instead of writing for class

I didn't get a migraine today. I also slept in til 1:30. I don't know what the relationship is between the two events, if any.

Monday, I woke up at 7, ran errands/ate breakfast/went to class and then completely blew off the day after about noon. I'm getting a better sense of how much recuperative downtime I need after flurries of activity. The problem is that it needs to change if I'm going to hold down a full-time job. It may just be that everyone around me staying busy makes it easier to withdraw, sleep extra, and make very little of my free time so that I'm under deadline pressure again. I don't really know, I guess... it may just be one of those open questions to be answered next year.

Another one is, will I ever organize the mountains of papers that are important parts of my life? Bills; pay stubs; proofs of birth, insurance, enrollment; certificates of completion; recipes... they're all in stacks on my desk, in piles sliding into cascades of paper in drawers and in my closet, they're in mostly-sorted piles on the floor. I have resolved repeatedly, futilely, that manila foldering and labeling and organizing by date or alphabet will happen soon. Next weekend. Over a break. After I finish this assignment. And there they sit--two or three large boxes worth if I don't get through them by graduation. Personal independence is about knowing how to do things, sure, but it's also about being able to keep track of things.

of late

The big thing this week that was a one-time deal (hopefully) was my History Senior Comprehensive, the three-hour essay test on "everything you were supposed to have learned about Asia since freshman year." I think it turned out ok, though like most academic work I know I could have done a little better. In addition to doing some culminating theory-type reading (which I deep down enjoy), I tried to re-learn stuff from previous classes. This resulting in me unpacking the document archives from fall 2003 and spring 2005 sitting in a dusty corner of my laptop's memory. I usually hate re-reading old writing I've done, mostly because I think a lot of it is pretty tragically bad. There were a couple response papers that I clearly typed up in about twenty minutes, and they were indeed pretty painful, but I was also pleasantly surprised to find a couple essays I enjoyed rediscovering. These were from two years ago, in the Modern China class that at the time didn't seem to have taught me much of anything. I actually wrote up a couple pretty decent arguments for that class challenging assumptions in the texts we were reading, and there were moments when my prose found its rhythm. It was kind of a fun exercise. I'm now just a ten-page book report away from being done with my history major (joy!).

Now, the bad news: I've never been one to get headaches. I've taken some painkillers in my life, but that's usually for stupid stuff like trying to wear my retainers again after months of disuse. I was thus unprepared for the migraine that wiped me out tuesday 3pm. After four-plus hours spent lying on my bed with a pillow clamped over eyes and ears, trying to tough it out without excedrin, I searched webmd.com. I discovered that "hypersensitivity to light and sound" was in fact a symptom of migraines, but not tension headaches, which I guess are the normal kind. I was a little shaken up, but I figured that it must be a one-time thing, and I shouldn't get too down about it, just keep my head down and try to get as much done as I could. Then I had another one wednesday which I eventually quelled with ibuprofen, another thursday I knocked out almost preemptively, and finally one this evening after the exam once the preventative excedrins I took just before the test wore off. This last one concerns me the most. I was hoping it was like a stress response to not knowing enough history, but if they keep up, I may be in some trouble. I think the whole situation is exacerbated by what I'm recognizing as a serious caffeine dependency, which I allowed to grow as I kept having to meet deadline after deadline this spring. I'm totally afraid of coffee and soda now, although I'm constantly forgetting to completely stop with chocolate, tea, and even (gasp!) chocolate ice cream in order to control my intake. I may be handling this with stubbornness in trying to fix whatever is the problem myself, but that's kind of how I handle a lot of physiological stuff.

Sophia says she doesn't believe in a mind/body dichotomy, but I think I've internalized it beyond any sort of rational process--I want to outlast my body, force it to submit to the daily routine of my choosing. It's not necessarily the right thing to do, but it seems silly to go to Student Health only to find out I apparently just don't drink enough water or some bull like that. I drink plenty, and I started hydrating more once I started getting these damn headaches.

*edit* so I was prepared this morning to qualify this last paragraph, because last night before bed I did like some stretching and deep-breathing stuff and felt a lot better, but this afternoon I just got another headache and I'm like f*** it, body, if you aren't going to work with me on this one... so yeah. I guess I still believe in dichotomy since I there seems to be an actual relationship between my mind and my body, but I think they are intimately linked. So.

PS sorry if I've been grumpy. headaches are a cause, but I'm sure so is caffeine withdrawl/the shake-up of my lifestyle that now seems like a solution worth trying.

sometimes I just get so angry...

Stephanie and I talked recently about how we both tend to channel negative emotions (fear, despair, disgust, etc) into anger. I don't know that this is inherently good or bad--everyone responds to bad stuff in different ways, and being angry about things doesn't seem a lot more or less productive than locking yourself in and just sleeping or whatever else people do to deal with things. I realized today that reading the morning paper, something I've assimilated as part of my daily routine as long as I don't oversleep, is an activity I value even though it consistently makes me angry. So maybe it's exactly because it makes me angry. Like a little bit of morning anger gets just a little bit of adrenaline going, wakes me up some, like having a cup of coffee. Anyway, I thought this morning about linking to a bunch of NY Times articles that really piss me off, but, honestly, this space would just become a long list of little blue hyperlinks and not enough context. There's too much out there.

Sample (on one two-page spread today): Alberto Gonzales, who still has the greatest handshake of anyone I've ever shaken hands with even if I don't think he's done a particularly good job as atty general, defies my prediction that he'll stymie a bunch of Senators with legal language by offering what are basically dumb answers to simple questions; a bunch of old white men and Clarence Thomas decided that they knew what's best for women--i.e. since it's a "grave choice", they and Congress were far better qualified (paternalistically) to decide than any woman could be--which a little ironic when I start to think about all the idiots in government today (thinking back to Representative giving speech when I was touring Capitol who talked about how "our children will have to pay our trade deficit with China"); finally, an article designed to be inflammatory, namely, a listing of all the inflammatory things said in the last couple days by talk-radio hosts, some of which just makes me so fucking angry...

Anyway, that's two pages of one day's issue. It's important, I guess, to know about these issues, because they'll never be solved by our collective ignorance; I just wish there were an easier way to fix the bullshit. I can't blame the Times for this either; in fact, I agree with their news philosophy that we should be reminded every day of the worst happening in our country and in our world. There's no way to hide behind excuses about a paucity of documentation or anything else.

a promise kept

When I was younger, my family took road trips across the country to visit relatives for vacations. I have only the barest recollection of the sandy-colored Volvo four-door we drove during my formative years. In 1992, it was blindsided by a car turning left against a red light and subsequently retired. Then we drove a cobalt blue Dodge Grand Caravan, the minivan in which I spent countless highway hours over the next nine years. It had gray fabric upholstery, tinted windows in the back that popped outwards instead of rolling down, and captain’s chairs in the second row for my little sister and me, special ordered so that the two of us would not be forced to share the same bench seat. It was a terrible car, a lemon.

A few moments of those thousands of miles covered stick out in my memory. I stop the tape in my walkman and lean forward to ask what’s wrong, why are we getting off the highway again, we just stopped for lunch; I take off my headphones and ask my dad why the car is going so slow; we open the windows, crank up the heat, and turn the fan to high in a vain attempt to keep the engine from overheating; I wake up and gaze at the dusk as we pull into the parking lot of the Holiday Inn, Salina, Kansas. I wish I could describe the town, but all I remember of it is that Holiday Inn. It was nice: restaurant, pool, several holes of miniature golf in a skylit indoor courtyard that seemed impossibly large.

The Dodge had an AM/FM Radio with Cassette Player, but we were not a family who owned a lot of cassettes. In democratic fashion, we each had our turn choosing which tape to play on the car radio. My sister always chose her soundtrack to Disney’s Beauty and the Beast, ordering the rest of us to sing the supporting roles while she sang Belle’s part in her best six-year-old soprano. I don’t really remember what my parents chose; maybe some Frank Sinatra for my dad, while my mom probably humored one or the other of us kids by picking one of our favorites. I always chose one of three tapes. There was an album of early Bruce Springsteen (before “Born to Run”), a mix tape made sometime in the 80s hand-labeled “Music from Miami Vice,” and Paul Simon’s “Graceland.” The first of these has stayed with me since those childhood drives, and the second will hopefully never be heard again. It took me until college to rediscover “Graceland.”

I played the album again recently. Even though I’d heard it a thousand times, I had never really listened to the third verse of “I know what I know”:

She moved so easily, all I could think of was sunlight.
I said, aren’t you the woman who was recently given the Fulbright?
She said, don’t I know you from the cinematographer’s party?
I said, who am I, to blow against the wind?

It was contemporary to my life. I too was recently given a Fulbright, and I don’t know how to talk about it.

* * *

Even the phrase “I got a Fulbright” is part of the problem. The verb, particularly. “I got” seems more accurate than “I won” and is free of the self-congratulatory overtones of “I earned” or “I was awarded.” The word seems to downplay the fellowship, normalizing my acceptance letter by implicit comparison with a lifetime of things got, most of them mundane like haircuts or a new t-shirt.

I want to be able to tell people without feeling guilty, without feeling like I’m bragging about it. Some of the friends I want to tell may well have applied for similar opportunities but were mailed differently-shaped and -weighted envelopes. I want to leave the bragging to my parents. I want to remove the inflection from my telling, keep pride out of my voice. And so I look down when I start to answer their questions about post-grad plans. I smile, but only if they smile first. I get excited, but only if their eyes show me warmth.

In college, achievements stay on résumés; they don’t venture into polite conversation. The accomplishments we share with each other are few and are supposed to be self-deprecating. The only person I want to make jealous is an ex-girlfriend who was uncomfortably competitive; I hope everyone else can just be happy because it’s good news, maybe excited for me if we’re close. I don’t get a choice, though. This Fulbright is part of my life, so I’m expected to talk about it without sounding like an asshole, and that takes practice. We live in a social environment where it still takes six drinks for a friend to admit he was his high school’s valedictorian. I think we’re sick of the competitiveness that accompanies achievement. We are people and that should be enough.

I watched “Adaptation” last week. Self-congratulatory intellectual screenwriter Charlie Kaufman is threatened by his crass brother’s interest in his profession—he wants to enroll in a three-day screenwriting seminar.

Charlie: Screenwriting seminars are bullshit.

Donald: In theory I agree with you. But this one is highly regarded within the Industry.

Charlie: Donald, don’t say “Industry.” …Those teachers are dangerous if your goal is to do something new… Writing is a journey into the unknown. It’s not building a model airplane…

Donald: McKee is a former Fulbright scholar. Are you a former Fulbright scholar, Charles?

And I’m watching a little bit of my life again. The strange rhetorical weight of having to justify having something I hoped for but never expected. The anxiety that I will do something tragically ordinary with an extraordinary opportunity.

putting the car back in gear (non-literally)

Thesis is over, so now I can confidently say that I will get this shit started again. Life event summary (large-scale): I got a Fulbright to teach english in Hong Kong, I had a birthday and am still not accustomed to reporting my age as 22, I ate a lot of pho and was happy.

I'm hoping to do less chronicling of the crap that I do (those of you who took yamashita's seminar with me last spring likely share my distaste for the chronicle) and more of the opinions about things. This would be the putting into practice of Why I took that Creative Writing Class in the First Place: I want to be able to write well about things I find interesting/important and then have people want to read them. So. I basically liked the last two weeks' little pieces I did for that class soooo much that they'll be put up here. Also, some reflections on little life incidents, fears (like what losing my car forever will do to my self-identity), and possibly some begging people to accept a copy of my thesis to skim over and hopefully appreciate.

I got blood drawn twice in the last week and it didn't hurt that much, even less than I remembered. I'm not really afraid of needles, although I prefer not to watch it puncture my skin. I still have not donated blood in years, though. The last time I did, I nearly passed out during the finger-stick test-for-Fe-content part where they ask you if you've had sex with a man since 1977. The nurse missed the artery the first time, and after digging at my finger with the little glass pipette to try and draw out the last little bit she needed, decided to re-stick me. She was holding the finger-stick device over my next finger over when I got all pale and nearly fell out of the chair. I think it was the sensation of the glass tube probing around under my skin that did it, although the imminent needle-stick in another fingertip is nothing to look forward to. I disliked the physical reaction, the loss of control (my doctor called it a Vagus nerve reaction, I think, though I don't have a good memory for technical terms), but also the embarrassment at being turned away for my lack of fortitude. Even though there's apparently nothing you can do to prevent a fainting spell (and even though they can happen to anyone), the self-assurance at voluntarily driving to the clinic to give blood was forced to go head-to-head with my insecurity about being physically weak, and the results since indicate that it lost. Maybe someday I'll get over it. I think I'm gonna be off the hook for the next couple years for having lived in a malarial/bird flu zone, and a lot can change between now and then, so as an O+ who has internalized public service messages over the years about the good I can be doing, I'm hoping that I get over myself enough to subject myself to the risk of failure and go under the little finger-stick thingy again.