I know I said I wouldn't be on again... I lied. I'm just thinking about my thesis and realizing that I have these grand plans... and I don't know if I'll be able to pull them off. I know I don't exactly have a large readership, but if anyone has any tips on completing a thesis while also carrying a full course load, doing 9 hours of work study, studying for comps, and applying to grad school, I'd appreciate it. Or, you know, your favorite song that helped you from going crazy during any point of stress or... anything.

Well, here I am, once again. The last section of the race. At the moment the only think I really resent is the weather: I mean, it's freezing, pure and simple. Also, the Oscar nods came out today, and Across the Universe only got one. Now, I know they can't be nominated for any of the music since none of it is 'original' in the sense that it wasn't written for the movie, but couldn't they do more then costumes? Maybe visual effects, because it was totally an orgy for the eyes, if you will.

Aye, me, and here we go. I'm finishing grad school apps, so I won't be on here much, because there's also comps and thesis to think of. I know my readership of one will weep ^_^

Certain events of late are driving me toward drink, and not in a good "a glass of red wine a day keeps the doctor away" kind of way. There are people who refuse to believe the truth, even when it's in front of them. More then that, they attack the bearers of that truth for the simple reason that they don't like that possibility, and the bearer is a tad artless. Nevertheless, there are times when I simply want to curl up and die. There is nothing good about the situation I walk back into tomorrow night, and to be frank, that wouldn't change if it were nothing more then thesis and comps. But the fact of the matter is that it's like walking back into an intellectual war zone, and that's just the student body. Rumors in general are worse this year, and the proctors are rendered more impotent then I remember from my underclassmen days. The whole situation stinks to high heaven, and there's nothing to be done.

I do not want to return
I cannot do work
I cannot think
I cannot eat that food
I cannot live in that building
I cannot stay with most of those people

And yet?
I will return
I will do work
I will try to think
I will choke down food
I will live in that building, and have to stay with those people.

Why is it that an undergraduate degree is war now? And why is it that with everything going on, I still know that I'm in one of the best situations going for an undergrad? After all, I'm guaranteed to be out in four years. But oh those last few months... Is it always like this? Do things that were once delightful always turn sour? And was it always like this, back even thirty years? I'm sure to a large degree it was, but still... I ache, I am weary, and try though I may, I cannot seem to force myself further. I have been sick since Christmas morning and working 30 hour weeks through it, where I must be the picture of chipper. It takes a toll on a body, any body, and mine was already worn clean through.

So why do I dread my journey so? Why do I start to tear at the thought of return? I'll tell you one thing: Dostoevsky is only part of it...

I draw, some, though not much comfort from the fact that there is no real news for me to write about. Sure, things are happening: car accidents, plane crash, the murdered marine, kidnappings. But... perhaps it's the plight of the hyper connected 20-something these days. Nothing is really shocking anymore.

Perhaps the only thing looming is STILL Real ID. Now, while the government keeps pushing back the effective date, one of them is still in place: On May 11, 2008, you cannot use your state driver's license for "official business." This means travel as well as anything involving the government. Passports will basically be required for all states that are non compliant, and at this point, I don't know that there are any states that have been able to turn over their entire databases so that every driver's license is compliant. This means that all those people who are traveling for graduation HAVE TO have their passport. The exception to this rule is the rather sizeable population born before 1964.

I haven't been able to read more then the first few pages of the final report (it's 300 pages long and available here.) but it's worrisome. More then that, the NY Times has an article about it in which Chertoff recognizes that states cannot meet the May deadline, but that they're pushing ahead with it anyone. If anyone thinks that this isn't something they have to worry about because they're in one of the already non compliant states, think again. As of May 11, you cannot board a plane or train without a passport (oh for the days when you only needed that OUTSIDE the country). As of May 11, you cannot enter a federal building or federal land (including, to my understanding, any national park) without a passport or compliant ID. I imagine this will be a particular issue for those who live in areas that are technically overseen by the National Park Service, like the Freedom Trail in Boston.

I hope I've made myself clear: this is an incredibly important and fairly detrimental piece of legislation that was passed almost three years ago to no fan fare. It is about to affect millions of lives, and no one is paying attention. The attention is starting to gather, I grant you: most of the major papers in big Western cities have picked up the story, as well as the NY times. I only hope that people will open their eyes and start recognizing the massive headache that is coming there way.

My baby brother is now 18 and officially an adult *sob*

Ahem, anyway... why do men feel that because a girl is working at a coffee place like *fill in the blank* and she smiles and wishes him good day that she must totally be digging him? I've not had this problem, I guess because I always have an air of the Italian woman about me (I call it the "come close to me and so help me GOD I will put my stilletto through your heart without stopping for a beat" look.) Unfortunately, not everyone gets to live in Italy for a semester or two, and American women (and men for that matter) are by nature and nurture a friendly variety of people. However, the girls at my work keep getting hit on by the skeeziest of old men, and it really puts a damper on things. For one, we spend the rest of the day bemoaning the down slide of society to a place where such action is socially acceptable, and that's just not fun. Beyond that, since when is a joke that increased sales tax is to pay baristas to strip funny? Oh, that's right, it totally isn't.

That said, I will miss my cohorts in coffee, caffeine, and crazy. The girls are fun and fun loving, and you actually get close to one another because what else can one do but talk on the slow mid shift. It's a camaraderie similar in nature to the brotherhood of Morons, though it's a completely different animal. School picks up next Monday, a thought I relish not at all. I should have some form of glasses by then (AHHHHH!!!!!). Part of me wants to show up with glasses and short red hair and go incognito.

Lovely, dark, and deep

It's very odd. Of late I've been thinking in snippets of lyrics, songs and poems. I've always found a great deal of comfort in song, why I doubt I'll ever know. It seems to resonate with my soul somehow. What's more odd for me is the prevalence of poetry in my internal thought process. I can account for the random appearance of the Beatles in my thoughts: they play at work and the Across the Universe soundtrack has completely captured my fancy. It's the presence of poetry that I find odd.

I'm a poli sci major, not lit. Several people over the years have remarked on the oddity of that to them: sure it's my bent and I know it, but they figured me for a literature major. No one ever did tell me why. But when I think back to Rome I think in snippets of Wilbur: the Piazza di Spagna at sunrise, how ceremony never did conceal how much we are the woods we wander in (oh how that resonates with me even now, much to my chagrin). When I think of school I find random phrases half remembered from Writing Workshop winging their way in. And lately it's been Frost. Funny, really. I never cared for Frost. I found his meaning far too obscured in his New England particulars: what did I know of stone walls making good neighbors, or birch trees bent by ice storms, or woods of any type? I've only ever loved one Frost poem, and I've been in love with half a stanza of "Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening" since before I knew it was poetry: "The woods are lovely, dark and deep/but I have promises to keep/ and miles to go before I sleep,/and miles to go before I sleep." It's that woods bit that gets me every time. Lovely, dark, and deep: there's something so... I don't even know in it. And I always wanted to get lost in woods that way.

And the whole poem of his I liked? It sticks in my mind more then anything, especially when I think of school now:

We dance around in a circle and suppose
while the secret sits in the middle and knows.

I was told by my one Frostian expert friend that this little couplet of his was among the more overlooked of his writings, because it's too open ended and difficult. I suppose its open ended, but I love it for it. It's the only poem of his I can think of that doesn't have an ounce of New England imagery in it, and it hardly suffers from it. There's something so human about the thing, and if you ask me why I can't tell you, just like I can't tell you why Wordsworth's dancing daffodils send a thrill through my soul, or why Wilbur's Ceremony is so frustrating and true. I guess that's why people do literature as a major: because if you had the ability, why would you ever want that feeling to go away.

Belle and Sebastian!

"If She Wants Me"

I wrote a letter on a nothing day
I asked somebody 'Could you send my letter away'?
'You are too young to put all of your hopes in just one envelope'
I said goodbye to someone that I love
It's not just me, I tell you it's the both of us
And it was hard
Like coming off the pills that you take to stay happy
Someone above has seen me do alright
Someone above is looking with a tender eye
Upon her face, you may think you're alone but you may think again
If I could do just one near perfect thing I'd be happy
They'd write it on my grave, or when they scattered my ashes
On second thoughts I'd rather hang about and be there with my best friend
If she wants me

And far away somebody read the letter
He condescends to read the words I wrote about him
And if he smiles, it's no more than a genius deserves
For all his curious nerve and his passion

I'm going deaf, you're growing melancholy
Things fall apart, I don't know why we bother at all
But life is good and 'It's always worth living at least for a while'

If I could do just one near perfect thing I'd be happy
They'd write it on my grave, or when they scattered my ashes
On second thoughts I'd rather hang about and be there with my best friend
If she wants me

If you think to yourself 'What should I do now'?
Then take the baton, girl, you better run with it
There is no point in standing in the past cause it's over and done with

I took a book and went into the forest
I climbed the hill, I wanted to look down on you
But all I saw was twenty miles of wilderness so I went home

I am so irrationally in love with this album, I don't even understand. I have to go out and buy more of their stuff because they're so... wonderful and European and mellow. It's fantastic. And so I pass it on as a little lightener for the day in the midst of snow and dark and such.

Also? GO CHARGERS!!!!!

Well, Super Tuesday is almost upon us. Oh joy; oh rapture. I'm in Arizona, which means I'm part of the masses who will cast their vote on Feb. 5. Well, hopefully. I have to send for an absentee ballot (oh the joys of out-of-state undergraduate studies) and frankly I'm having a hard time getting up the energy to care enough to do it. Don't get me wrong, I understand that this is "exciting" stuff. I understand that this next presidential race is "pivotal": just like every other presidential race. Am I a fan of Bush? My goodness no. For one, he went along with that asinine Real ID scheme, which he should have sent back, money be damned. That, by the way, is pushing ahead like an out of control train. So, yes, I'm looking forward to a new President.

But seriously, these clowns? I can't find ONE candidate who I can vote for in any race other than lead clown in Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Baily Circus. Since when have politicians been stuffed shirts and talking heads, and since when has being a "true American" meant subscribing to an ideology, and yes I am pointing my finger at both sides of the aisle. Whatever happened to the common good? Because frankly, I think being the world's policeman is NOT our common good. If we're going to be truly international, then why is no one willing to say: Yeah, we're gonna sort of pull out of here and there are let EUROPE, with their UNION, start taking charge. Or, you know, the Red Cross in the African AIDS crisis.

Since when is politics a panacea? We went from a country built on a healthy, though not excessive, amount of distrust of think tanks and leaders who were distant, to a bunch of sheep. Yes, I'm pissed, and I'm pissed at every stripe of political activist and party member. I'm missing the days when a primary vote meant voting for the lesser of who cares, because it was better then evil and more evil and stupid. I'm tired of people on the East Coast acting like they know exactly how life everywhere in the country is (if that's true, then why are there no border police? It isn't because we're happy about an open border down here.) I'm tired of people on the West Coast dismissing everything that comes from the East Coast because it must be biased. I'm not sick of the Mid-West, mainly because I think they may have been too trampled to get their prejudices out there.

Maybe some of our founders were right: maybe their dream of a great and glorious federal republic just can't exist over such a broad swath of land. Maybe the political traditions of East Coast and West Coast are too divergent. Maybe we need to have federal republics by region that join to form a confederacy style union, like in Europe. I don't know that there's even an answer. All I know is that I cannot lend even my feeble voice of support to any candidate on my ballot, and that thought alone is enough to make me weep.

I'm curious about the wisdom of current campaign strategy in New Hampshire. A large amount of the population is university students, myself among them. Throughout the fall, we the students of New Hampshire have been hit over the head with event after event after event: meet and greets, debates, question and answer sessions, and townhall meetings. I'm a fan: so many events allow voters a chance to actually meet the candidates, and that's the way that New Hampshire has always been.

Now we're at election day, and New Hampshire is still the first in the nation-- the first primary. As I said, I am a student in New Hampshire. I am their coveted demographic. I did not vote today. Why you may ask? Why, as a young person who will have their most important years affected by this next president, did I not vote today? After all, students are allowed to vote in New Hampshire elections with day of registration-- simply provide proof of enrollment in the form of a letter and vote. Why, as a woman, did I not attempt to prove that women's voices are not only the backbone and mores of society but also that they will be heard? Why, as a college student, did I not attempt to prove that the college age demographic cares, that we will have our voices heard? I have one very simple answer to this, one which many university students will answer:

I am still on winter break. I am not in the fair state of New Hampshire.

I want to know why not one campaign, not one news network, not one blog near as I can tell bothered to check the university calendars. For the record, here are the return dates on most of the colleges and universities in New Hampshire:

Daniel Webster College: January 16
Dartmouth College: January 7 (And you can't be mad at people for deciding that they want to not vote the second day of classes)
Granite State College: begins this week (Though not necessarily yesterday)
Keene State College: January 20
St. Anselm College (the site of the debates on Saturday): January 14
Southern New Hampshire State University: January 7 (Just like Dartmouth)
Thomas More College of Liberal Arts: January 21
University of New Hampshire: January 22


There are two, perhaps three universities that begin in time for their students to vote in the election. This is assuming that the students were A) On time for their classes, which, should anyone remember their college days, isn't exactly the norm. B) Able to get to the polls between moving in and attending class. Beyond that, the students just aren't there. Half of the state system isn't in.

This isn't to say that the campaigning has been wasted by any means. Rather, the numbers are going to show up in the oddest places, all on Super Tuesday. I just find it amusing that the 21 year old poli sci senior has figured this out while the political analysts and campaign leaders seem to have forgotten that, while the primary may have moved up, winter break didn't.

ETA: At least I'm not the ONLY one who noticed this: The Boston globe had an article that I imagine got a little buried with all the other primary info, but thank goodness it wasn't just me.

Perhaps the funniest thing about the primary system is how into it everyone gets, and how upset people get that they don't get to vote in both. It's a PARTY election. It's a little aggravating because it's been coming up a lot, along with the scads of emails I get encouraging me to vote in the New Hampshire primary tomorrow. I appreciate that they want a high turnout and that, as a college kid I am the hardest demographic to get to vote. However, I'd need to be, you know, in New Hampshire to make that happen. *shakes head*

I've been thinking a lot about my senior thesis. I'm still really in love with the idea, which I guess is rare. However, I have NO idea how to go about researching it. I know I want to include Coke, Blackstone, Thomas More, Pufendorf, Badgeot, The Once and Future King, Le Morte d'Arthur, and Magna Carta, as well as the 2003 Parliamentary Bill that was a list of the top 20 English common law documents ever. It's there that I have issues. I'm considering Joseph Campbell for his work on myth, and I'm pretty sure Voegelin has stuff too, and I'm sure there's a bunch of commentary; after all, this is the second oldest law system in the WORLD after the civis juris of Justinian (Roman law). But how do you find the good stuff? The library is woefully deficient, and not that many people I know actually know what common law IS, let alone who's good on it.

I guess in the end, this thing is becoming three fold in purpose (oh dear...). First, to show that English common law, itself a wonderful system that has worked for a long long time is too bound up with the English political myth and ideal to be successfully transplanted outside of England. Second, that the common law is so versatile that it has gone through ALL of Aristotle's good governmental phases with little time spent in the three bad ones. Third, it's a justification of the "peculiar institutions" that exist in American law-- like that pesky stare decisis people abide by in court decisions. Oh dear, this is gonna be a tome and there's no way around it.

Oh another day, another dollar. I'm back at the Sbux, slinging coffee like it's going out of style, and ruining New Year's resolutions one at a time despite our new standards and "resolution drinks" (For example, the "Skinny Latte" lineup-- non fat milk, sugar free syrup, no whipped cream, and, as an added bonus, any residual joy has been removed. It goes straight to your hips you know.)

Beyond that life is as it ever was. I take the GREs on Saturday and then begin reading for my Senior Thesis. Before I knew I needed to take the GREs I was gonna write my whole thesis over break (it's so do-able!) Sadly, that's fallen by the wayside in the clouds of forgotten math and skills that I will rarely if ever need again. Aye me.