Bard.
That Italy post is still coming, I promise! But first, Bard.
It's completely unbelievable to me that I've only been here two weeks. Firstly, that doesn't make any sense for the connections I've made. I thought that friendships didn't blossom this fast anywhere but Wayfinder. But two weeks in and I've already found the other two points of my triangle (of course it's a triangle, this is how I work). One of them is my roommate, Julia, who's adorable and profane and impossibly sweet and loves Egyptology more than anything but isn't going into the field because, as she explained to me over the course of an afternoon about a week after I met her, surrounded in her bed with books on myths and legends and articles for newspapers that she'd written, Zahi Hawas is a sexist, blackmailing megalomaniac who's got the purse-strings of the entire science wrapped in his big smug fist and wields the power to completely ban anyone from visiting Egypt or publishing papers regarding Egypt for the rest of their lives. And has done so, simply because they've either spurned his sexual advances or refused to write his books for him for no credit.
All she wants for her birthday is the head of Zahi Hawas on a pike.
The second point of the triangle is our next-door neighbor, Eames Bennet (Eames Alexander Bennet, so posh). I met him before I knew he was our neighbor, sat down with him at lunch on the very first day, and still make fun of him for how worried his mother was that he would eat too much fish. He's brilliant and self-deprecating and reminds me a lot of Liam (in that he'll wander into our room, whiteboard in hand, and settle himself on my bed to pick my brain about the physics of orbits and blackholes). He's an Olympic-level archer ("Technically," he'd dissemble, "but it's not like I've been to the Olympics"), builds and rebuilds bicycles in his spare time, loves his car more than anything, and spent about an hour as my pillow last night while I scratched him behind the ears and we talked about hot ladies.
Which brings me to Leila, probably my best friend here so far outside of those two. She's gorgeous, blond and leggy and possibly completely asexual. She's an enormous dork - adores Star Trek, P. G. Wodehouse (!!), StarWars, and Yu-Gi-Oh: The Abridged Series. She wants me to teach her how to play D&D. I'm currently transferring all of my Avatar: The Last Airbender from Lucy to her laptop, and we'll marathon that once we actually have time (i.e when classes start).
There are more - Leila's roommate Paige, Eames' roommate Ian, Chiara's friend Rose (who has almost-but-not-quite become "my friend Rose" in my head), Maggie. It's going to be an interesting balancing act, trying to hang out with all of these new friends and still see Mike and Colin and Raine and Chiara and all of my other upstate (yes, I'm aware that I'm also upstate now, shh) friends, but I think I'll be able to manage it. This weekend is good - spent Friday night at Colin's, Saturday afternoon at Chiara's, got back here in time for a (really disappointing) masqerade, which defaulted into Eames and Leila and I watching The Big Bang Theory on his bed. And today I am here, and staying here, and not doing anything but writing and watching things and laughing with all of these lovely people who have coalesced around me. Doctor Who marathon with Julia tonight?!
The other reason I can't believe I've only been here two weeks is the sheer amount of information and contemplation that has been thrown at me. I've read essays, poems, and writings by Arendt, Ovid, Wittgenstein, Said, Adorno, Agamben, Darwin, Ewald, Nabokov, Kafka, Baudelaire, Marx, Montaigne, Turkle, Retallack, Waldrop and Wordsworth. We saw Berg's Lyric Suite performed live by a fucking incredible string quartet, all Bard students. I've filled more than 40 pages of a notebook, both sides, with contemplation, freewritings, and microessays of my own. When I finish this post I have to go back to staring at my six-page final essay, entitled "Rivers, Walls, and Other Spiritual Devices" which is an exploration of Baudelaire's De Profundis Clamavi through the lenses of western humanism and Buddhist spirituality. It will probably be more like eight pages in final form. Pretentious pretentious pretentious?
It's...difficult, the work. Which, as egotistical as this sounds, I'm not used to, not in this area, not in literary criticism and reading comprehension. I'm not used to having to work at it. I'm not used to having to work to impress, either - I'm used to being the one who's always talking, in class, who trades snipes and witticisms and insights with Nathan across the front row. But here everyone is used to that. Everyone (well, nearly) is as smart or smarter than I am, and that's both intimidating and an enormous wake-up call. I'm going to have to learn how to manage my time. I've been fluctuating between feeling awesome because I'm able to ride this wave of ridiculous intelligentsia, and being absolutely certain that at any moment I'm going to be swept under. Spent a good hour freaking the hell out to Chiara about writing this essay in the first place, but thankfully she's lovely and set me back on my confidence-surfboard and I turned out something that's not too bad.
I should get back to making it great, though, so I can wow my beautiful, brilliant, zombie-and-cholera-dissertation-writing L&T teacher.
So, so much love to you all.
It's completely unbelievable to me that I've only been here two weeks. Firstly, that doesn't make any sense for the connections I've made. I thought that friendships didn't blossom this fast anywhere but Wayfinder. But two weeks in and I've already found the other two points of my triangle (of course it's a triangle, this is how I work). One of them is my roommate, Julia, who's adorable and profane and impossibly sweet and loves Egyptology more than anything but isn't going into the field because, as she explained to me over the course of an afternoon about a week after I met her, surrounded in her bed with books on myths and legends and articles for newspapers that she'd written, Zahi Hawas is a sexist, blackmailing megalomaniac who's got the purse-strings of the entire science wrapped in his big smug fist and wields the power to completely ban anyone from visiting Egypt or publishing papers regarding Egypt for the rest of their lives. And has done so, simply because they've either spurned his sexual advances or refused to write his books for him for no credit.
All she wants for her birthday is the head of Zahi Hawas on a pike.
The second point of the triangle is our next-door neighbor, Eames Bennet (Eames Alexander Bennet, so posh). I met him before I knew he was our neighbor, sat down with him at lunch on the very first day, and still make fun of him for how worried his mother was that he would eat too much fish. He's brilliant and self-deprecating and reminds me a lot of Liam (in that he'll wander into our room, whiteboard in hand, and settle himself on my bed to pick my brain about the physics of orbits and blackholes). He's an Olympic-level archer ("Technically," he'd dissemble, "but it's not like I've been to the Olympics"), builds and rebuilds bicycles in his spare time, loves his car more than anything, and spent about an hour as my pillow last night while I scratched him behind the ears and we talked about hot ladies.
Which brings me to Leila, probably my best friend here so far outside of those two. She's gorgeous, blond and leggy and possibly completely asexual. She's an enormous dork - adores Star Trek, P. G. Wodehouse (!!), StarWars, and Yu-Gi-Oh: The Abridged Series. She wants me to teach her how to play D&D. I'm currently transferring all of my Avatar: The Last Airbender from Lucy to her laptop, and we'll marathon that once we actually have time (i.e when classes start).
There are more - Leila's roommate Paige, Eames' roommate Ian, Chiara's friend Rose (who has almost-but-not-quite become "my friend Rose" in my head), Maggie. It's going to be an interesting balancing act, trying to hang out with all of these new friends and still see Mike and Colin and Raine and Chiara and all of my other upstate (yes, I'm aware that I'm also upstate now, shh) friends, but I think I'll be able to manage it. This weekend is good - spent Friday night at Colin's, Saturday afternoon at Chiara's, got back here in time for a (really disappointing) masqerade, which defaulted into Eames and Leila and I watching The Big Bang Theory on his bed. And today I am here, and staying here, and not doing anything but writing and watching things and laughing with all of these lovely people who have coalesced around me. Doctor Who marathon with Julia tonight?!
The other reason I can't believe I've only been here two weeks is the sheer amount of information and contemplation that has been thrown at me. I've read essays, poems, and writings by Arendt, Ovid, Wittgenstein, Said, Adorno, Agamben, Darwin, Ewald, Nabokov, Kafka, Baudelaire, Marx, Montaigne, Turkle, Retallack, Waldrop and Wordsworth. We saw Berg's Lyric Suite performed live by a fucking incredible string quartet, all Bard students. I've filled more than 40 pages of a notebook, both sides, with contemplation, freewritings, and microessays of my own. When I finish this post I have to go back to staring at my six-page final essay, entitled "Rivers, Walls, and Other Spiritual Devices" which is an exploration of Baudelaire's De Profundis Clamavi through the lenses of western humanism and Buddhist spirituality. It will probably be more like eight pages in final form. Pretentious pretentious pretentious?
It's...difficult, the work. Which, as egotistical as this sounds, I'm not used to, not in this area, not in literary criticism and reading comprehension. I'm not used to having to work at it. I'm not used to having to work to impress, either - I'm used to being the one who's always talking, in class, who trades snipes and witticisms and insights with Nathan across the front row. But here everyone is used to that. Everyone (well, nearly) is as smart or smarter than I am, and that's both intimidating and an enormous wake-up call. I'm going to have to learn how to manage my time. I've been fluctuating between feeling awesome because I'm able to ride this wave of ridiculous intelligentsia, and being absolutely certain that at any moment I'm going to be swept under. Spent a good hour freaking the hell out to Chiara about writing this essay in the first place, but thankfully she's lovely and set me back on my confidence-surfboard and I turned out something that's not too bad.
I should get back to making it great, though, so I can wow my beautiful, brilliant, zombie-and-cholera-dissertation-writing L&T teacher.
So, so much love to you all.