absentminded professor in training

1. i showed up an hour early to an event at h's house this weekend. an hour! early! it wasn't because i didn't know what time it started. and it wasn't because i didn't look at the clock. i looked at the clock, and the clock was right. i just thought it was an hour later somehow. i didn't figure it out until she answered the door with a very confused look on her face, and i was so disoriented.

2. when i got home today i was trying to unlock the front door but my key wouldn't work. i kept trying and it wouldn't fit in the lock and i was getting SO frustrated, "what the hell is wrong with my key?!" then i realized i was using the key to my office on campus.

3. just now i went to take my contacts out. then i brushed my teeth. as i brushed it slowly dawned on me...hey wait...how come i'm not wearing my glasses but i can still see? then i realized i had filled the wells in my contact case with solution, closed the case, and put the case away. empty. my contacts were still on my eyeballs.

i take these things (particularly #2) to mean that i am officially a grad student now.

***

i have long believed that if you want to excel, you should surround yourself with the excellent. i don't often set about that intentionally, but sometimes i am reminded that my friends really are outstanding. like now, as the next round of grad school acceptances roll in.

next week i'll turn in my fourth and final fellowship application for this year. in a way, though, i'm not too worried about it. i feel a certain amount of success-by-proxy, and i'm just happy to see my friends kicking ass.

it's fun watching the cream rise to the top.

marginalia

"o glamorous life!" i think as i sit here eating a late dinner, which tonight consists of a slightly stale poppyseed bagel (or "fresh beagle", if you prefer) cut in half, smeared with spaghetti sauce from a jar, covered in slices of mozzarella, and microwaved for 1:43. having just returned from a syntax reading group meeting (who pays attention to the syntax of things...) i find myself with several hours of comparative dialectology ahead of me, and me not wanting to begin.

speaking of new years resolutions already fallen by the wayside ("eat vegetables for dinner"), my main resolution was to accept more social invitations. but i'm realizing now that i have once again constructed a semester in which that might be impossible. why do i do it to myself? i know this is supposed to take years, but i think behind it is the same itch that makes me have the Incompetent Dumbass days when i make a glaring analytic error: i want to know it ALL and i want to know it NOW. and don't you try to tell me that i can't or shouldn't try to learn it all now.

you have no idea what i'm capable of, remember?

oh and i end up in places thinking why am i here, how am i here. i don't fit here. but maybe one never quite fits in a new place until the space moves around a little to accommodate their presence. at least this is what i tell myself on the days when i feel like i don't belong anywhere.