I am here (and have temporarily abandoned abstractions).

I have been up at or before 8:00, since I've returned to Athens. It doesn't seem to matter what time I go to sleep. I wouldn't call it insomnia, really; I'm not laying, exhausted; I'm alert and energized. If anything, my mind's restless, but it's the good kind of restless that just needs the right creative channel.

Call it artistic inspiration? But I'm no longer daunted.

I've got some leads on programs for a year (or two) of service. And I know it's what I need. I'm appreciative of academia, in a way; despite my distaste for some of the bureaucratic roadblocks and elitist behaviors of this institution, I really am grateful to OU. I say all the time how grateful I am for Athens and for Appalachia and how I really couldn't give two cents about the university, but that's not entirely accurate. It has provided the venue. It has led me to a handful of really inspiring professors--Dr. Marciniak, Dr. Bloomfield, and Dr. Duschinski--who have radically transformed the way I approach knowledge (I have nothing but unwavering respect and admiration for those three women), like it has led me to the theories and texts that have becomes "ins" to my own, independent research. And so: I reject being the "poster child" of academia, but I do not reject academia. I know I'll spend a lifetime monitoring and curbing my own privilege, but I can't keep running from something inevitable (that I'm meant to be in academia, that I thrive in it, that I'll be involved in it--in some way or another--all my life), just because I'm disenchanted with the large-scale structural inequalities that have given me this path in the first place. I can't run Into The Wild. Not because I'm incapable of discarding possessions, of living a simple lifestyle... but because I really think I'll make a bigger difference if I work with, and not against, the existing institutions, if I change them from the inside.

But not now. Not yet. I refuse to go through motions. I'm not ready for an MA and I'm not ready for a PHD and I'm not ready for a Law degree. I can't enter those realms of learning the same person I am now. No, it's essential to take a break--and what better way to do that than a year or two of service? There's an innate selfishness that accompanies being a student; it's a time where one's time and energy is focused, primary, in the development of self. And that's not necessarily wrong; that self development facilitates later ability to give more, to do more, to contribute more to society--
but right now, for me, I find it isolating. And I'm ready to integrate myself back into a world I can feel, one that I know I'm not the center of. So there you have it: a few years of service. That's what comes next. I'm sticking to it.

And all this excess, "restless" energy? It's going to get me through this final stretch healthily.

Here's my (immediate) plate:
1. Thesis.
2. Capstone--on sexual violence against women (I am not really excited about that).
3. One last English class--on Keats, by a Keats PHD, so it'll be angsty, but beautiful. (I am excited about that).
4. Program statements of purpose/applications.
5. Internship with Adam Baker, Attorney and Counselor at Law
6. GRE in Spring (so I don't have to take it later).
7. A year of service abroad--right now, I'm leaning toward a program in Ecuador.
8. = improving my Spanish skills, which are, at this moment, quite rusty (but still there).
9. LSAT studying while in Ecuador.
10. Then a year in DC, doing service in my own country.
11. Then a MA, a degree in Human Rights Law, or both--depending on what the aforementioned experiences lead me to.

And here are my intentions:
1. To be a better listener.
2. To maintain better communication with my brother, and with all my loved ones who are not in close, physical proximity.
3. To balance my Pitta with lifestyle and diet changes--beginning with a detox/cleanse.
4. To further my yoga practice, which, like my Spanish, is quite rusty (but still there).
5. To practice more humility.
6. To remain thankful.
7. And to, despite all the sad things in this world, find enough to hope for to keep going.

steady. strong. unwavering.


I am here by Leslie Albanese is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

"sleeping with the enemy"

I couldn't sleep last night (a combination of the coffee-milkshake I drank with my Panera dinner--a bad idea that left me jived--, the looming "wherethehelldoIgofromhere" anxiety that I've been effectively--or maybe last night proved not-so-effectively--avoiding, and, at the risk of hyperbole, some "emotional turmoil" from supposedly caring too damn much). Is that even possible? To care too damn much, I mean? It's like being in some lonely camp all by myself: the caring corner. And it just feels like no one else gives a damn and they all just look at me and say, "give it up, Les," but how can I? Why are there not more people caring? And why are the apathetic always making me feel like an isolationist?

[I'm not usually this sinister, but being stuck in Central Ohio is making me go loony (no pun intended this time)]. And I don't want to live a mental separatism. So what do I do? I write about it. But inevitably my writing becomes all cryptic and abstract until it, too, becomes its own separatism--my own linguistic world that no one else can fully reside in, that no one can truly enter. A defense mechanism, maybe. And a subconscious one, at that. I'm not one for dishonesty. I couldn't live a double life if I tried (though I'd never try). And yet I feel torn between two wholly contrasting feelings separating my being. I love people. I do. I love them. And I love being with people. And I love serving people. And am shocked and shocked again by the number of people who have reciprocally blessed my life. It's humbling, really-- the number of people who care. (look how contradictory I'm being). But there's this side of me that feels totally alone, even when I'm in a room full of people who love me. Because my mind is somewhere else--some unreachable place--and because, despite my rationality, I'm ultimately moved by feeling over logic every time--and I cannot fully understand or articulate these feelings or the flashes in my mind (usually not even complete sentences) and consequently lose my ability to share (despite my hopeless earnestness) the fundamental-most part of me.

"I am the cat who walks by [her]self..."

My mind's been flashing with: gender binaries, and parasites, and lions, and "Eating from the Outside" vs "Eating from the Inside," and the social construction of "enemy camps", and how complicated they are, and Eichmann, and institutional compliance, which quickly becomes complacency, and the conjunctive relationship between interior and exterior threats-to-being, and rats, and bodies, and violence against said bodies--sometimes using rats, and bullying, and the way the new Sufjan song made me feel all angsty like the sleigh-bells were saying "consumerismconsumerismconsumerism," and my own inability to let go...

All-the-while flashing with: my parents' good natures, and The Christopher Spirit, and milk-crates, and this Pitchfork interview with Jeff Mangum, and the farm, and community, and collective identity, and the way it can be a positive thing with conscious participation, and Cornel West, and language, and what that really means, and whether or not art really can be the ultimate revolution, and knowing that love really does exist, and...

And this is all occurring while my white middle class privilege comfortably manifests: in my friend's apartment, eating chocolate chip cookies, drinking orange juice, and watching The Office (season 3). If this were satire, I could appreciate the irony like a good ugly sweater party. And maybe this is satire after all. Maybe I've got you (and myself) fooled, and I'm living "Behind Enemy Lines." Maybe I'm taking myself too seriously. And maybe I'm becoming an ego-maniac. Maybe I'm not.

"sleeping with the enemy" by Leslie Albanese is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.