Marx, Malthus, Smith, North

I’m becoming the woman who knows how to fish.

No more trout for me.

Holidays are the Worst.

 Today is Thanksgiving.  I’m not sad. I’m not. I’m ok. My immediate family is all in completely different places today. We’ll be together for Christmas. I’ll bury myself in this for the day. I can get through my favorite holiday. I always do.

But just in case, I’ll have Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zero’s on repeat during the breaks. “Home.”

Confused Nostalgia

Last night, two of my friends from Peace Corps Bulgaria passed by.

Anxiety. Accomplishment. Freedom. Dripping down my face.

I feel guilty that I still feel the third. But I do. I feel it more than I feel anything else.

“Where do you guys get these ringtones by the way?”

I’m toying with the idea of writing my next big paper on a comparison of Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush. I’ve begun the research with studying different approval ratings related to job creation, foreign policy, tax reform, etc. According to Gallup polls, Reagan and Bush are on opposite ends of the spectrum. Why is that? Why do these two presidents who did so many things similar come out with such opposing success rates? Is what they did in fact similar, or was it created, in the moment, to look that way?

Where my interest sits highest is in the use of propaganda. I’ve begun the search at the most logical start, the presidential campaign for first time election. I’m watching what everyone else watched. The campaign ads. On the topic of Reagan, I think I’ve made some serious headway with “The Bear” and the statement “I am paying for this microphone, Mr. Green.” My search with George W. has not yet begun.

But because I love side tracks, and any excuse to procrastinate, I thought I’d show you this. This video makes me laugh every time. I could watch it a thousand times. I’d still laugh. Notice his face. His eyes. His wife coming to his rescue. His quick change in emotion from astonishment, to irritation, to humor. Moments like this are what define the presidency to so many. A commonality. An identifiable emotion for the voting, mindless masses. Years later we can come back and look at the big picture, as what I’m hoping to do with my research on Reagan and Bush. However in the present, it’s moments like this that get voters to vote. His ability to be charming is what it’s all about. Do you remember when he caught the fly?

Now this really is me being silly. Or is it.

In September 2012 I’m seriously considering moving back to a culture that finds it normal to spend $600 on a telephone.

Though I’ve owned one, my day-to-day life has consisted of not using a cell phone for the past 2.5 years. The sound of it ringing gives me anxiety. I get a sick feeling in my gut. The fear of who is calling. The fear of not answering and then wondering who called and what they wanted. The knowledge that they know if I don’t answer, I’ll see it soon and be required to call back. I hate the sound of it. I can’t take the time to set up voicemail, much less check it. This summer I had a phone for the 5 weeks I was home. It was fine then. Enjoyable. But now, thinking about it, it’s a genuine anxiety I feel about coming home. Day-to-day life is a lot different from a five-week vacation.

A full inbox in email is an entirely different emotion of elation.  

I need to say. I fully realize how grateful I should be, and therefore am, for all these trips I’ve been able to take over the past four days. I’m aware the majority of the world will not see the things I have seen. Yesterday, while walking around I had a twinge of guilt. But I’m not quite sure guilt is what I should feel. Just gratefulness and a continuance to share what I see. / The reality of tomorrow’s new quarter is setting in on this cloudy and cold Sunday morning. Bleh. But then. Getting a master’s in history is something I also see as a luxury. Even on days that look like this…

Trip 3: The Cheese is a City!

Gouda, Netherlands. Who knew?

My Dutch classmate/tour guide said, "Ok, you don't have to say 'wow' to everything." Speak for yourself buddy, European architecture never gets old.

 

Notice the leaning building. This is all over the Netherlands. The tall Dutch man is my classmate who was kind enough to show me around his hometown.

Street lights in the shape of cheese!

The cheese weighing station, but look closer....

Really, it's where they weighed the cheese!

Last stop, the longest church in the Netherlands. The very tall windows are all stained glass. Some tell biblical stories, others tell of war.

I wasn’t allowed to take pictures inside the church, but you can visit the website here.

Trip 2: A Windmill and something so much worse than McDonalds

I admire the Dutch and their ability to keep history while continuing on with their daily lives.

I'm not judging. But come on. You guys get meals OUT OF A WALL. So stop judging us. To the observers: You slide your money into a slot machine and the door magically opens.

Trip 1: The Tallest Church Tower in the Netherlands

The Dom

From a distance...

The original, medieval design for the spiral staircase works its way upwards in a constant right turn (instead of left) so that when in a sword fight it's harder for the attacker to fight in this direction versus the guy defending the castle who has the advantage of working in a downward left position. I hope that makes sense... This picture is of me making my way up the 465 steps.

This bell weighs two tons and rings every fifteen minutes. There are fourteen bells in total.

 

The original completion of the bell tower and church was in 1382. The bell tower was attached to the church (shown here) until a storm in 1674.

We made it to the tip of the top! Cold and cloudy!

Fear of Flying, by Erica Jong

I finished my first quarter on Tuesday. I handed in my final for my class on theory, and reached the mid-term mark in my research seminar. Next Monday I’ll start a new class on Growth and Inequality, predominately comparing China with the West. But for now, for the next four days, I’m enjoying a break. Yesterday I went to the center of town, had  a glass of wine, people watched, and read a book. Today I’m hoping to meet a German friend and climb to the top of this. After that I’ll head to a museum. I’d like to end the day of tourism with more of my book.

An old friend suggested I read Fear of Flying.  You can read her note in the comments of my Know Me section.  I can’t explain why I loved her compliment so. Or why I even took it as a compliment. You’ll just have to read it.  I think she may know me better than I realized.  It’s taken me over a year to finally delve into the book.

I feel so strongly about this work I’m encouraging every liberal woman I cling to to read it.

The book is written from the perspective of an educated woman in her twenties trying to figure her life out. She’s married, unhappily, she’s having an affair, unhappily. But it’s not about that. It’s about her. It about figuring out what the hell she wants for her life.  She wants to be a writer, but it terrifies her.  She wants to be independent, but it terrifies her.  She’s confused about why she should want to be all these other things (she doesn’t want) solely because that is what society tells her she should want to be.

I haven’t finished the book, so I am not claiming to know everything. But I’m enjoying it like I haven’t enjoyed a book in a long while. Here are some excerpts I’ve underlined while reading. Please don’t think that I think these quotes pertain to all women, or that just because a woman doesn’t lead the life I want that I see her as simple. I have no issue with women who are housewives, secretaries, or any other profession they choose. The point is, this is about me. This is about me deciding what it is I want for myself.

“I thought of all the cautious good-girl rules I had lived by- the good student, the dutiful daughter, the guilty faithful wife who committed adultery only in her head-and I decided that for once I was going to be brave and follow my feelings no matter what the consequences. I thought of Dr. Happe saying: “You’re not a secretary, you’re a poet-why do you expect your life to be uncomplicated?” I thought of D. H. Lawrence  running off with his tutor’s wife, of Romeo and Juliet dying for love, of Aschenbach pursuing Tadzio through plaguey Venice, of all the real and imaginary people who had picked up and burned their bridges and taken off into the wild blue yonder. I was one of them! No scared housewife, I. I was flying.”

“It took me years to learn to sit at my desk for more than two minutes at a time, to put up with the solitude and the terror of failure, and the godawful silence of the white paper.”

“I had published a book which even I could still stand to read.”

“I had gone to graduate school because I loved literature, but in graduate school you were not supposed to study literature. You were supposed to study criticism. Some professor wrote a book ‘proving’ that TOM JONES was really a Marxist parable. Some other professor wrote a book ‘proving’ that TOM JONES was really a Christian parable. Some other professor wrote a book ‘proving’ that TOM JONES was really a parable of the Industrial Revolution. . . . Nobody seemed to give a shit about your reading TOM JONES as long as you could reel off the names of the various theories and who invented them. . . . My response was to sleep through as much of it as possible.”

The author talking about this character she created 30 years ago:

“What a manic she was. Raging hormones ruled her life… I want to say to her: ‘Slow down, be calm, meditate, do yoga, everything will turn out all right.’ But she can’t hear me. There is no time machine to take me back to her and revise the contents of her teeming brain. And if there were, this book would not exist.”

“The twenties are as frenetic a decade as the teens. You have a voice inside your head repeating I want, I want, I want, but you don’t know what you want or how to get it. You hardly know who you are. You go on instinct. And your instinct mostly pushes you toward adventures you won’t grasp until you look back on them. Life can only be understood backward, but it must be lived forward.”

“She desperately wants to be a writer, but she can’t sit still.”