I don't know if writing out my mental processes is really going to help. I think it may just make me more anxious, and how fun could that possibly be to read? 

Later in the afternoon, the HR woman from S&S let me know that the position is also going to be filled by someone else. So I'm back at square one with an increased sense of doom in my stomache. I'm seriously starting to question whether or not this is right for me. I've never known what really makes me click. I mean, I loved my work in college and sometimes I felt genuinely thrilled by reading Victorian poetry, or writing a Woolf paper, even devoting months to my thesis. Austen is brilliant -- she astounds on every reading. But was that thrill of understanding actually meaningful? Or did I rely on routine and habit to make my scholarship feel worthwhile? I feel so lost. It's tough not to know what will come, feeling uncertain about how I'll fill my days in a few months' time. 

I miss college - I miss my classes, the rhythm of my work, and the comfort of knowing that my purpose was to be a student, to read, write and think. I wonder if my entire college experience can be summed up into my having gained 4 years' worth of knowledge better suited to a cocktail party than to any real consciousness about the world and any real life application. Those economics majors I criticized -- maybe they had it right. Professor Crawford said that you don't have to be a professor in order to be a scholarly person. She's right. I just wish I could interpret that into my life. I wish I could start something real, move beyond the interviews.

My sis and I saw an outdoor performance of A Midsummer Night's Dream. Later we went to starbucks and got everything you don't normally get -- clementine soda, lemon cake, a cheese platter. During our meal, however, she flipped out and insisted on leaving when she saw a young kid (maybe 15/16) smoking next to us. She's got issues about that kind of stuff, which can seem a bit weird. After Paris, it's a little hard to think of smoking as being all that serious.

My sister told me that what she really wants is for her upcoming job to last at least 5 solid years, without all that ugly shifting and unease that characterized her first years before her MBA. I want this for her too, more than anything else. Honestly, I don't know that it's easier to worry about someone else. And I'm a pro at worrying.