news from the black hole

my life at the U of C

Monday, November 10, 2003

So I've decided that this is going to be a kind of online Pensieve/mental garbage disposal for me. Laugh at me if you will for my attempts at profundity (that is the noun form of "profound," no?). This was actually written before the beginning of the quarter; I may have gotten stupider since then:

I’m going crazy.

In Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig, the narrator speaks of the “mythos” created by society and how those who step outside the mythos are the insane.

The epiphany of the day was that language is what makes us human—a grid placed between us and the world by the culture into which we are born so that we may organize and categorize and in a specific way understand what we see, hear, feel, smell, and taste. But it is not only between us and the world that this framework for comprehension is placed; it is also inserted between us and…us. Our thoughts and our emotions. Superego and ego. Maybe none of that is right, which implies that there is no “us” save that which society has created. But what I mean is that the way in which we understand our own thoughts and feelings is also molded by concepts we have accepted from childhood as real and objective. Love, sadness, anger—these and others like them are the names we try to apply to the sensations of our brain and body. And I wonder if we don’t try to mold those sensations to fit the names when we can’t find the right word.

.: posted by Lindsay 10:31 PM

Monday, March 03, 2003

So clearly the gravity in the black hole has been stronger than usual as of late--this seems to happen around 4th week and 8th week every quarter. But 9th week shines like a beacon in the dark dark night...by which I mean it is a week free of midterms. Plus, I have things to brag about. The University of Chicago fencing team went to the Midwest Fencing Conference Championships at Notre Dame this weekend. My personal contribution to the event (besides the X hundred dollars in entry fees and lodging the team owes me) was to help Women's Foil NOT finish last (along, of course, with to Joanna, who started two weeks ago, and Marion, who recently had a Fencing Epiphany--as Clara would say, "you guys rock my socks!"). Woohoo! In the individual round, I placed 11th out of 40-someodd people. This was exciting. The previous sentence is an understatement.

What else, what else...I recently applied for three Study Abroad programs: Barcelona, Oaxaca (Mexico), and Vienna. The former two are in winter, the latter in autumn. Liz and Brandt will probably be in Europe next winter too (respectively, London and ?)...how cool and Hemingway would it be if we were all over there jetsetting around and visiting each other? Answer: SO COOL (So Irish! as Johnny K would say). Only sad part: no U of C fencing next winter if I'm away. :( (And consequently no officer's position...ah well, Charles will undoubtedly make a better president than I.)

Ok, enough frivolity for the moment. I have to go finish up a resume and cover letter--I'm hoping to go back home to work at the Hershey Medical Center this summer...rats and bacteria and yeast, oh my! TTFN, ta ta for now.

.: posted by Lindsay 7:01 AM

Friday, January 31, 2003

I have created a web page. The universe is mine to command, to control.

I want a cookie.