That's it. It has been a hot and exhausting day, a deranged fly just came into my room and bounced off my forehead, and I've reached the conclusion that some things really are meant to be dropped like a hot potato. Like the ton of shit people in my life. Yup, I'm perfectly happy reducing the list to a mere 4-and-under trustworthy friends. Time to trim the fat, dump the excess baggage.

One potato, two potato, three potato...drop drop drop. As Kristen would say, "later, bitches!"

Lucy In the Sky with Diamonds

Today a girl in production asked me to join her for lunch. I was touched. Her name is Lucy Day (this is her full first name -- I made the mistake of calling her Lucy, and was immediately reprimanded...it's Lucy Day, and that's that). What a fun name. It's cool to walk into someone's office and say, "Hey, Lucy Day! Aren't you ready to go?" or "I had lunch at the Ivy Garden with Lucy Day." It makes me feel like I've met the leading lady from a Beatles' song.

Lucy Day is married to a grad student called Aquinas (nope, not making this up). I saw a picture of them at their wedding (Aquinas is turning away from the camera -- as Lucy Day noted, he's not terribly photogenic, so a profile shot is the best they can hope for), in which people were blowing bubbles as they exited the church. Lucy Day didn't want rose petals or confetti; they're too conventional. So her mum went to the dollar store and bought everyone individual bottles of bubble soap. I was totally charmed. She also has a canary diamond - it was either this (which does look a little sickly to me) or a "really beautiful white diamond," and Lucy Day knew she'd "have to get the weird ring."

Lucy Day is also extraordinarily gifted...in the art of origami. Her room is covered in paper cranes, boxes, flowers, globes, etc. I'm hoping her generosity will kick in and I'll get a little crane (I'm already thinking of calling it "Solomon") for my cubicle.

Education should be spread throughout the nation, if we want to get into the space station. -- Ali G, word to the wise

I'm looking up recipes for stewed chickpeas. Are there any that you particularly recommend? I'm kind of partial to ones heavily laced with cumin.

On Saturday, I ambled around my room until I got my act together and finally made it into the city. I had planned on doing all these extravagant, exciting things -- a visit to the met, a possible trip to the ny historical society, eating a bagel, catching up with friends, seeing 2046 or being really good and making the evening screening of Seven Samurai at Film Forum. Instead, I went clothes shopping.

I did, however, make it to see 2046. I have to say, I'm a big fan of this Hong Kong film movement. 2046 was complicated and offered no answers to any of the questions or complexities it established. I love that there were so many closeups and so few full-length shots, and that the director made me aware of the incredible expanse of a cinema screen, creating shots that fluctuated between the two extreme edges, as if to imply I was witnessing scenes that could only happen behind a half-closed door. Interiors are a big part of this movie, which lends to the intensely private world of the characters. It seemed as if I was being thrust into the individual and collective psyche of a group of people who don't exist in any specific location. I loved that the language was so sparse, and that the camera lingered on people's faces well beyond the confines of a spoken phrase, uniting expression and reaction into one fluid and heavy moment of experience. Those people didn't say much, but they looked and looked and looked. Red lipstick, a pen nib, a tear - the smallest details became the concentrated and calculated images. Everything in the movie was evocative rather than definite, and for this reason alone, I really enjoyed it.

In the evening I had dinner with my sister and a former colleague of hers at a small restaurant called "Home" at Cornelia Street. It was very cute, very small (although they do grow their own produce in the back garden) and delicious. The company was interesting (Nadia, the friend, launched into a discussion of her theory about the "flow" in the world and how we will illnesses onto ourselves through negative thinking), but by the time I had a glass of port (yum!) I was ready to meet her new age bullshit with a few sound principles of my own home-brewed philosophy. I don't need to be told that children get AIDS because of some self-willed condition in their present life. Rubbish. Also, her eyes popped when she got worked up, and I found it wholly disconcerting.

Yesterday I had brunch with Abby, Nilo, and Monica. It was Abby's 22nd birthday!!! Happy birthday, Abby!

Abby's one of the few people I hope I'll be able to whine to when I'm over 45. Besides being flamboyant and loud (zero discretion, guys, let's just face facts), she's super well-read and a really good listener. I have this vivid memory of one evening sophomore year when I was hanging out with katy, and Abby came back from the shower. (nb: a large quantity of time seemed to be spent with one/many of us hovering around doorways or in rooms in various states of undress. we carried on lengthy conversations in this brothel-like atmosphere). She began brushing her hair, and just for a moment, from that angle, with her head slightly bent away from the light and a desklamp shining full on her pale skin and dark hair, I thought she looked like a Renaissance Madonna -- modest and graceful and lovely. Of course, Abby's Jewish, so I don't know how she'd feel about being likened to a mournful Christian woman. But she's nonetheless pretty breathtaking in my mind.

I had an awkward dream about Roger Federer last night, wherein I somehow ended up being married to him. While this should have been wonderful, it was just bizarre.

Today wasn't so bad. I left work at about 2 and pottered for much of the afternoon. I went to the Princeton Art Museum (rather nice, much larger than I expected, the collection has strengths and weaknesses -- one enormous Ellsworth Kelly canvas was absolutely ruined by having a huge glass screen shoved in front of it) and later to a local music store.

Then I went to a small outdoor square and began reading "North and South," which Katy gave me for my birthday. Even though I'm not a huge fan of books for birthdays (sorry katy, you know I love you, it's just the sad reality of me: I like pearls and diamonds on my birthday), I'm really enjoying this and I see why she thought I would like it. It has flashes of humour at the most unexpected points and it moves at a good pace.

Then I got food and came home. Now I'm mostly listening to Miles Davis (god I love Miles Davis, he's just so coooooooool) and checking listings on craigslist for a whole variety of things.

Despite being on my own, I've been talking to strangers a lot during the day -- people came up to me in the gallery and shared bits about their history with the paintings, and a girl working at the deli where I bought dinner told me about her horseback-riding ambitions...of course then some weird guy in a car honked as I walked home, which was both embarrassing and irritating.

Now I'm going to put up the volume and let Miles Davis croon me into forgetting everything I've thought or felt for the past few weeks. Sometimes it's nice to fall into oblivion of who you are when you wake up everyday.

Here's what I see on my way to work everyday.

I saw "Broken Flowers" tonight. I miss going to the cinema on my own. I notice things more and enjoy the details of the whole experience - the lighting, the shots, the music. Bill Murray is kind of great at what he does, even if he often ends up recreating the same character in different movies. I also saw one of the editors from work at the theatre with his wife. In a totally lame way, I felt quite lonely when the two of them pottered off for the evening. I took a brief walk in the dark, decided not to court risk (even though Princeton is extremely safe), and came home. I probably should have just gone out and gotten smashed like the other kids on the road. But then we all know that that wouldn't happen since I'm a big fucking bore.

[insert strains of self-pitying music]

So, I'm back online thanks to some clever wrangling on my part. The linksys wireless router practically cowered in the corner when I leered over it with my enormous laptop half an hour ago. A few slaps later, and I'm back in business. This is a major step. It marks the first moment of feeling that this house is closer to a home than to a place I end up after work.

One of the kids in the house (a senior at Princeton) raised his brows when I mentioned that I have a blog. I guess I must have come across as being really dull so far. Maybe I should stop eating food out of plastic boxes and cans.

In other earth-shattering news, I washed my hair tonight. Quick, someone alert CNN! This is major documentary material!

Dude, what do you expect? I'm 22, uninvolved, and I just moved. I have open suitcases in my room and I iron my clothes on a board that rises about 2 inches off the floor. Excitement levels aren't all that high at the moment. Mostly I amuse myself by practicing my scowl in the mirror. I've discovered about 5 different varieties, and they're all successful at frightening Vanessa's cat Balu (named after the Hindi word for "bear." Of course, I jumped to conclusions and shrieked "Balu, like The Jungle Book! Kipling!" like the good colonialist I am.)

Ben wrote me a letter this week. When I saw his hand-written scrawl on a tiny envelope in my mailbox, I fought down a surge of gluttonous glee. Thanks, Ben! I love getting mail. It's such a great way in which to understand the way people think and process the world. Especially when it contains inexplicable and terrifying passages from Kierkegaard. But I'm sure I asked for it.

I finally unbent last week and named my iPod. Despite the fact that I wanted a female name, I ended up calling it Humbert. Why? Well, at the end of the day, the only thing that seemed to reach out from the nebulous regions of my brain was a lecherous old pedophile made famous by another weirdo. Besides, I like humorous names. Instead of something serious with which to saddle the poor little iPod, I settled on Humbert - casual, short, and ever so mocking. There's something so appealing about having an iPod that's supposed to revel in its own sinfulness. I don't mean that to sound as strange as it might. Sarah had a laughing fit when I told her. I guess at its best 'Humbert' just seems fond and foolish. And that's about where I rate myself on a daily basis.

Moving is stressful. Especially all the dismal compromises on what you want and what you can afford to buy or afford to transport. I went shopping with my father and 15 minutes into the trip I was curling my hands into tight little fists. I appreciate that my parents want to help me out and that they're trying to make the process easier. But they don't. Inevitably. They ask too many unnecessary questions at the wrong moment, make unsolicited suggestions about what to buy, what to take, how to pack, how to schedule the trip. They alternately drive me mad and tell me to "relax and smile a little." I'd rather continue to gnash my teeth, thank you very much.

I'm anxious because tomorrow is the big move, and all I can think about is stupid orphan Annie and her wretched song, "Tomorrow." It's all very well to sing shrilly about tomorrow when it involves Daddy Warbucks picking you up and handing you gold lockets and other delights. I'd like to take Orphan Annie's freckled face and kick it through a goalpost.

This post is long overdue. I meant to write during the week, but honestly, when you have only 3 precious hours of the day to yourself, inclusive of preparing and eating a meal, and getting everything ready for the next day, you don't really feel inclined to sit down and draft lengthy epistles. Still, I have felt a little guilty for betraying my extensive fan following. I know what it's like to wait for updates that never come.

Work -- it's hard to define how I feel about it. I had a long moan with Sarah a few days ago about how I'm not sure it's working out and how I'm already worried about future career moves. Sarah reiterated (with wonderful restraint and patience) that it had only been "three days, Adithi, I think you should wait a few weeks before you decide whether you should quit." I don't want to quit. I really don't. But I also don't want to work. I've decided this, over the course of the week. The whole 'up at 6, in at work before your boss, stay later than everyone else, rush home in a short temper' routine isn't my thing. But I'm moving in to my permanent flat this weekend, which will cut the commute time from 1hr and 10 minutes to 10 minutes. Brilliant! But I've loved staying with my aunt and uncle. Every evening we've had a great conversation or watched bad tv in chummy silence. They cheered me on and laughed at my woes, thereby issuing the only comfort that really works for me: mockery.

At some point during the week I had lunch with the other editorial assistants, courtesy of the press. I was a little surprised by the whole experience. I mean, being me, I went prepared to talk about why we love books and why museums and tea leaves add a splash of joy to our lives. Instead, all the girls (there are only girls) launched into a giggly discussion of their various boyfriends. Every second word was "boyfriend," past, present, or envisioned. How dull! I sat imagining a bunch of irritatingly dull guys who are daily dissected by these women. I guess I'm just so focused on certain things right now that I instinctively forget about stuff like that. It's like when Sarah once got very serious and said "I think you're going to be fine, take it as it comes and keep me updated," I instantly assumed she was addressing my career path and launched into my diatribe against big corporations that shut out deserving people. It's weird to think of being on a campus where the male/female ratio will be balanced. And it's Princeton, moreover. I'd better go dust off my Lilly Pulitzer dresses.

Speaking of the dress code! I potter in with my usual blazer/cardigan and skirt ensemble, to which almost everyone else adheres. But one of the assistants - Sophia - puts all of us to shame. She's Greek, which must account for it, but, well, she's the epitome of Southern European voluptuousness. The thing is, Sophia enters a room and suddenly it feels like a chic but every-so-slightly-shady bar in Sao Paolo. She wears tight office skirts, pointy heeled shoes, and her blouses always (ALWAYS) look like they're going to explode. It's so random! I mean, I'm obviously not remotely attracted to her, but the way she flashes her breasts around (PG readers please skip this passage) is astounding, given the environment. I feel like a total idiot, because I'm not interested in women, but her chest is just so omnipresent that I inevitably end up staring at it. Isn't that just so ridiculous?! I totally feel the way guys do when they're trying to focus on your eyes rather than anywhere else. My training sessions with her involve this absurd condition in which I alternately stare at her face and then the computer screen, focusing on anything but her chest. I don't get it. Obviously no one can say anything about it, because it really would be a touchy subject. But yesterday she purposely buttoned her shirt below her bra, as if the bra was actually intended to be on display as part of the outfit. It's not a Janet Jackson concert, people! It was a conference with the board! Maybe I really am prudish - Chris relished poking fun at me about it, but he hadn't met Sophia and her boobs. This isn't to say she's a bad person. She's warm and funny and chic. But I don't need to feel a) like a grandma in my collared shirts or b) like a 15-year-old kid ogling the female anatomy, of which, I might add, I am already an exponent. Whatever. Next week I'm unbuttoning my clothes and wearing nothing but La Perla. I refuse to be either granny or a lusty sailor. Now if I can only stop blushing, I can put this plan into action.

I think I'm warming up to New Jersey. I say this because everyday on my drive to work a giant frappuccino dances at the side of the road and waves to me. Sometimes, during these occasional flashes of something so natural and yet so extraordinary, I feel charmed by life. Plus today I saw these baby green leaves clutching the stone walls on a building, and some deep well-spring of gladness bubbled over inside me.

I will miss you, mr. dancing frappuccino.

So...today...was interesting. I don't have much else to say. There were good points and mediocre points. I felt glad on the way back home and enjoyed relaxing at my aunt and uncle's place. We had a great dinner, I watched some tv, we went for a night walk, and shared a good conversation.

Abby wrote me the nicest email today. I got a "go you!" message in the morning and another one later in the day. Thanks dude; it really meant a lot. Now I have to work up the energy to write back.

I had a conversation in the hallway with another assistant about Milton and how we loved Paradise Lost, Samson Agonistes and Comus, but didn't as much like Areopagitica. She wrote her thesis on Dorothy Parker and she loves Austen. Neat! I adore people who make me giddy about books. Oh! I also saw that one of my editors is working on a whole bunch of manuscripts by people I either know very well, distantly, or people I've read. This is tremendously exciting! Puchner, Damrosch, Sharon Marcus, Hermione Lee, Claudia Johnson, Franco Moretti, Mendelson....I took a book on "Pre-Modernism" in the artworld to lunch today. There are the perks, I have to say.

Umm, that's about it. There must be an inverse correlation between working and self-absorption.

This is just weird. I'm at my aunt and uncle's house, watching tv and feeling a huge pit of fear in my stomache. Do you remember that feeling you had when your parents dropped you off in your college dorm room and took off? Today I had the same desperate need for them to leave, but when they did I felt forlorn and vaguely betrayed. Except this time, I couldn't just take a deep breath and knock on Jackie and Vanni's door and begin my first awkward college conversation. 

I remember feeling totally sheepish when I explained how glad I was that my parents had left -- I had just basically kicked them out, and I knew they'd feel lonelier than ever on the drive home. Vanni must have thought I was weird, since she seemed to be getting along just fine with her family. She still wore her hair in a ponytail back then, with a lime-green scrunchie. She had a Curious George box and a pair of black Adidas shoes. She also did a lot of black and white ink drawings in her journal, which I remember thinking were very "alternative" (having just arrived from Greenwich). Jackie had moved in a little earlier than all of us. I know this because the first thing I ever saw when I moved in was a lime-green/pink bikini hanging incriminatingly in the Carman bathroom. 

Then I needed to be around people. Here all I can do is take deep breaths, but it always comes back to me, sitting in this empty house, waiting for tomorrow. It doesn't help that I hated orientation, that the first year was my least favourite during all of college. I made so many mistakes. But I ended up loving college despite all that.

What if my bosses hate me and realize they made a terrible mistake in hiring me? What if I get laid off in a month? -- all this moving stuff would have been for nothing and then I'd be back in CT, starting my search all over again. I have a headache. I feel like a character in a Charlotte Bronte novel -- all tortured and feverish, full of angles. Except the romance is lacking, because I'm in New Jersey, I'm going to be an indentured servant, and I'm only one rather unexceptional human being and no one is interested (save for me, hence the blog) in documenting my exploits.

Ok, I'm done with the moaning. My family went to the temple today as a gesture of thanks for my new job. When I heard the priest sing, I thought it was so beautiful. I watched them pour milk over the gods, and bowed my head when they brought the silver crown to all the worshipers. It's amazing how you can occupy these totally different spaces in one day - one moment you're packing up your old life, the next moment you're watching a holy fire lick the walls of a deity's sanctum, and finally you're in limbo, watching bad movies and tucking your legs under your body so that you can at least keep yourself together physically, urging all your limbs into something consolidated, something whole. 

Sorry if this seems like a load of waffle. I don't, as you might have discerned, take change in stride.

Tomorrow: I leave! FINALLY.

I realized that I have no real pictures in my blog, at least thus far. How can an unsuspecting reader expect to connect with all the wonderful people I know if I don't provide visual aids? I've been worrying about this.

Here are some of my friends from high school (from left to right): Katy (not to be confused with Katy from Columbia), Ashley, and Sarah (of iPod fame).


Here is my favourite picture of Caroline. Doesn't she look endearing? I took this at a gorgeous little Middle-Eastern restaurant in Marseilles, Provence. I blithely lied to the waiter and told him I was from the Maghreb -- minus the arabic, we shared a lot in common and I felt entitled to occupy his identity for a short while. :) I don't think he minded. In fact, I think he laughed a lot when he realized I lacked all the mystique and North-African style necessary to be one of his people. Caroline, being the ever-practical creature that she is, thought I was mad. I don't know what possessed me.

Actually, I do. It's the same quality that prompted me to tell this weird guy at a bar that I was from Morocco and to invent some wild background for myself. It also encouraged me to speak in a French accent to some guy on the subway when I first visited Columbia. Maybe I've always found my life a little dull, my background (you know, the usual, lived in 5 countries, transnational) a little prosy. I don't think of it as lying; it's more like exercising my creative license...rewriting my autobiography just to keep alive the possibility of being someone else, of having a different ancestry and world-perspective. 

Lastly, here's a picture of Abby and Steph (college buddies). Don't they look great? I'll try and put more up, I've missed so many amazing people!

Tonight I rocked the presentations in Spanish II. I don't mean to sound arrogant, but after the fourth person rambled on about their vacation in Hawaii, I think my bumbling in the front of the room with two stereos pumping a mixture of gregorian chant music and deep house provided a welcome relief. And everyone enjoyed the music - lots of inquiries, and one very tech-savvy kid even burned a song immediately! It's amazing how music can connect so many different people - Jonathon, who I stigmatized as a metal guy, loved the Bach cello piece (Suite No.1 in G major - it really is gorgeous). David and Ryan asked about New Order, Brian wanted the Daft Punk single, my professor wants a list of all the classical pieces I used...it was great! A major high.

After class ended, though, I felt rather lonely. I went to Barnes & Noble and browsed through the books. I ended up reading the opening chapters of a new book by one of my favourite authors, but since the entire plot was centered around 4 people who meet at a popular suicide location, I put it down and drove home in silence. I will miss my class - the absurdities of the other students, our professor's anectodes (she owns this cute cafe), and Eva, of course. 

Eva who has a quick smile and says "silly sausage!" when someone (usually me) does something dumb. She has promised that she and David (her husband) will drive to Princeton and visit me -- David also cherishing a dire need to show off his new car. 

I hate when good things end. I hated walking out of that classroom because it implied that summer is really over. So I listened to "Boys of Summer" on the way home, and tried to quell a surge of sudden and debilitating loneliness.

For a singularly uneventful day, I was really busy today. Mostly prep work for everything that had to happen. I took my last Spanish test and prepared for my final presentation. I got so bored of all my original ideas - talking about Pablo Neruda, Spanish art, toucans (new favourite bird), etc. So I decided I'd take my longterm obsession with House music and turn it to good use. Basically I'm talking about why I like both classical music (very general) and house music because though they seem like incredibly disparate genres, they actually share a lot of musical principles. I should really go in for novel writing, because the so-called "shared principals" are the greatest work of fiction the age has seen. I mean, I like music, and I chose to talk about it because a) I'm really picky about my music and b) I haven't studied it as much as art, lit, or even film, and therefore it's more challenging to discuss. Anyway, my professor previewed my presentation today and approved, so hurrah! I will include the list of clips I'm playing soon. Lots of Daft Punk, Modjo, some New Order, Cassius, Bob Sinclair, more Daft Punk. For a 5-10 minute presentation it's all very intense. I feel half smug and half embarrassed about it. Maybe I should have just sung the Indian national anthem or something. Although now I'm a US citizen so perhaps that's out. You never know who's watching.

I suppose the good part is that with one exception, no one in the room will have a clue what I'm talking about. It's not as if elementary Spanish II covered the fundamentals of polyphony or whatever else I'm pretending I've mastered. Oh the joys of baffling your audience...I mean, just imagine me - me! - standing up in the front, alternately playing Chopin and Daft Punk to a bunch of students more interested in the sangria our professor promised us. Sharing my music is also another point of discomfort -- most people I've played it to don't enjoy it a great deal and certainly can't access the ecstatic feeling I get when I hear a really good mix. There's something sort of sublime about it, at least in my mind. When I put the music up, really loud, that great 4/4 baseline consumes my body and becomes a surrogate heartbeat. I get to the point where I feel like the beat is coming out of my body, that the music is an actualization of some deep, subconsious rhythm that rarely comes to the surface.

I'm a bad daughter. My mum got home tonight and I didn't say much to her. I'm frightened of leaving for NJ this weekend. It's so sudden. I wish I were going back to school for another year. A real job - it's too much pressure. I feel like I'm a shiny metal spring, being wound tighter and tighter with every passing day. There's a lot of potential energy in that. I hope it comes out in a good way. Of course, within an hour of her arrival, my parents had a brief row over the dishwasher. So really, it's an excellent thing that I'm leaving and ditching this god-foresaken watering hole.

But I'm still scared.

I'm still reeling from the shock. Caroline, Sarah, Allison and I went out to lunch today and Sarah gave me - gave me! - an iPod mini. A shiny green one, because green is my favourite colour. People don't do things like that anymore. And it didn't have to be an iPod, it could have been a pair of socks and I still would have been surprised and moved. Because Sarah is kind of a rarity, the kind of person you always hope you'll meet multiple versions of in the course of your life. She's caring and she gives on a personal level. Despite my whining and self-absorbed speeches, she and Caroline have, in their individual ways, been living through the ups and downs of my summer, just when I needed friends to be around. I've written about them before. But putting aside the iPod (very hard to do, it's so gloriously green and she even had an inscription made on the back), I just feel a really deep gratitude for the unspoken kindness, for all our intense talks, for them being themselves. I am lucky for these beloved friends. 

So, before I lose steam on this: I have a place to stay! I'm going to live on a small residential road across from the Episcopal church in Princeton. It's part of this large old-fashioned townhouse (fortunately in semi-decent condition) with about 4-5 other people. Who are these fascinating creatures, you might be wondering, inquisitive reader. Well, let's see. There's Reza, sort of the self-elected major-domo. He's a grad student at Princeton with a focus on biomedical engineering. He's Iranian, and strikingly enough, had a brief stint living in New Canaan back in 1994. Go rams!

Then there is Vanessa, a very chill and softspoken yoga instructor who recently relocated from the city. She's originally from California, which shows. She has been to India (rajasthan, bombay, delhi). Clara says that she has a chiropractor boyfriend who stares too much, but I expect I'll find that out for myself.

Reza and Vanessa are the only housemates I've met thus far. There's another science grad student called Yorgo, currently in Greece. Another new girl coming in is Kerri (sp?), a third year grad student. Hurrah! They sound young and friendly and I think this could all work out. Plus work is only a 10-12 minute walk away (through the gorgeous and austere Princeton campus). Of course, I'll be an utter pauper, living from check to check, but I guess it's how everyone starts their career.

When I start work I'll try and post a picture of my office -- the building is something else. I remember when I went there for my interview, I almost didn't find it because the street number was embedded in the metal trelliswork on this huge archway leading into a very English courtyard. It is perfect for me, utterly and completely perfect. There's this wonderful green/plum-coloured tree right at the center, and it's one of those trees that just makes you want to rush over and cast yourself at its base, eating cool grapes and reading something appropriately glorious. "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam," perhaps. Honestly, don't think I'm crazy. I love trees so much. And this tree, well, if you ever see it, you'll understand. It's pretty diminutive but it's also the kind of tree from which you want to pluck wild apples, and for which poetry just seems to be destined:

A Book of Verses underneath the Bough,
A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread - and Thou
Beside me singing in the Wilderness-
Oh, Wilderness were Paradise enow!

You know, I don't know why these flights of fancy emerge. I've had a tiresome and stressful day and nothing is sorted out. But the tree and the poetry, the hope, really, of something good and durable happening to me, well...I have to try and believe in it, even if it's just in a moment of self-delusion. I suppose if I wanted to read symbolism into the whole thing I'd say that the tree is somehow linked to my idea of the new life I'll start soon: it's richer, more mysterious, and somehow finds itself in kinship with its surroundings.

Just watch, the tree will crack and die one week into work.

I went running (really, I just wheezed a lot on the treadmill) in the morning and then tried to take care of business. I have a final presentation to perform for Spanish on Thursday, for which I have done the equivalent of absolute zero. The professor made the only stipulation that the more 'fun things' we incorporate, the higher our score. Now doesn't that sound absurd? What's the point of succumbing to catchy pictures and gadgets if the grammer is terrible? I have a feeling about 1/4 of the class is going to expound upon how they love to drown their woes in muchos cervezas. Honestly, I like my class, but if the professor stops speaking for a minute, you can palpably sense the students thinking "¡cervezas!" The verb of day is the verb of everyday: Beber. If a class goes by in which someone doesn't prose on about 'bebemos muchos cervezas', I'll finally commit to being positive about life.

And now for something completely different:

One of my favourite sites to visit for fun is the NYPL Digital Gallery. They have the most amazing images: elevations of facades, interiors, manuscripts, etc. Below is an etching of a gallery in Notre-Dame de Paris, Charles Méryon, 1853. This is where I'd like to be right now, on a foggy and cool March morning in Paris. I guess it might seem a little lonely, but the shadows would be constantly playing between the tracery, and I think they'd be company enough for me. A little Gothic Romance goes a long way these days. Maybe I'd even recite some lines from Horace... ;)

My blog is a month old! I haven't remained this dedicated to anything in ages. Not even the up-keep of my gorgeous body...

Things here are alright. I went to look at a few places in Princeton today with my dad. Two of them were ok, and the other 2 were plain dreadful. It's a pity, because the 2 bad ones were studios shown to us by a local realtor. I was sort of shocked at his behavior. Instead of being greeted by a friendly if authoritative salesperson, we met a young guy in his early 30s, with a sarcastic and abrasive attitude problem. He dismissed some of my most important questions, didn't know basic facts and numbers, and acted as if everything we did was wrong and incompetent. My dad was stunned into silence, for which I'm a little glad, since he often challenges what he considers uncouth behavior. It almost felt as if Jamie (the realtor) didn't want to make a sale. He was such an asshole.

There are pretty limited options within my budget in the area. It's sort of come to the point where I'm looking to live with peole I don't know as a housemate. Some of them are actually really nice and make me excited about moving in with them -- sort of like living in the "Real World," only without the mutual molestation and drunken brawling. One of the guys I met today - Reza - seems like he has a decent offer. I have high hopes....

It's weird and scary to think of starting work for real. Mostly I'm afraid of the adjustment period, which could well consume the better part of my first 3 months. I don't want to go home feeling like I have the worst job in the world or that I suck at life. Wouldn't it be lovely to star in a travel show on TV? I think that's the best job you could ever have. But would you need acting skills, or cultural savoir-faire or something? I guess the whole 'Asian vegetarian does Argentina' thing isn't likely to appeal to a large audience. On the other hand, maybe I could make a comedy out of it and simply film all my blunders.

Eva and I had an excellent conversation today during our break in Spanish. She's 31 and married to a Brit, so I always ask her questions about what it's like to be young and married and how she and David manage the whole cross-cultural exchange (she's Czech). She's always so honest with me, and so upfront and comforting about dealing with reality. We've become good friends, and I'm hoping that we don't lose touch when I leave.

I'm beat, so I'm going to bed early. How strange that in a few weeks' time I won't be at this computer, heading to that particular bedroom, eating dinner in this house. How strange that I'll be in Princeton, which is practically the antithesis of Columbia. How strange to live in a small town, walking to work and smiling at people who smile back, learning to live without my college friends around me, moving on, becoming the new version of me.

I should have posted ages ago, but I've been rather busy. Anyway, the long and short of it is that I got a job offer in Princeton, and I've accepted. It's so strange to think of myself living in the armpit of america (Jersey), but I guess you never know what happens. I'm pretty excited, although I met with one of my former supervisors on Monday and took her out to lunch. She gave me a lot of advice for dealing with my first job experience, and thoroughly shook me up. Also, I'm in the midst of apartment hunting, which is quite lowering, being that my salary is frightful and Princeton is on the ritzy side. I really hope I'll find something. Plus I have a ton of Spanish tests all of a sudden. Yuck. Everyone tells me that these 2 weeks before I begin are going to be so great and relaxing, but since I'm spearheading the whole thing on my own - first the job hunt, now the housing, maybe even a car - I actually find myself feeling totally overwhelmed and anxious. So really, the equilibrium is restored.