Is it too late for a comeback?

I'm considering a return to blogging. There's no time-limit for this sort of thing, is there? If so, please advise.

I mean, I only took 2.5 years off, which turns out to have been just enough time to give birth to my first child: the dissertation. Intellectual maternity leave is over; blogging shall resume.

liberty and its discontents.

Unsurprisingly, I have jury duty the same week that Tocqueville's chapter on the importance of juries is assigned reading for the class I'm TAing. Simply providential, if I do say so myself.

I can confirm that, as with nearly everything else, Tocqueville is right: juries are both incredibly inefficient (I spent all day at the courthouse but have yet to know if I've been selected for anything) and also an excellent way to remind citizens that they are connected to one another (I made friends with the guy sitting next to me, and it turns out he went to graduate school with my sister).

Tomorrow I have to spend a second day at the courthouse, to see if the powers-that-be are actually going to put me on a jury. In light of this, I've come to the conclusion that the extreme inefficiency of this process might outweigh the somewhat heartwarming face-to-face interactions I had with my fellow citizens. Sadly, I think almost everyone else in the courtroom had already reached this conclusion. Tocqueville would not be pleased. And as one of my students asked me the other day, "what's so great about liberty, anyway, if we're so willing to give it up?"

fortuna.

A little while ago, I received a fortune cookie with this gem inside: "The mystical is not how the world is, but that it is."

I always used to say that after I quit grad school I would run away somewhere and make a living writing trashy romance novels. I've decided on a different plan. When I quit grad school I will run away and write esoteric cookie fortunes. And my company will be called Fortuna's Crunch.

pretty young things.

“The beautiful, almost without any effort of our own, acquaints us with the mental event of conviction, and so pleasurable a mental state is this that ever afterwards one is willing to labor, struggle, wrestle with the world to locate enduring sources of conviction—to locate what is true…Beauty is a starting place for education.” < Elaine Scarry, On Beauty and Being Just

study habits.

The setting:
Comprehensive exams are in two weeks. I am about 50 books and a hundred miles away from being done with studying.

The dialogue:
Well-Meaning Friend: Hey Julia. How're things? How are you doing with comps studying?

Me: Not so great. I have so much to do! I really need to buckle down. I'm planning to just do nothing but study for the next two weeks.

WMF: Oh, too bad! So we won't see you [at our mutual friend's party] on Friday?

Me: Oh, no, I'll be there!

WMF: So you're buckling down after Friday, then?

Me: Yeah, pretty much. After Monday, actually. I have tickets to a play!

WMF: Right.

because they hate to be lied to, but like to lie...

"Because they hate to be lied to, but like to lie, they love to find things with the help of truth, but hate to be found out by it. But this is the revenge truth takes on those men unwilling to be found out by it: It not only finds out the truth about them but prevents them from finding it out. To this, even this, is the human mind reduced, to this blind, weak state, that it wants to hide its foul vileness from others, but wants nothing hidden from it." > St. Augustine, Confessions

i am woman, hear me...gchat.

J: i'm confused about whether my [male] friends are "boys" or "men."

A: are you similarly confused as to whether you are a girl or a woman?

J: yes, similarly. i could be either. but at 26, woman seems more appropriate.

A: i'm not confused, but its hard to change the terminology. we are women. they are men. but it's hard to start saying that.

J: sounds so...official! i am a woman. i need to practice saying that.

A: haha. and roaring.

J: hahaha