Kyle Is My Hero

Oh yes. My day has started off wonderfully! Kyle, who for all intents and purposes is my brother, found the version of Mrs. Robinson that has eluded me for so long! Ya know, in the movie The Graduate, when Ben is racing to get Elaine, and the version of Mrs. Robinson plays, "Stand up tall, Mrs. Robinson. God in Heaven smiles on those who pray." I have looked for it for YEARS and could never find it. Leave it to Kyle to find it within hours of me posting a video of it on facebook. The song itself is only 1:15 long, but I've listened to it a few times now and it's so good. I love The Graduate. And I love Simon and Garfunkel. And I love Kyle.

I'll Put Some Whiskey in my Whiskey

Ya know that saying about how people don't really change? I'm starting to wonder if that's true. I am not a suspicious person, but I could become one pretty damn quick. I'm also not a fool, and I don't intend on becoming one of those. But I'm not going to overreact until I have all the facts -- I'm also not prone to doing that. Which, by the way, isn't easy when you feel like someone with a speckled past is hiding something from you.

Getting drunk right now sounds good, but also really, really bad. I should probably not be listening to bluegrass right now, seeing as how every other song is about drinking heavily.

I Have Made A Big Decision

Basically, when all is said and done, I plan on performing my career in a way that, once I've become famous, the Beyonce song "Diva" is used in my biopic. Oh yes, I will work hard to bring a hella bunch of soul to Foreign Policy on behalf of the American people. And I will . . . oh, believe me when I say I will . . . be the female version of a hustla.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Ifr4fRjAz8

Another nightly convo down with no mention of Foreign Policy. Not sure if this is a victory or not . . .

However, I am adding a minor (probably International Politics) assuming it doesn't add any more time on to getting my degree. I don't want to take 6 classes a quarter; 5 is hard enough so far. And I'm looking into maybe trying for a "Stay-In-School" internship with the State Department for next year.

I'm not waiting around for the okay. This is what I want to do, and I need to get the ball rolling so I have a solid plan in place before next Spring. Which reminds me, I need to look at grad schools other than AUP. Even though, if it is an option, that program would be the best choice. The French have a long history with the Arab world, and having a degree valid both here and in the EU would be an awesome foot in the door in a lot of different countries.

The fact that I wake up every morning wishing I was in Paris is just an added bonus. . .

About Damn Time

So, I finally got my internet hooked up last night. It only took, like, two weeks to get everything delivered and in place. Yeah, little to say, I'm very pleased that I can now lurk the hell out of facebook in the comfort of my own home. However, the presence of the internet means it took me 3 hours to clean my one room apartment, because I kept taking "breaks" to refresh the page. Yeah, that might become a problem. But for the time being, cut me some slack.

Yes, I did clean my apartment today. I hadn't for the past few days, and things were getting cluttered. That's the one problem with living in a studio apartment -- if you leave things laying around, it gets very small very quickly. My apartment isn't too small, for a studio. For what I pay in this neighborhood (Lincoln Park) I can't complain at all. Things aren't that crowded, and I don't feel totally claustrophobic. I set my shelves up in the middle of the room to give me some sort of separation between living area and sleeping area. I have a pretty big walk in closet -- big enough to hide away things I don't really have a place for. And my kitchen is walk in, too, so it's not one of those "tucked into the opposite wall" kinda fake kitchens. Maybe I'll put pictures up at some point in time. I just have to take good ones.

I like living alone most of the time. Yeah, it sucks leaving school and knowing that everything I left in the morning is there to do, and there is no one else I can ask to help me out, but that doesn't get to me that much. I like having the freedom to do what I want when I want, and that the apartment is my space. It's pretty nice. I mean, Snicket is here, but she doesn't have any decoration preferences as long as I let her sleep on top of my cabinets.

Plan for tonight is, well, more interneting. 7:00 is my Keith Olbermann, who I missed last night due to setting up internet. Hopefully I'll be awake enough to watch Milk (trailer at right.) I got it over the weekend, and have yet to see it. I'm pretty good at judging movies based on the trailer (haven't been wrong yet) and I can already tell you this movie is great. I have to do some homework at some point, but I'm in no hurry. This afternoon away from it has been really, really nice. Maybe I'll just spend the next few hours dancing around my apartment some more (I never said I was cool.)

And Now Begins the Stewing. . .

Well, yesterday I talked to Ben. Not, of course, about the whole Foreign Policy issue except for very briefly. He apparently thought I was mad when I texted him, and even though I keep telling him I wasn't (and really, I wasn't) I get that wonderful, "Yes, dear," response that drives me crazy. What's the point in getting mad about it? I mean, it's not like he's going to change my mind on the matter, so why blow my top over it? Kind of like when we went to sign my lease, and he didn't want me to sign in until he saw the apartment. He got mad when I wouldn't relent, but I knew that I was signing the damn thing no matter what he said.

I guess the more time I spend thinking about the whole thing, the more his need to be in charge (is that the right wording?) is bugging me. I mean, I'm down with compromising. I agreed not to get my lip pierced when he asked me not to, I agreed to hold off on new tattoos for a while, I even went ice fishing for a week even though I was moving the day after we got back. But I also hate feeling pressured when it comes to making decisions. I'm in charge of me and my space; you can have yours, I don't really care, but as far as me and my corner of the universe, don't fuck with it. It probably doesn't help that we've both been busy this past week and pretty over tired when we talk, leading to more hostility than usual (including one run in that could have turned violent if I didn't let a few random comments directed at Poli Sci/politics go.)

But, I guess at some point we will have to talk about the whole thing. Not today, probably not tomorrow. Until then, I'm just keeping it all in the back of my mind. Not worth getting into an argument about until it's totally necessary, if it's necessary at all.

Urgh. I should just aspire to be that creepy old lady who lives alone on the edge of town. God knows it'd be a lot easier.

Never Ask the Cat for Relationship Advice

So, last night, by going out with a friend to have a few drinks at his pal's place, I managed to muster the liquid courage to finally tell Ben I don't want to teach. I don't want to work in education, I want to work in Foreign Policy -- I only came up with the whole teaching idea because I could get a job wherever he ended up. But, in doing so, I managed to overlook the fact that Foreign Policy is what I've wanted to do for a long time; it's my passion, and has been for years. I compared me going into education to him going into business; I'm not majoring in Political Science for no reason. And especially now that I'm back at DePaul, working hard and paying a small fortune for this damn degree, I want to get everything I can from it.

Then, after texting him, I fell asleep. This morning I had a few texts and a missed call from him. Basically he said he has a lot going on this weekend, and he can talk it all over later. I texted him back this morning that it isn't important, so don't worry about it. I hadn't intended on talking to him about this for a while, just because I don't graduate for another year and so it won't be an immediate issue. The fact that I know I won't hear what I want to (that we can work something out, so don't worry about it) doesn't exactly make me want to bring it up until it's really necessary.

I guess what it comes down to, and I know it might sound little kiddish, but he majored in engineering because it's what he wants to do. He has all this freedom to find the job he wants in the field he wants. And yet, even though when I graduate we will have the same level of education, I feel obligated to build my life around his if I want to this whole thing to work. It's not like he expressily has said I have to do that, but I definitely feel some pressure. I feel like, when all is said and done, if I'm not careful, I'll be the one giving up on all the things I want to do in life. And I don't want to end up looking back and resenting what I did with my life.

I know politics, I know foreign affairs, I know how to see the "big picture." I feel like I have good instincts for Foreign Policy, and an understanding of how US policy has shaped parts of the world, particularly the Middle East. That's what I want to work in -- Middle Eastern Foreign Policy. I feel like I could do really, really great things if I get into the right position. And I don't want to rob myself of that chance.