Updates from Grad School

<----I live next to this building! Gah!

Friends! A blog post is long overdue. Unfortunately am slightly hungover so any extensive abstract reasoning isn't really in the works right now, but I'm in list-mode right now, so:

-Left my aMAYzing internship at the Art Institute of Chicago to move halfway across the country to Boston. Or, more specifically, Cambridge, Massachusetts, its prettier, cobblestoned cousin.

-Moved into floor 2 of a beautiful yellow building on the northeast side of

Harvard Square, whose first floor is a Bed and Breakfast. Walked 5 miles (to, from, and then again to and from) Target to buy $7 sheets.

-Immediately, upon purchasing sheets, took the Chinatown bus to New York to say goodbye to the city, and maybe enjoy it for once?

-Enjoyed New York. In fact, probably enjoyed New York more than I've enjoyed it as a resident of New York. Realized homework and stress makes me hate things. Also being 21 helps.

-Found myself in New York during rainy 60 degree weather with nothing but a t-shirt. Promptly became ill because of my insistence on not buying a sweater just for the purpose of a few days in New York.

-Arrived back in Boston lacking a voice. Regardless, maniacally looked for possible classes to take and revamped by 2-year class schedule over a hundred times (not an exaggeration!!!)

-Met some cool people, many interesting friends-of-friends, etc. So far everyone has been incredibly friendly! Bodes well for the next, oh, 7-ish years of my life? If not more?

-Orientation! Yes, GSAS orientation, in which the take-home message was "HAVE FUN. Leave your room once in a while," and, "Regardless of what you might think, you DESERVE TO BE HERE. You are BRILLIANT." Eye-roll. I might be lacking in intellectual self-confidence, but I will quite happily take John Harvard's money. Hey, it could be some incredibly wealthy old Bostonian family instead of me (like the ones who have a slightly British rich-peoples accent in old American noir films). Hip hip hooray for social mobility.

-Saw a mediocre Rohmer rom-com at the Harvard Film Archive, and was told that Harvard students get in for free to see ANY films at the Archive. Oh good lord, infinite free movies? In a MOVIE THEATRE? That I don't even WORK IN?

-Classes! Probable list of courses:

1. Comparative Literature-Proseminar (w/ Damrosch)

2. Film and Visual Studies Proseminar- History (w/ Tom Conley)

3. Elementary Japanese

4. Literature, Art, and Exile (w/ Svetlana Boym)

It has just occurred to me that professors, like many organizations, probably track every time their names are mentioned on the internet every day to see what people are writing about their work, so I'll reserve judgments and trashtalk for later posts and will use pseudonyms. Let it be known that I'm least excited about the film class, for once, and incredibly excited about the others! I'm going to do a Secondary Field in Film and Visual Studies, so the film class is unfortunately necessary. Gosh, it just sounds so unnecessarily pretentious from the first class. It also made me late for Japanese. Points off!

-Oh! I forgot. Somewhere in the midst of this orientation/class hullabaloo I managed to build my own desk and bookshelves! Well, assemble is more like it, but it was quite complicated! It had pull-out drawers and a lock and things. I feel like I've birthed a child. Or like a Sim 2 character who read a "mechanical" book and had the little green bar fulfilled, thus learning a valuable life skill, like how to not electrify yourself while plugging things into outlets. I am a successful Sim 2 character! hurrah!

All for now. Later days!

-J