itchiness and the statement of purpose

i have barely been able to think of anything else this week. my right arm is swelling to absurd sizes from the welts (which i hypothesize after extensive research to be from bed bites, so i am going to talk to the landlord tomorrow and hopefully call up the local pest control to exterminate those little buggers!!) and it feels sore all the time from all the swelling. the doctor is going to get back to me tomorrow with the blood test report and hopefully it will say that all is well, i am just suffering from an allergic reaction to bites. why am i so sensitive, in all ways?

apart from that, the SoP is proceeding slowly. i have decided to email my references incomplete versions that do not have the final paragraph about school-specific, why-i-want-to-go-to-X-university because for their purposes, they just want to see what i'm interested in. and why i want to do a PhD. why?!? i am not sure. last night was perhaps a slight crisis point as i realized that actually... maybe i don't really like research. i mean, i love reading and analysing stuff, but i have never been too fond of all those daily faculty visits. (by the way, did you know that you can borrow a maximum of 300 books from Brown libraries?! for a 3 month period!) like i'm not sure how i would feel to always be researching stuff and reading other people's works. but you know, i think being a professor would be kinda cool... i would love teaching a class and leading discussions and making interesting connections with modern culture, films, and art even.

anyway this is no time for self doubt. i just have to do it!!!

blah.

i thought that these feelings of alientation from everyone else were because of graduate school applications. when people ask how i am, i'm torn between giving them a superficial answer, and confessing how overwhelming i find the academics + applications process. i sometimes try to avoid social situations where i have to talk about my life because there isn't much to say. (writing about it, on the other hand, frees me from social expectations about how conversations should go and flow.) but turn the conversation to your life, people, ideas, books, style, food, languages, and i will eagerly acquiesce :).

then suddenly i just thought of what mch asked about the impact of study abroad, and even though i strongly denied it that day, now that i think about it more carefully, i realize that she does have a point. maybe i have been repressing the idea that i changed a little. i was so anxious about coming back, so desperate to pick up the loose threads and just continue weaving away familiar, well worn patterns, that i didn't even reflect on how my emotional relationships with people might have changed. i tried to suppress all uneasy realizations that maybe things weren't completely the same.

but of course they are different. blinded by my wishful insistence that everything was to be the way they were in happy sophomore year, i smoothed out all incongruities and discontinuities. i blamed myself for withdrawing voluntarily. but it was not voluntary at all; in fact, this is normal: one year is a long time to be away - one had to, in that one year, turn to other sources of inspiration and solace. i also grew increasingly dependent on WS. i forget that last year i started easing my emotional dependency off family and friends, displacing it onto him. such is the nature of relationships, when best friend and boyfriend and guardian are united in one dear form.

i really miss everyone... and slow lunches, late night movie sessions, spontaneous visits. senior year is the year everyone is busy with their own things. it's the time when we silently struggle to cope with being a student and the thought of not being a student in the near future, but no one is brave enough to talk about what it really means and how much it scares them. if i could, if you would ask, i would tell you that sometimes i feel like i am just compromising. (life shouldn't be a compromise though! who would ever receive a precious gift, say, a beautiful vase with tiny rose buds etched into its glass, but then put a stock of weeds into it. hmm that is a poor analogy... but you get what i mean.)

this has gone on long enough, but i guess self centeredness is not a crime...

so this is love

i was rushing through the 17th century today, but doing the metaphysical and cavalier poets was a real joy, i have to admit!

1. 'Air and Angels'

AIR AND ANGELS.

John Donne

TWICE or thrice had I loved thee,
Before I knew thy face or name ;
So in a voice, so in a shapeless flame
Angels affect us oft, and worshipp'd be.
Still when, to where thou wert, I came,
Some lovely glorious nothing did I see.
But since my soul, whose child love is,
Takes limbs of flesh, and else could nothing do,
More subtle than the parent is
Love must not be, but take a body too ;
And therefore what thou wert, and who,
I bid Love ask, and now
That it assume thy body, I allow,
And fix itself in thy lip, eye, and brow.

Whilst thus to ballast love I thought,
And so more steadily to have gone,
With wares which would sink admiration,
I saw I had love's pinnace overfraught ;
Thy every hair for love to work upon
Is much too much ; some fitter must be sought ;
For, nor in nothing, nor in things
Extreme, and scattering bright, can love inhere ;
Then as an angel face and wings
Of air, not pure as it, yet pure doth wear,
So thy love may be my love's sphere ;
Just such disparity
As is 'twixt air's and angels' purity,
'Twixt women's love, and men's, will ever be.

see also, a beautiful entry on the poem:
http://johncoleman.typepad.com/ex_nihilo/2006/09/a_virtue_caught.html

landscapes

i took the train back up from new york city yesterday, and was spoiled with stunning window-seat views of new england in the fall.

the robust reds and pumpkin oranges are already emerging - the air looks crisper, the colours sharper. what is it about autumn that makes it so pleasing? surely not just the visual aesthetics. or is it something specific to the new england landscape? i've been trying to figure out what exactly i love so much about it, for the english landscape does not inspire such affection. the english landscape is barer - its beauty measured in the greenness of the grass, the regularity of the fields, the way in which mild sunlight falls and frames a quiet pastoral picture. the american landscape is varied, dramatically changing its colours with the seasons, presenting greater slopes and valleys, and glittering, deep blue lakes and sea coasts. english waters are never that striking; its colours and motions are muted.

where the american landscape is beautiful on a grand scale, the english landscape is beautiful only to those with eyes keen enough to discern variance, an unexpected lilac shrub in one corner, a soft bundle of sheep in another. where one sings, proclaiming its vastness and health, the other waits quietly for you to inscribe in its name a private ode, a few lines of sentiment.

as sentimental as i may be, i appreciate the new england landscape which takes me out of myself - it takes my hand and says, "look here! look at the atlantic coast, look at these forests and my riches!" whereas the english landscape prompts me to converse with myself - with my memories of sweet and of dark days. and so i guess even after comparing the two i still favour the new england landscape; it makes me want to stay in america for a few years more so that i can better get to know it, and explore it.

life is a beautiful thing

i need to stop complaining.
sore throat? fever? minor ailments that will be done away with adequate rest, gallons of water, vitamins, optimism.
lots of homework and deadlines? that's what it means to be a student, silly. you'll be pining for them, the good ol' days of midterms and papers, in x years' time.
grad school applications and ridiculous standardized tests? hey at least you have the potential (financial and academic) to apply. it's a privilege, not something to whine about.
other stressful situations? that's life :)

so as usual in a sheila-like post, the moral of the story is to be happy. (ah, how original. but i never claimed that my blog was to be of interesting or even good writing.)

what's a few stressful weeks, in a lifetime? if one can get through tripos, one can get through ANYTHING!

what i need right now is a cup of hot milk tea. and a massage. but these are things best found in england, perhaps... ;)