Tuesday, September 1, 2009

reprogression.

Grad school started yesterday, and at this very moment, I am in the library. It's a pretty hideous building, designed in the brutalist style and made of concrete. I am in the basement computer lab, searching for articles on JSTOR, and in a minute I will go upstairs to the student coffee shop, where I will drink watery but caffeinated sludge and read Tocqueville.

Is it 2007? Because, as far as I can tell, I'm back in college.

Grad school: tentative progress or huge regression? The jury is still out.

10 comments:

Becky said...

Wow.

That is very weird.

Jennie said...

yay! julia's blogging again! :)

soon you'll start thinking of yourself as someone who's in the 22nd grade.

FLG said...

From your description you must mean Lauinger, and I'm very sorry for you.

Julia said...

Becky: I know. I keep expecting to come across some member of the 5402, sitting in an armchair, dozing off.

Jennie: See, I just can't tell whether that's funny, or infernally sad.

FLG: Um, yes. And I take it that your pity means you've already concluded that grad school is a regression?

Miss Self-Important said...

At least everything you need is in one library. I have like 15 libraries, and they are not even open for regular business yet and serve NO COFFEE (also possibly yet, it's hard to say). And they search every inch of your bag when you leave, lest you attempt to filch an entire book by squeezing it into a cellphone pocket. Hasn't there been some kind of barcode reading machine invented to do that job?

How were the classes?

Julia said...

A library without coffee? I don't believe it. Nothing would get done! But then again, if they sell candy you should be ok, right?

No classes yet, just registering for classes. They start Thursday; freakout is impending. And you?

Miss Self-Important said...

The sugar is no longer sufficient--a sure sign of aging.

Mine start tomorrow, except only kind of b/c there is no pre-registration here--one of at least hundreds of bad ideas in the administration of this place. I think maybe it's possible that EVERYTHING was better at Chicago. Anyway, call me on Friday and we can commiserate.

FLG said...

"And I take it that your pity means you've already concluded that grad school is a regression."

No, concluded that Lauinger is the most craptastic library in the history of Earth. Dark, Dank, and Depressing.

Julia said...

Sad. I was hoping that, regardless of its unfortunate appearance, I would eventually grow fond of it.

Jennie said...

i think the 22nd grade thing is funny at first, and then the longer you think about it, it just gets sadder.