2. Don’t abuse alcohol.

3. Start eating dinner in such a way that you are a functioning, mobile human in less than an hour afterwards.

note on that second one. remember learning in health class when you were like 12 what ‘binge drinking’ meant? at 12, of course, i was like ‘o i’m so l33t thats lame i’d never do that’ and now its like wait a minute thats what we all do every weekend. now that i have remembered there is a term for drinking like this (well, in addition to ‘abusing alcohol’), it strikes me as a more real issue. and you really can’t just keep drinking like that after college. (which makes half of me say keep doing it and the other half say cool down.) i mean, whatever, its not a serious issue (i just realized this has all been sounding rather sombre). Really, this will just let me lose weight, save money, and not wake up in a stupor. i mean, just imagine how much better you would feel if you only ever drank one or two drinks! I dunno, ima try it out.

note on that first one: i don’t know why i keep cracking my back when it actually hurts now. lame.

note on that third one: i mean, im in England. thats gonna be difficult.

note on alicia key’s original of ‘empire state of mind’ that’s now being played on the radio: it sucks.

New York Times article about the Christianity of the founders. Coming to England has given me an interesting view on this: mainly that the whole debate is a little ridiculous.

So the article is about how the Texas school board wants to essentially superimpose Jesus Christ onto American history by saying that, for example, the notion of checks and balances derives directly from Mosaic law. And that the reason there are three branches of government is that the founders recognized that man was a fallen creature so they couldn’t trust any one person with too much power. This sounds like bad literary criticism. Yes, it so happens that the fallen state of man could make a person divide power equally, but that doesn’t mean it did (ever, and especially not in this situation, where there are much clearer influences like o I dunno the Enlightenment).

The article is, unfortunately, pretty poorly reported and not anything close to balanced, but I guess it would be hard to take a lot of these ideas seriously.

So these people are working on the notion that the founders were Christian and that they always had the idea of establishing a Christian nation. And while (or maybe because) this is a rather silly manifestation of our obsession with our founding myth, it highlights the absurd meaning we inject into our founding fathers. One English girl was telling me how freaked out she was by the monuments in DC, essentially temples to men who died 150 years ago (and often less). And you think about it and youre like wait yeah. Who cares what Thomas Jefferson said in a private letter to a bunch of persecuted quakers or something (thats where ‘separation of church and state comes from). Why does everything the country does have to be founded on the precedent of what a couple of document written over 200 years ago say? And I’m not talking about the laws, because obviously those need to be consistent and have precedent. But we’re getting into moral issues here. The constitution and declaration aren’t just about laws, obviously, yet they are constantly cited as precedent for moral, social and religious issues. Why on earth would they apply to the current times?

And that’s why this one instance of this fetishization of our founding myth put the whole thing into perspective. The purpose and exercise of religion has changed so fundamentally from the time of the founders. As far as I can tell, you pretty much just had to say ‘God’ all the time, like the president ends his speeches with ‘God bless’ or whatever. This is a discrepancy England can recognize and be comfortable with. Every night in Hall there is a latin prayer said before dinner, and its not really a big deal because Christianity is recognized as a historical force, not only a religious one. And that’s because thats what religion has always been – BOTH. So you can’t just superimpose our understanding of religion on the founders’ and say they wouldn’t want us to do this. Because shit fucking changes. And how ironic that America, so much of whose myth rests on the rupture of tradition and the emancipation of everyone, is so slavishly tied to this.

And like, that’s it.

Furthermore, I feel like more people than it appears feel the same way I do. And I really think if all those people just came together, we would all have a lot more fun. We could still drink and have fun and shit, but just differently. And that’s something it takes a while to get used to when you just pop into a culture and see that the easiest way to go is with the current. And that’s good and necessary for a while to get yourself into the flow, but then you have to just chill.

And I have already done this at Midd, but for some reason it didn’t transfer. I think the reason is that the physical environments are so different. At Midd, you can go to parties in someone’s suite or at their house, and those spaces just don’t exist here. The effect is that ‘going out’ means going to a club. There just isn’t anywhere else to party. Further, this is such a small community that there isn’t the breadth of options that even Middlebury has (never thought I’d find myself thinking Middlebury was a big community).

And then I was thinking even more about this, and I started thinking that my ideal schedule is totally different than the one I am on now. Ideally (and this is impossible ideally for college it seems), I would wake up at 6, go for a run, have breakfast, read, have lunch, read, have dinner, read, have a drink with friends, and go to bed at 10. I just love the mornings so much, and I miss them. So I think I’m going to try to get myself somewhere closer to this schedule. Maybe go to bed at 11? Is that possible?

Very good news, which is the culmination of months of private frustration over the fact that my favorite public figure refused to admit allegiance to my favorite public cause: Lady Gaga admitted she was a feminist. In the past, she has made ridiculous contradictions in her interviews, going on and on about how women are treated unequally by the press and how she should be allowed to express herself however she wanted without getting questioned (all of which, if you haven’t read every single post on this blog, is true), only to then run away from the title ‘feminist’. Which is understandable, seeing as it would probably be a career-ender to a pop star any less steeped in her own eccentricity than Lady Gaga is. In fact, who knows is people will even take this seriously? Will people just be okay with her accepting the title of feminist because she wears bubbles for dresses. ‘O just another one of her weird little quirks’. That’d be a shame.

Also, dinner was really good last night.

Lastly, what the hell am I going to do this vacation?? I really, really do not want to go back to the states. All suggestions that don’t involve paying 20 pounds a night to stay at Oxford all term are welcome.

This article talks about that, how cancer patients are often told to be aggressively positive in their attitude towards cancer, to embrace it as a gift. And really, if you look at that attitude objectively, outside the emotional and physical turmoil of cancer, it’s absolutely absurd. It’s a lovely thing to tell yourself when you have cancer because you need something to make you feel better, and telling yourself that a positive attitude will save you makes you feel like its in your control. Telling yourself it’s a gift gives you power of it. unfortunately, that power is illusory, and probably damaging in its eschewing of reality. The article very rightly says that this happiness is not the goal.

However, then it takes a pretty bold leap to say that therefore happiness cannot be the ultimate goal because we must always confront the truth. The question I am left with is: Is ‘positive thinking’ the same thing as happiness? Let’s remember that the same guy who said fuck Plato I love the truth is the same guy who says that happiness is the ultimate goal of living. Isn’t there, then, some inherent connection between truth and happiness?

Alright then, how far do we forego happiness in our pursuit of the truth? Whats the progression here? Does happiness come only once we have realized what is true for us, only once we have found out who we are? Sounds good, except that I’m not trying to wait until my existential meaning-of-life-revealed-at-instant-of-death moment in 80 years. But isn’t it sometimes necessary to sacrifice happiness in pursuit of something ‘higher’? Like truth, right? So, for example, school is hard sometimes and you are definitely not always happy under all the stress and pressure. But in the end, it will lead you closer to truth, so you recognize going into it that it will be worth it. If all we cared about the whole time was being happy, we would (as my mom so eloquently puts it) just sit there and masturbate all day. Yes – exceptionally happy, but also devoid of any truth.

So, is truth, then, the means and happiness the end? Are we pursuing happiness by means of truth, knowing the truth will make us happy? Again, I don’t know how I feel about that; if you keep putting off happiness, justifying your suffering now by saying, ‘well, school sucks, but once I graduate I’ll be happy’ then ‘working sucks, but once I get that promotion I’ll be happy’ then ‘dating sucks, but once I’m married I’ll be happy’ and so on, when will you actually be happy? It seems to me we must learn to be happy right now if we are ever going to get there.

But how do you do that? How do you stay happy in a less-than-ideal situation without denying reality, without sinking into ‘positive thinking’? Is it even possible or healthy to be happy all the time, regardless of one’s external conditions? What about ambition? What about pursuing dreams? If you are always content with yourself, what will push you to do more?

Well, what if happiness isn’t the same thing as complacency? What if you can be happy with your present and still have ambition for a better future? Why does unhappiness have to be the force that motivates us to improve our condition? What if we were driven by, I dunno, happiness? Why have we all bought into this notion that the only way to go anywhere in life is from rags to riches? Why does happiness presuppose previous unhappiness? I think part of that is just our whole ‘protestant work ethic’ thing where we value individualism and shit and can justify any sacrifice so long as it improves our socio-economic standing. We want to live out this myth that we are all self-made men and women, entirely responsible for our current happiness. We want to tell everyone what we had to put ourselves through to get here. Otherwise, why do we deserve it? You have to work for everything. You have to be self-sufficient, independent. Fuck welfare! I made it on my own! Anyone who can’t just isn’t strong enough! You died from cancer? It’s your fault for not having a positive attitude!

See, I think this can lead dangerous places. Suffering cannot be necessary for happiness. This is phony individualism. It is pride. It is a show. I say we shouldn’t have to prove our justify our happiness. I say we can happy right now and that’s fine. The idea that happiness comes at the end of a journey leads only to external happiness, whereas if you can be happy internally, you can remain happy throughout the journey. If your happiness is not dependent on your external condition and exists independently of your goals and ambitions, you can always be happy. If your happiness is not tied to what you have accomplished, happiness is free.

It’s like what kids learn playing soccer. ‘It doesn’t matter if you win or lose; it’s how you played the game’, right? If you teach a kid to only be happy if he wins, good luck consoling him when he gets laid off from his dream job because of the recession. All of these things are only external indicators of our situation, only things other people can look at and validate. Happiness should come from a sense of self which is not subject to the randomness and ups and downs of life. Happiness is having enough confidence in who you are right now that nothing needs to change for you to be you. Nothing needs to be proven. That is truth. That is the truth about who you are. Truth is happiness.

I’m really excited that American pop music (even at its hip-hoppest) is starting to embrace eurotrashy electro shit. Does anyone else feel like pop music kinda had a big turning point a couple years back with Timbaland doing all that shit with Nelly Furtado and Justin Timberlake? Cause I kinda do, and I kinda think the same thing is happening, but probably in a bigger way, this time led by David Guetta, who wrote ‘When Love Takes Over’ and ‘Sexy Bitch’. Can he revitalize Kelly Rowland (seriously who knew she was still alive?) and Akon like Timbaland revitalized Nelly Furtado and Justin? We’ll see. Hm also I suppose Lady Gaga could be part of this? Her stuff is kinda electronicky, no? Huh.

And by the way, Barbara Walters loves Lady Gaga. almost as much as I do.

Wait a minute, speaking of ‘Sexy Bitch’, what’s everyone’s take on that song’s attempt to ‘find the words to describe this girl without being disrespectful’ while being called ‘sexy bitch’, saying the girl is beyond compare to your ‘neighborhood ho’ and pulling everyone’s favorite double standard of praising the way she got her ‘booty shaking’ while saying she needs to ‘slow down’ because she’s the ‘baddest thing around town’. (That stopped being a question, didn’t it?) One possible explanation is that Akon is making fun of hip hop artists who demean women, but the level of misogyny is, unfortunately, not high/outrageous/even obvious enough to most people to support that. Also, Akon’s attempt at irony would only work if the people he was making fun of claimed to be respectful of women while simultaneously objectifying them like that. If that were the case, if rappers said their descriptions of women were virtuous, that would Akon line’s effective. Unfortunately, it’s not the case, and Akon cannot pretend to be above all that (considering the song ‘I Want to Fuck You’, if nothing else). Therefore, that song is absolutely ridiculous. But it has SUCH a good beat. So…

Speaking of shit music, has anyone ever wondered how bands like Brand New and Fall Out Boy and stuff wrote their music? I dunno about other people, obviously, but I stopped identifying with that music when I was 17. I mean, all those bands write about is high school shit (sometimes explicitly, but its usually pretty obvious anyway). How did they still care about that stuff in their early 20s, and often later? I dunno, the songs are just so clearly written for people who are, I would argue, usually significantly younger than the artists are at the time of writing it. That is often the case, of course, but it seems especially striking in a genre that is so personal and emotive (and honest?).

I have recently been writing far less interestingly and frequently, I feel, for which I would apologize if I didn’t think apologizing to your imaginary blog reader is awfully megalomaniacal (where the hell does the stress go on that word?).  Of course, so is the guilt I feel every time I check how many people have visited the blog on days I didn’t update. I guess I would feel better if I were just more upfront with myself about this: I am probably going to write less frequently this break as I try to focus on my reading. Okay, I feel better.

Also, don’t cancel your cell phone plan when you leave the country for 10 weeks because then you won’t have a cell phone when you come back.

So I am leaving today (I think?) to start my little trek around England with some people, visiting people’s houses and shit, which is going to be a blast. Then home for almost 4 weeks, then to Madrid for a couple days, then back up for the next term. Somewhere in there I have to read thousands of pages of modern and restoration literature. Should be a blast. Actually, it really will be. I’m so excited. Woolf, Joyce, Yeats, Faulkner, Milton, Pope, Marvell, Dryden and other stuff too. It’ll be great.

I really need to cut my nails. And my hair.

Another thing I really need to do is spend a lot less money next term. Like, roughly half. It’s just insane how much you can spend when youre surrounded by clubs and restaurants and stuff. And it’s not even like I go out to eat or go clubbing every night (or really more than once or twice a week).I guess this means even more JCR toast. That’s fine.

Being at Oxford has been weird as hell. Amazing, absolutely. But studying abroad in such an academic way is so odd. I feel like I’m getting a totally different experience than everyone else who is like living in a city or doing some crazy service learning type thing or is trying to learn a new language on the fly and all that stuff. Like, I’m pretty much doing the same kind of thing I would be doing back at Middlebury but in a slightly different place. But, really, its more than slightly different in a lot of ways. But still, it’s the same day-to-day kind of routine, the same emphasis on school and all that stuff. And while I do feel like I’m missing out on some stuff, it’s also really cool to do this, because it has made me such a better student. I feel like my senior year is going to be a lot more successful now, which is exciting. It has also shown me what my priorities are a lot more clearly than I ever could have realized staying at Midd. Being forced to remake myself here has led me to kind portray and understand myself differently, which is inevitable and good.

Probably the biggest difference is that now pretty much all I care about is being happy as often as possible, and I’m willing to sacrifice essentially anything to that. As a result, I’m pretty much consistently happy all the time. But not like ecstatic, speed-consuming happy. Just very content. And I used to think that would be shitty. But I love it. Unfortunately, I recognize that that kind of equilibrium is only possibly because I’m in an incredibly protected environment where I have a very simple list of responsibilities and very few variables. So I don’t think this levelness is going to be able to carry on too long, but I’m enjoying it quite a bit for the moment.

K. I’ma read some shit.

I’M DONE for the term! Fuuuuuuck. Now I just have to pack up my effing room and pack to go home and to Italy (!) and maybe do laundry? Ew. I got through term only doing laundry once, which is either sexy or not sexy, and probably not sexy.

I could not be more excited for next term either. We’re doing Restoration Lit (Milton, Dryden (??) and Pope (!! – well actually, only the ‘Essay on Man’ gets the !! cause I don’t know anything else)). And then I also get to do an independent study of modernist lit, which is just the best. So right now I’m thinking Joyce, Faulkner, Woolf and then either Conrad or Forster, but I can’t make up my mind about that last one. One thing I would like to do, though, which I don’t think will be possible, is Modernist lit from other countries (specifically the authors that just so happen to be on my lit studs comprehensive reading list…) but here at Oxford they don’t really believe in exposing yourself to other cultures. Like, apparently the English students weren’t allowed to discuss American lit in their exams (except, of course, for Eliot, who they are happy to claim).

For some reason, I’ve been really into the idea of living in Miami recently, which is completely bizarre. But it’s like, a rather substantial city, that just so happens to have beaches and warm weather all year (and hurricanes…?) and like, some pretty legit stuff. Although its subway system isn’t underground. Which is the coolest part of any city, so I dunno how I feel about that.

Woah wait also this performance is sooo good!

Woah, also, though, this is absolutely the worst song and video everr. And it’s so horrible because its my two favorites together and I just cannot figure out why the hell its like this. Like, I’m almost positive that it absolutely has to be a joke. Like, I dunno, doesn’t it look like Lady Gaga is kinda making fun of Beyonce in this really low key kind of way? Also, the fact that its Beyocne ft. Lady Gaga and called ‘Videophone’ while another single was just released which was Lady Gaga featuring Beyonce and was called ‘Telephone’. I dunno, there’s just no way this is serious. But then again, it’s not quite over the top enough to be certain, which leaves it in this horribly awkward middle ground that’s just painful to watch.

Telephone, though, is good. And so is Alejandro, even though its like … in kind of poor taste, no? Well, maybe not, but it’s just so heavily influenced by real hispanic pop. So maybe that’s just her trying to use that influence, but it also seems a little … weird somehow. I don’t know why.

Okay, I obviously have nothing of value to say right now. its december!

I don’t think I have ever remembered so much about my childhood as I do every week here. It’s really bizarre. I’ve thought about things that I think I’d thought I’d forgotten (huh. need a past-past-perfect there. we don’t have one. weird. maybe I didn’t really need one.) Like just all these tiny little memories about like kindergarten and stuff. And I think I wrote about this before, but that’s actually quite similar to how  I think about my future too, and having a family and stuff. I just imagine doing all those kinds of things with my kids, and you really can’t help but imagine your future in terms of your past. It’s the only other way of imagining the non-present, really. And I feel like my whole life I’ve read stories about the importance of memory and all that shit about ‘in search of lost time’ and stuff and trying to get back to your memories and I’ve never really gotten what the big deal was. But I guess the farther away you get from the things you remember best, the more you want to get back to them. (Given the triteness of this realization, I am guessing I am probably the last person in the world to come to it.) But I mean it in some really profound way…ya know….like…cool.

And actually what I’ve started to think is that thinking about my future is the same kind of escapism almost. Like, the way I envision my future and seeking the best way to have as much leisure time as I want and all that … sometimes I think some of that might be stemming from the workload here, and me just wanting to imagine something a lot slower. So I kind of live in that moment (retirement?) to pull myself through this one. And not that I’m stressed here. I’m the least stressed I’ve been since like … 9th grade. Which is absolutely amazing, to have the opportunity to study all these amazing things and be able to do it in a way that never stresses me out. So I think the future I’m imagining is being able to work like this but without anything in the future to worry about. To just be able to experience a pace like this indefinitely.

Actually, sometimes I worry (mostly jokingly) that I’ve run out of ambition too early in life. Honestly, I can’t imagine anything better than retirement. I mean, working and all that stuff sounds good sometimes, but really, what could be better than just reading and talking to your friends all day? And see, that’s essentially what I’m doing here, and I don’t have any exams or anything to worry about. So I’m thinking of this kind of like my break, my year of retirement. Which is why its so lovely. Why not just try to live like this for the rest of your life? What else could we possibly be here for but to be happy?

But, I think I can still be happy living at a slightly faster pace and working for something and all that good stuff. I think its really just the mindset that needs to stay, the outlook that the point of all of this is to be happy right now and not worry about the future and getting a promotion and shit. I mean, we’ll see if I can maintain that once I start worrying about jobs and shit (definitely not) but I’ll try. Yeah, to live with the mindset that you’re retired in a way, that THIS is the purpose of what you’re doing, that you’re not trying for anything bigger or better or anything, but that everything is an end in itself, that you are content with how you live. To paraphrase Nas, nothin’s equivalent to this retirement state of mind.