only need two. Now, I could drop this class I'm in now that I never go to and am not at all invested in, but am currently getting an A- in. The class has two more papers and an exam, though, so that current A- doesn't mean much. And if I dropped it, I could devote the time I've been devoting to doing those readings/Blackboard posts/papers/studying to thesis this semester...but I'll have dropped a class I'm getting an A in. And is three semi-intense but REALLY REALLY INTERESTING classes senior spring a good idea anyway? Didn't I want to finish my thesis and then get drunk every day? Balance.


My friendships with people I've known my whole life are taking the backseat to my friendships with Princetonians as we all get pulled in different directions. It's so easy for each of us to just lose ourselves in school and work and those networks of people--when we hang out, like I did with two of my pre-Princeton besties last night, everything is great, but we can lose each other in the meantime. I realized last night that I haven't even told T or S about my mom being sick, whereas K and E hear about how scared I am all the time. (K even looked up some info about it on the internet, since he's doing cancer research for his thesis and knows way more than I do. He's a sweetheart.) Balance.


When I used to play Tony Hawk Playstation games in high school (I want none of your judgment), I used to try to rack up these sick combos by doing a bunch of flips in the air and then landing into a grind on a railing or a fence or the top of a ramp or something. And I remember there was like, this little meter that would appear on top of your character when you were grinding, to represent how you were balanced, and there was a green zone of safety and red zones of death (well, falling and losing your combo score) when you leaned too far to either side. I need to find a way to lean to that I'm in the green on all of my meters. Because right now it's Fall Break and I took exactly one night off to chill and have fun. Right now my shoulders are always tense and I can't quite seem to loosen up. I need Balance.

So I quite regularly participate in fMRI experiments on campus

because the psych department needs people to be in their studies, and I like knowing I'm helping to make science, and they pay me quite handsomely. I made $52 today for about 2 and a half hours of my time. I just got a small raise at work, so I'm now making $11.70/hr to do nothing in the basement of a library, but only the Psych department really seems to understand how much my time and minimal effort are worth.

Anyway, it's a wonderful system and everyone wins. 

The only slightly annoying thing is, I can't have any metal on my person when I go into the scanner. This means no makeup (because evidently some makeup is made of very small bits of metal that could burn your face in the scanner...not cute), no bras that have wires or clasps (i.e. the one sports bra I own), and no pants with zippers or buttons (i.e. sweatpants). Basically, I go to these things clad from head to toe in Princeton gear and sneakers, and look like a bum with a lot of Princeton pride. Sometimes in the spring I can get away with wearing a dress without a bra, but it's cold in those scanners...

And it's break right now, so not that many people are on campus. I've been wearing cutesy outfits and not even getting compliments on them, because all week I've only really been hanging out with K and very occasionally a couple of other Quad people. After my friend and I rescheduled our lunch date to tomorrow, I decided to put my fMRI-required sweatpants early this afternoon and hole myself away in the student center doing work with K.

Then I was thirsty and had a package to pick up--my winter hat!--so ran downstairs and ran into a cute friend of mine, who hung up on whoever he was on the phone with to have a conversation with me about the take-home midterm we have for a class we're both in and how break is going.

If it was just that, this day of sweats wouldn't have been so bad. I would say that I came away from it relatively unscathed. But no. Then when I was on my way back to the student center post-fMRI and dinner, in a Pton hoodie on top of my Pton t-shirt and Pton sweats, I ran into another friend of mine whom I may or may not have had a small, back-of-my-mind kind of crush on since April of 2008 coming out of the student center, and he wanted hugs and convo and then asked if we could do dinner or hang out when he emerges from thesis-hole in a few days! Of course I flashed my best smile and said yes, but inside I was just cursing myself for being a shapeless lump in sweats instead of the form-fitting sweater I would have worn was today not an fMRI day. 

Whatever, the day is still looking like an overall win. :D

The Fine Line Between Giving Up and Knowing When You've Had Enough:

So I've been going through a little bit of a problem since a few weeks into the school year, and I neglected to tell y'all about it for reasons I'm not entirely sure of. I hadn't resolved it or even had any real idea about how I wanted to resolve it, so I was kind of just ignoring the entire situation, talking shit to my friends about how I "couldn't even be bothered." Then, about a week ago, it dawned on me that I didn't know whether I had just had enough of the foolishness (in which case choosing to ignore the situation was enough of a resolution in and of itself) or if I had effectively given up. And not being sure which side of that line I fell on made me realize I had more invested in this situation than I had previously wanted to admit, and so something had to be done. 

It came to my attention during the last week of September that one of the organizations I'm on the executive board of on campus--one that I have, in fact, been on the exec board of since my freshman year, which is a long-ass time to be devoted to anything in that capacity--had had an executive board meeting without including me on any emails or informing me of the meeting at all. I only found out about it when some friends who are also on the board asked me why I'd missed the meeting, and they were as shocked as I was when I replied, "WHAT meeting?" 

At first, I was sure I had just been overlooked, and that someone would realize their mistake and send me the meeting notes in the next couple days or so. *waits a few days* Well, that seems to not be the case. Interesting. Then I get to reminiscing about how I was less than committed to this board last semester due to my increasing responsibilities to my eating club and the groups' tendencies to have events that conflict with each other. And on top of that, we got a wave of freshmen to join the board last year, and while I absolutely love them, a lot of things started to change when it was me, the last member of the "Old Board", and them, the newbies with ideas that went against tradition. I often felt that me-versus-them tension last semester, and I thought that if this was their these-bitches-think-they-slick method of telling me they didn't want my input anymore, then later for them and I could refocus my attention elsewhere. 

But then members of this organization's demographics kept coming up to me asking what was up with the organization, why it hadn't had a general meeting yet, why there were no emails to the list, why it seemed like the other organization our president presided over was stealing all the thunder. The only thing I could tell these people was that I didn't know, and the more I had to say that, the angrier I got that I wasn't being included. Everyone I told agreed that it was wrong of them to do me like that, and "Mmm"ed in an I-see-but-do-not-necessarily-agree-with-your-point-like manner when I told them I hadn't done anything because I didn't need this kind of drama in my already stressful enough life. 

Then a few days ago it was the president of this organization's birthday, and I thought about not even writing on her wall, but then I realized I could use this as a passive-aggressive means through which to confront her (in the most pleasant of manners, of course) about my exclusion from the exec board. My message went something like, "Happy Birthday, [name redacted]! You know, I've heard the board has had a couple of meetings, but I haven't been getting any emails or anything. Don't forget about me, please!" Y'all know that's a little kiss-ass-y for my tastes, but I meant what I said when I brought up not needing drama in my life. 

I then saw her at a meeting for a different organization on Wednesday, and she apologized that I hadn't been on the email list, and that she'd instantly emailed the secretary and told her to ensure that I was added to the appropriate mailing lists. She told me about upcoming projects and when the weekly board meetings were, and I was really glad I never did any sort of serious WTF ARE YOU DOING RIGHT NOW kind of confrontation. The meeting was this evening, and I went and found myself directly contributing, having good ideas, being asked questions...I felt like they'd missed me. My fellow board members were even impressed when I remembered our organizations student account number--they don't remember, I've been doing this shit for three years. It felt really good to be back and feel needed. 

So I guess the moral of this story is, sometimes we try to convince ourselves that "washing our hands" of a situation is better than talking it out, but occasionally what seems like a hot-ass mess is just a misunderstanding in disguise. Always know what side of the line you're on: it's fine if you've had enough, but giving up just isn't a good look.  

Words to live by:

"It’s crucial to take a sense of humility into the world. By the time you make it to a top graduate school, almost all your learning has come from people who are smarter and more experienced than you: parents, teachers, bosses. But once you’ve finished at Harvard Business School or any other top academic institution, the vast majority of people you’ll interact with on a day-to-day basis may not be smarter than you. And if your attitude is that only smarter people have something to teach you, your learning opportunities will be very limited. But if you have a humble eagerness to learn something from everybody, your learning opportunities will be unlimited. Generally, you can be humble only if you feel really good about yourself—and you want to help those around you feel really good about themselves, too."-- Clayton M. Christensen, liberette Magazine

Brother West at #OccupyWallSt

I had class with this man on my very first day at Princeton. I went to class half an hour early on Mondays and Wednesdays so that I could sit in the front row and be near to him. I'm fairly positive I've gone to every speaking engagement he's been at in my time here, and though I've only taken that one class with him, his influence on my intellectual mindset has been incredible. No other professor has ever matched his ability to make me literally stumble out of lecture, trying to reorient myself as a physical being within the new way I view the world because of what he just said. I don't always agree with his viewpoints, but that is one of the most powerful orators I've ever met. (Dr. Michael Eric Dyson rivals him.) My journey from being an American who happened to be black to being a Black American was critically influenced by this man, who calls me Sister Reid whenever we see each other, and I'm not sure I'll ever have the opportunity to truly thank him for that.

Anyway, enough of my gushing. I will leave you with an image, because it says more than I'll ever be able to:

 

I hate worrying about money all the fucking time.

I hate feeling like I've abandoned my officer duties for the job I have only so I can stay a member of my eating club and continue to serve as an officer. I hate knowing that I'm not going to keep up with my promise to see my non-Quad friends this year, because any free time I once had is now consumed by a minimum of 17.5 hours of work a week (and I usually try to pick up an extra shift or two to bring me to that 20-hour limit). I hate that I got the reminder text from AT&T about my family's cell phone bill being due a few days ago, and then on Saturday my mom called me to ask if I had any extra cash she could borrow, and for the first time since establishing my semi-independent adult life, I had to tell her no. I hate knowing that what I spent the money I had and nearly all the money I'll get anytime in the near future on is arguably something that is unnecessary because family should come first. I hate feeling selfish, and I hate feeling spoiled. 

I hate that the University charged me $810 to enroll me in a student health plan I don't need because I neglected to fill out either the Waive or Enroll forms. Evidently they told me they were going to do this...in the ATTACHMENT entitled PLAN BENEFITS sent in one email, that I was obviously not going to read if I didn't plan on enrolling in the plan! And if I can't find a way to talk myself out of this, next semester is going to see another $810 charge! DO YOU KNOW WHAT I COULD DO WITH $1,620?! Pay my family's damn cell phone bill, that's one thing. Not have to jump on as many hours/week at work as possible and as many paid psychology experiments as I qualify for. Be able to do fun things like go to the movies or buy a dress for the surprise semi-formal bar night we have coming up. Not be so fucking stressed out about how I'm going to continue to do the best thing I have ever done at Princeton, while smiling and pretending that everything is fucking okay. 

There is nothing less okay than money wasted. And there may not be any way to fix this. And sometimes I just wanna throw in the towel and walk away from this thing I love because it would be easier, but dammit, can't I be allowed to be happy?! Don't I deserve that?! 

And now I'm fucking crying in the middle of the fucking library and people are going to ask what's wrong and I don't want to tell them. The circumstances of my life embarrass me.

Additional Reasons My Weekend was Awesome

(Besides most likely doing well enough on the GRE that I won't need to retake it, getting a ride back to campus instead of having to catch the bus, and celebrating with sex, drugs alcohol, and rock-n-roll theater...)

This is members of my eating club with members of the Far East Movement

The fro makes me easily identifiable, although today I had one side pinned up to counteract the asymmetry of my dress, so it was only a half-fro (hafro?). This picture was taken mere minutes after, upon realizing that the President of my club was going around collecting all the alcohol to take us off tap, I grabbed the nearest bottle of Andre and began to chug like my life early-afternoon-drunkenness depended on it, and many of these same members of the Far East Movement noticed my chugging and cheered me on! 

Yes, that's right, fucking celebrities cheered "Chug! Chug! Chug!" as I downed the remnants of a bottle of champagne, and then gave me thumbs up/applause when I finished the bottle. My life is so fucking hardcore.

Thursday was our first day of classes

and, as all 4 of my classes are Tuesday/Thursday (four day weekend every week, #fuckyeahI'masenior), I had my first Diversity in Black America seminar on Thursday, and I'm even more excited about this class now than I was previously, which I'm not sure I thought was possible. It's going to be up there with class with Brother West my freshman fall, and no class has come close to that since.

Anyway, we watched and discussed this in class, and besides just being a phenomenal TED talk, I'm fairly positive I'm going to refer to this in my senior thesis. The "single story" that we unwittingly construct about peoples--even peoples supposedly like ourselves, groups we belong to--is what I think gets changed in college with regard to our racial categories. She's talking about the same concept I'm trying to name with terms like "boundaries" and "meaning." 


Anyway, if you have 15 minutes to listen to a really great mini-lecture, you should check this out. Just have it playing in the background while you surf; you'll thank me later.

Things I Love about the First Week of School:

Everyone still has TIME for each other. I think I had forgotten what it was like to have a whole group of girls gathered in a circle around my room eating snacks and having hours-long conversation about boys/relationships/love/sex, fears, being a woman, the future, ways we think we'd raise our hypothetical children, insert-anything-else-under-the-sun-here until damn near 4 o clock in the morning. This is bonding. This is how friendships are made and cemented. This is part of what I want to always remember about college. I used to have roommates (three of the four girls in my room tonight used to be my roommates), and this kind of thing happened often, but since we all moved into singles, my girl-talk has been mostly one-on-one or (don't call me a traitor) with guys. (Guys can girl-talk surprisingly well. Many of my closest male friends are incredibly insightful, oftentimes in very different ways than my closest female friends, and I value that more than they may realize.) I am so tempted to say that nights like these somehow ARE college. They're the quintessential experience I'm not sure it's possible to have under other circumstances. Even when you feel like the conversation keeps circling back to earlier points/roadblocks and going nowhere. Even when you feel like it's the entire room against one or two of you. Even when shots are fired at a member of your group and everyone else falls all over themselves laughing. Even when inside jokes/knowledge are exchanged between certain members of the group, leaving others out. I was in a philosophy class for 25 minutes once. I couldn't do it. I prefer my philosophy to be of the 4-am-exchanged-between-friends variety.

How do we ever lose time for this? Why do classes and homework and things with deadlines take precedence? When does this time for each other and stimulating conversation become a waste? It didn't always when we were roommates. What do these walls (read: buildings) between us do to us? How do we make it stop?

New (School) Year's Resolutions

Well, I'm all moved in and mostly unpacked, just got home from my first night of partying, and while I look wistfully at my bed wishing the stuff on it would put itself away so I can lay down, I guess it's time to talk about the ways I want this year to be different. It's my last shot, so I need to give these my best shot.

1. To not be so sucked up in my eating club that I don't spend time with my pre-Quad friends. 
2. To further my quest to really own myself in every possible way.
3. To have more fun, particularly of the this-will-be-a-great-story-about-my-crazy-college-days variety. Again, last shot.
4. To visit every eating club on The Street (don't worry if that sentence means nothing to you). 
5. To plan without being so caught up in my plans that I'll feel like the world is falling apart if my plans need to change.
6. To be as open in real life as I am on here.
7. My GPA is currently the highest it has ever been; I resolve not to let it drop below this point.
8. To keep my grown woman game on the up-and-up. 
9. I've never gone a whole semester without skipping a single class. Successfully doing that would make me feel like a "good student" or something.
10. That going to the gym thing died with a quickness last year. I should get back on that.
11. To take advantages of the resources Princeton has while I still have the chance. Especially Career Services everything and Mellon Mays everything so I'm not at a total loss for what to do between here and graduate school.
12. To be positive. Things are scary, yes. Things are gonna be hella difficult sometimes, yes. None of that is reason not to smile. It made me feel so great when the professor I worked with this summer told me I brighten her day; I want to always make people feel like that. 

I feel like '12 is a good number.

"To always be intending to live a new life, but never find time to set about it - this is as if a man should put off eating and drinking from one day to another till he be starved and destroyed." --Walter Scott

Never in my life have I dreaded going back to school

and I'll be damned if I start now.

^The attitude I'm trying to invoke. 

How I actually feel:

• As soon as I get back to campus, every day will be one day closer to the end of what has been the best time of my life. I realize this has been true since Sept. 11, 2008, when I moved in for the first time, but it all seems so imminent right now. [My life as I know and love it is in danger.]
• Holy shit I have to write a thesis. And okay, so I've sort of been working on it all summer, and may or may not have 8 pages of my literature review written, and am a hell of a lot more prepared than a lot of my peers. And yeah, alright, this is what I want to do for the rest of my life (basically), so I should be excited. It's not that I'm not excited...it's just, it's still scary as fuck. 
• I have no idea what the fuck I'm going to do immediately after graduation, and I probably need to have been working on that already. I hope it's not too late to get something good. 
• I may or may not still be not particularly looking forward to seeing you know who. I'm not hurting anymore, but I doubt the first few interactions will be pleasurable in any way for me. And I don't like uncomfortable situations...but there's no avoiding this, so it's keep my chin up time, I suppose.  I've just never really had to interact with someone who hurt me on a regular basis before [family and ex-family notwithstanding].

Yeah, so this year is...different, but still. I'll be damned if I start now. 

Today I finished reading a wonderful book called My Name is Memory

Ann Brashares is on the road to becoming one of those authors I read everything by (like Jodi Picoult) because of her ability to be taking me along through a beautiful story that I can get lost in, developing characters whose pain and joys I feel as if they were my own (or, at the very least, those of someone I'm close to), and then all of a sudden hit me out of nowhere with a line or a phrase that brings me up out of this delicious book-world and back into the real world and makes me question something major in my life and the world at large. 

All her descriptions of the eternal undying lasting love and devotion between the two main characters nestled warmly into the depths of my heart like someones snuggling under a blanket, but they're not what I want to talk about. That happens a lot these days. 

Example A

The little tiny afterthought-like bit that blew me away was as follows:

"It took a half-dozen of those lives for me to recognize the difference between a means and an end." --Ann Brashares, "My Name is Memory" pp. 154

I suppose I first wondered some semblance of this towards the end of high school, when Student Council president came around to ask the Top Ten graduating seniors to fill out this sheet with some questions on it for little blurbs about us that would be put in our yearbooks. One of the questions was "What is your favorite memory from your time at Oakcrest?" or something to that effect. The 8 other members of the Top Ten who were sitting in AP Calc with me started laughing and remembering awesome times they'd had in this club or at that party or whatever, and I was struggling majorly to come up with anything worthy of eternal glorification in the pages of my yearbook. It dawned on me then that these people, my friends, had legitimately enjoyed high school to some extent. Particularly after my personal life exploded at the beginning of junior year, I had been treating it and my experiences in it like a means to an end. It was one more thing I was ready to get the hell away from, til it was over and I realized I had never really experienced it at all. 

And so I made a vow to myself that I was going to start living my life differently. I was going to stop taking my life and my day-to-day experiences for granted, I was going to treat each day like an adventure, I was going to do x-thing and y-thing and become an awesome person. And to varying extents at various times, I have done those things, I think. But although I pause to look at my life with wonder more often, and I meditate, and I occasionally walk around Princeton just to look at its beauty and marvel at the fact that I'm here, and I tell my friends just how much they mean to me, and I have begun to take chances...just like college was the end-goal of high school, grad school has been sneaking up as the end-goal of college. Professorship as the end-goal of grad school. And yes, these things are my goals, they are what I want to do with my life, and I'm okay with that. I like them. I actively chose those goals over the other options and am happy with my choice (for now, at least). This is what I want. 

...But what is the end-goal of professorship? Can that be the end-all be-all of the end-goals? Should it be a means? What end would it serve? #BigImportantLifeQuestions  

I've said this over and over this past week:

"I feel like a...'college student'".

Which begs the question, well what do I feel like the rest of the time? (Some part of my brain answers 'a Princetonian'.)

Anyway, I've been...watching LIVE TELEVISION. Watching TV and drinking. Going TO THE MOVIES. Playing video games. Playing video games and drinking. Watching other people play video games and drinking. Drinking for no reason at all. Ordering pizza at 1 am because we're drunk and hungry. Doing the very minimal amount of productive work to feel as though my life is not an entire waste. Making money by doing paid psychology experiments instead of having a real job. Not setting an alarm any day of the week. I suppose the best statement to describe how I've been feeling is "like a BUM". Why do I associate these two things in my head? They obviously don't go together in any way in my understanding of college for myself, or even for the majority of the people who have taken my survey, most likely. So what's going on here?

I /shouldn't/ put this on Facebook, but it NEEDS to be shared...

I <3 college?