Oh, I know that you hate it too

In Rise of the Novel for the past week or so, we've been studying Jude the Obscure; it's made an unusually big impression on me for a number of reasons. First, I'm sure I personalize the general proto-modern awareness of harm and oppression in social rules, yet the inability to rationalize one's way out of guilt. When I was younger, I thought I had rather Victorian sensibilities; now I'm outgrowing it, I guess, at the rate Hardy's heroes and heroines do.


What I was thinking about tonight in particular, though, was something we discussed in class on Tuesday. We were talking about a catalyst for one character's re-conversion to Christianity. My professor said that self-reflection and atonement can themselves be vehicles of avoidance and denial. We assign ourselves blame for subsidiary things that are easily fixed, or for things we're half-aware aren't our fault - in order to avoid culpability for some fundamental or longstanding, complicated error.


Another thing that rings true in Hardy, relatedly, is that self-awareness isn't enough; we can realize we're at the mercy of social forces, or that we're acting selfishly, and we can make awfully calculated choices... and still end up dazed and worked over by the universe. My understanding of everything I know about is too superficial for analysis to make much difference - and yet I analyze with such rigor and elaborate, self-serving sophistry. I want to be moral and I want to be happy; I don't know if they're mutually exclusive, and I don't know how to behave correctly in either case.

But feeling this way he’s just playing a part
That’s been around for centuries


Otherwise, I've been both working harder and getting out more lately. On Tuesday, I took a break from paper writing to visit a room party and watch, wide-eyed, as a boy gulped down three shots of vodka/Red Bull (a favored drink of hipsters). Nick cavorted and roughhoused with Mollie, a sophomore; I talked earnestly and a little tipsily about English with Jessica (also a sophomore). She and I are both undersized, and full of ardor for English and history, and also thoroughly interested in making fun of Nick. She decided that I would be her protege in social and academic success.


Earlier that day, also procrastinating, I flexed my second- or third-hand indie cultural awareness muscles and discussed movies, music, & more with a junior and senior at their apartment (I was borrowing class notes from the junior, an English major). These two incidents reinforced my belief that upperclassmen are cooler than (many) freshmen, and I certainly feel more comfortable around older people concerning my own apparent youthfulness, incompetence, and naivete. While there, I was tentatively invited to a movie party with some people from my Rise of the Novel class - which seems like a nice thing; college is when I ought to be hanging around people who like literature, as I seem to (I read Tess of the d'Urbervilles over the past couple days, and I've been thinking about it and Jude fairly regularly since).

After the room party, Nick and Jessica escorted me home, loudly and bravely, at 2 AM.

"Let's have a spaghetti wedding!" Nick called, for reasons that elude me in retrospect.

"Wow," I cheered. "We're those grating drunks who make noise in the street at night!"

They left me at the front door, waving aggressively and instructing me to finish my paper or they'd knife me.

I drank a Red Bull to sober up (although I hadn't had much to drink - I justified drinking at all with the mildly slurred, "I'll never be a great literary figure unless I learn how to write papers while under the influence!"). I mostly completed my paper during the night, pausing to nap at 9 AM, and working more on the train and more at home. I haven't gotten much productive done since. I saw Seth on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday - and I saw assorted other people yesterday, to watch Elf. After tomorrow: I have to slog through finals, I have to make it to Winter Break... but at least I have a better idea, now, of concrete life-improvements for next semester.

It's been so long since I wanted to write anything. I suppose that happens; I failed, probably, at managing to be productive and unhappy at the same time - but now, better late than never, I'm working to boost each (happiness & productivity) to fix the other, although that's laborious. I have had some fun and gotten some good grades, because it's hard to never do either - so that's what I'll preserve for posterity. If chronology is warped and things are left out, I guess that's the price I pay for spending 1+ months in self-indulgent dejectedness.


I saw Seth once since I posted. I hardly remember anything about it except that it was pleasant and sustaining; I miss him a great deal. What I want is our remembered unexceptional interaction - the walks through Bethesda nightlife, and meals at Pho, and sitting in the field in Norwood Park. I hope I get some ordinariness (without the skew and strain of me having one night or one afternoon in Maryland) over Thanksgiving break, less than a week away.


Meanwhile, my weekends here have been inconsistently social. Last week, our entire hall (20 or so people) took taxis to Center City for a birthday dinner. We squeezed into a space clearly meant for smaller parties, facing a dumbwaiter that contained a Pope's head model in a box (the restaurant was Buca di Beppo! - a chain, apparently, and no less spectacularly kitschy in Philly than in the Kentlands). We were raucous and extravagant in our purchase of family-style pasta meals - but no competition on either count (I bet) for the drunk, magnanimous 50-somethings in the kitchen, who called to us slurringly as we passed their table, or for the bachelor party going on in an adjacent room.


Our table ordered wine, which was an exciting novelty and came in an enormous wooden basket. I poured about half a glass; this proved too much to sustain my early enthusiasm, and I gave the rest to a friend. I also ate ravenously, having eaten nothing during the day in preparation, which distracted me from my earlier (articulated) plan to consume Chris. We cleaned out our wallets and negotiated a dubious plan of cab-sharing among the rich and poor, while several boys just sprinted the fifteen blocks back to University City.


For the most part, my interaction with people is still unproductive conversation and late-night visits to the Wawa one block over - and vague stirrings of an inclination to go "out," which maybe I will do tomorrow (now that I'm clearly over my physical aversion to alcohol). Class is fine, and activities (The Daily Pennsylvanian, chorus, and Student Health Services) are better; I've read at least two novels I enjoyed, and I'm half-way through another, Jude the Obscure, which solidifies my resignation to be an English major and study the one subject I find I think about recreationally.


Ruchita used her blog to campaign for Dartmouth. I've thought about whether and to what extent to recommend Penn to RM seniors (if there are any besides Liz who read this). I think I'm glad to be here - my unhappiness has at its source my new leisure time, and the simultaneous upped pressure of midterms. I have more excuse and opportunity to feel guilty than I did in high school. However, Penn is a lovely place - close, beautiful, populated with an incredible variety of people who were waitlisted by Harvard. When I overcome my self-defeating tendencies, I am and will be able to tap into incredible resources here.

I have to link to this, in anticipation of actually posting content, because, goodness: Horrible Sharon Dating Entry.

I hope they continue updating!