Winking at Babies in Church
Ohhhhhh dear, bloggggg I've been on hiatus; sorry blog.
But I went to Europe and felt like a real outsider for the first time in a long long time. I turned 28 and couldn't think of anything I wanted for my birthday except for Joe Biden to be selected as the vice presidential candidate, and my wish came true. I have been eating a lot of free faculty/staff burritos and free Lyndon Johnson birthday cake and Chemistry cookies and soda and barbecue and back-to-school pizza.
I've been trying to get used to David Gregory as moderator on Meet the Press (I will never get used to Tom Brokaw - that show is not meant to be hosted by a generalist anchor, it needs to be hosted by a nerd). I've been adjusting to being the "senior" grad student in my lab, on my hall, in my department, but still getting embarrased in front of my boss because he saw me biking without a helmet. I've been thinking of my family who is hanging out together in California and going to Costa Rica together. I've been making weird looking dresses with a sewing machine that I am finally doing right by (in the style of the McCartney protagonist in "Getting Better"). I have not been cooking much but I have been sleeping well.
Well when I write it down now, it doesn't seem like that much. (Which is the point of regular blogging I guess because I probably forgot a bunch of interesting stories already).
Dr. Robertus introduced himself to me in the hallway today - I horned in on a conversation he was having with Keff and he didn't know who I was, which has been true for 4 years, but today he seemed interested because I was talking a blue streak about how to get mass spec results. We met a violist at the grad student barbecue who told us how she got a job in a physics lab this summer even though she has no scientific training. And I listened to Bill Clinton tonight do such a better job tonight in endorsing Obama than Hillary did last night, and I am beginning to believe that people qualify themselves for the things they believe they're capable of doing. I'm not sure if it's magic, but I'm trying to expand my belief in meritocracy to accomodate it.
Since high school, I've had this image of myself as a person without ambition and I've seen that as a good thing. I left diverse, integrated, chaotic Hughes Middle School for a magnet school with an entrance test that I convinced myself was elitist and overrated and boring as dirt. I thought that the popular kids were rich and the rich kids were popular and that I didn't need most of it. I guess this is pretty typical - a lot of adolescence is about negative definitions, and for some reason I never got into hating my parents because it seemed much more logical to hate on my school.
I didn't really feel any loyalty till around when I was graduating and my brothers, forced to enroll there at first, were allowed to leave after 4, 3 and 2 years to attend the far far far inferior "regular" public high school near our home, and I started to realize what teachers and peers without ambition really look like.
My 10 year high school reunion is next week and I'm not going, but it's not out of spite for the people I went to school with. The people I rolled my eyes at in high school for shopping at the Gap or being proud of their Acura might not have been my taste, but when I went to college and first met private school kids, I realized they how far they were from being super-wealthy. And Oberlin may have wealthy students, but I didn't realized how hardworking and curious everyone I knew was until I left THERE.
I'm very excited about the upcoming election. I plan to watch the RNC next week and I'm sure the tone will be different, but I've watched the DNC this week with interest; I really think that choosing a "clean and articulate" black candidate has opened a very complex can of worms about American identity. I heard Pat Buchanan say yesterday that in the past, a guy that came back from a war and married a wealthy beer heiress would have been congratulated, he seemed to be suggesting that this was one form of the American dream. It might be, but it's not a form I find particularly character-building. And Hillary Clinton gave a long speech about herself last night - I was disappointed to hear so much about her - despite her tales of bald-headed uninsured adoptive mothers of autistic kids, I still feel cold when I hear her speak, and I hope many many many more women politicians make quick work of advancing much further in politics so that the bad taste of her trying to make me think I owe her something is washed out.
I like to think of myself as rational. And unambitious. And for these reasons I haven't gone bananas for Barack Obama - it's almost like I think he's too much like me, and I'm afraid/unbelieving that someone like myself is likable and capable of winning.
I like to think that reading long technical papers can teach you stuff, and that telling people things they don't want to hear right to their face, even if it doesn't force them to change, is useful, which is why Joe Biden has been my favorite politician for a long time.
I feel like it should feel strange to be one of those people who felt like an outcast in high school, and went to a weird hippie school to feel a small solid chunk of joy watching something as square and moderate and accepting of a two party system as the Democratic convention this week. I feel like it's weird to like this country as much as I do when every day I hear a fellow American say something that impugns my field of study, my gender, my age, my religion, or my intellect. I feel as though it ought to be a respectable version of the American dream to do things like: be accepted into a good college, and go there and work hard there and distinguish yourself; to decide not to have children; to work a government job; to hold separate your religious law from the laws you would require people of all religions to follow; to travel to other countries and appreciate the good ideas they have; to regard natural resources as public property and public responsibility. I haven't always thought all of these things were important and I can't expect other people to agree with me yet or ever on all of them.
But Barack Obama seems like a credible guy to me because he seems to truly have catholic tastes - to not be scared of people who aren't like him. That's a rare quality for someone his age - I think it's more common among people my age and younger (haha I think Barack Obama is OLD!). It's hard for me to like someone so likable because I hated that quality in student council types in high school, but I've decided when it's genuine, it's incredibly valuable, and necessary. Just like going to the best high school you have the chance to go to is necessary, even if the place weirds you out, or going to a country whose language you don't speak, even though, or perhaps because it'll make you feel like an asshole.
I'll never forget the day senior year someone I considered a good friend told me I only got into the colleges I did because I was Mexican. Humility is a cardinal virtue, and it can be a pain in the ass to hear that kind of crap from people, so I guess it makes a kind of sense to adopt a sort of Generation X ambition-averse persona, and walk around, even now, saying "oh yeah, you know, I'm just sort of in graduate school" as if I don't want to get something out of it. It's uncool to like politics because politics at their worst are about risible, dishonest, self-interest, and at their best are about self-confidence in the service of public interest, and you can't get away with self-deprecation, or other-deprecation, when you're trying to show that. Ok, well I'm not actually sure what being "cool" is anyhow, but quoting 65 year old senators from Delaware most certainly is not and so I will just end here with Joe Biden, who I love, and who manages to sound ambitious and Catholic all at once, which is probably the other reason I am so in love with him*:
"No one is better than you. You are everyone's equal, and everyone is equal to you."
*Also because he's an interminable windbag, and so, quite evidently, am I.
But I went to Europe and felt like a real outsider for the first time in a long long time. I turned 28 and couldn't think of anything I wanted for my birthday except for Joe Biden to be selected as the vice presidential candidate, and my wish came true. I have been eating a lot of free faculty/staff burritos and free Lyndon Johnson birthday cake and Chemistry cookies and soda and barbecue and back-to-school pizza.
I've been trying to get used to David Gregory as moderator on Meet the Press (I will never get used to Tom Brokaw - that show is not meant to be hosted by a generalist anchor, it needs to be hosted by a nerd). I've been adjusting to being the "senior" grad student in my lab, on my hall, in my department, but still getting embarrased in front of my boss because he saw me biking without a helmet. I've been thinking of my family who is hanging out together in California and going to Costa Rica together. I've been making weird looking dresses with a sewing machine that I am finally doing right by (in the style of the McCartney protagonist in "Getting Better"). I have not been cooking much but I have been sleeping well.
Well when I write it down now, it doesn't seem like that much. (Which is the point of regular blogging I guess because I probably forgot a bunch of interesting stories already).
Dr. Robertus introduced himself to me in the hallway today - I horned in on a conversation he was having with Keff and he didn't know who I was, which has been true for 4 years, but today he seemed interested because I was talking a blue streak about how to get mass spec results. We met a violist at the grad student barbecue who told us how she got a job in a physics lab this summer even though she has no scientific training. And I listened to Bill Clinton tonight do such a better job tonight in endorsing Obama than Hillary did last night, and I am beginning to believe that people qualify themselves for the things they believe they're capable of doing. I'm not sure if it's magic, but I'm trying to expand my belief in meritocracy to accomodate it.
Since high school, I've had this image of myself as a person without ambition and I've seen that as a good thing. I left diverse, integrated, chaotic Hughes Middle School for a magnet school with an entrance test that I convinced myself was elitist and overrated and boring as dirt. I thought that the popular kids were rich and the rich kids were popular and that I didn't need most of it. I guess this is pretty typical - a lot of adolescence is about negative definitions, and for some reason I never got into hating my parents because it seemed much more logical to hate on my school.
I didn't really feel any loyalty till around when I was graduating and my brothers, forced to enroll there at first, were allowed to leave after 4, 3 and 2 years to attend the far far far inferior "regular" public high school near our home, and I started to realize what teachers and peers without ambition really look like.
My 10 year high school reunion is next week and I'm not going, but it's not out of spite for the people I went to school with. The people I rolled my eyes at in high school for shopping at the Gap or being proud of their Acura might not have been my taste, but when I went to college and first met private school kids, I realized they how far they were from being super-wealthy. And Oberlin may have wealthy students, but I didn't realized how hardworking and curious everyone I knew was until I left THERE.
I'm very excited about the upcoming election. I plan to watch the RNC next week and I'm sure the tone will be different, but I've watched the DNC this week with interest; I really think that choosing a "clean and articulate" black candidate has opened a very complex can of worms about American identity. I heard Pat Buchanan say yesterday that in the past, a guy that came back from a war and married a wealthy beer heiress would have been congratulated, he seemed to be suggesting that this was one form of the American dream. It might be, but it's not a form I find particularly character-building. And Hillary Clinton gave a long speech about herself last night - I was disappointed to hear so much about her - despite her tales of bald-headed uninsured adoptive mothers of autistic kids, I still feel cold when I hear her speak, and I hope many many many more women politicians make quick work of advancing much further in politics so that the bad taste of her trying to make me think I owe her something is washed out.
I like to think of myself as rational. And unambitious. And for these reasons I haven't gone bananas for Barack Obama - it's almost like I think he's too much like me, and I'm afraid/unbelieving that someone like myself is likable and capable of winning.
I like to think that reading long technical papers can teach you stuff, and that telling people things they don't want to hear right to their face, even if it doesn't force them to change, is useful, which is why Joe Biden has been my favorite politician for a long time.
I feel like it should feel strange to be one of those people who felt like an outcast in high school, and went to a weird hippie school to feel a small solid chunk of joy watching something as square and moderate and accepting of a two party system as the Democratic convention this week. I feel like it's weird to like this country as much as I do when every day I hear a fellow American say something that impugns my field of study, my gender, my age, my religion, or my intellect. I feel as though it ought to be a respectable version of the American dream to do things like: be accepted into a good college, and go there and work hard there and distinguish yourself; to decide not to have children; to work a government job; to hold separate your religious law from the laws you would require people of all religions to follow; to travel to other countries and appreciate the good ideas they have; to regard natural resources as public property and public responsibility. I haven't always thought all of these things were important and I can't expect other people to agree with me yet or ever on all of them.
But Barack Obama seems like a credible guy to me because he seems to truly have catholic tastes - to not be scared of people who aren't like him. That's a rare quality for someone his age - I think it's more common among people my age and younger (haha I think Barack Obama is OLD!). It's hard for me to like someone so likable because I hated that quality in student council types in high school, but I've decided when it's genuine, it's incredibly valuable, and necessary. Just like going to the best high school you have the chance to go to is necessary, even if the place weirds you out, or going to a country whose language you don't speak, even though, or perhaps because it'll make you feel like an asshole.
I'll never forget the day senior year someone I considered a good friend told me I only got into the colleges I did because I was Mexican. Humility is a cardinal virtue, and it can be a pain in the ass to hear that kind of crap from people, so I guess it makes a kind of sense to adopt a sort of Generation X ambition-averse persona, and walk around, even now, saying "oh yeah, you know, I'm just sort of in graduate school" as if I don't want to get something out of it. It's uncool to like politics because politics at their worst are about risible, dishonest, self-interest, and at their best are about self-confidence in the service of public interest, and you can't get away with self-deprecation, or other-deprecation, when you're trying to show that. Ok, well I'm not actually sure what being "cool" is anyhow, but quoting 65 year old senators from Delaware most certainly is not and so I will just end here with Joe Biden, who I love, and who manages to sound ambitious and Catholic all at once, which is probably the other reason I am so in love with him*:
"No one is better than you. You are everyone's equal, and everyone is equal to you."
*Also because he's an interminable windbag, and so, quite evidently, am I.
