on embarrassment.

A couple years ago, I gave up on embarrassment. I can't remember what served as the catalyst exactly, but I do remember realizing one day how tired I was of being embarrassed. It was, for years, the emotion I was most frightened of--avoiding embarrassment, and by extension, humiliation, was primarily what I dedicated myself to during both high school and college. This may seem like an excellent idea--avoiding embarrassment and humiliation--but you have no idea how boring it was. Think about it: most fun things in life are potentially embarrassing. I avoided all of those things.

The problem, you see, is that along with a fear of embarrassment comes an extremely well-developed sense of pride. Shame, unlike embarrassment, has very little to do with pride; shame has to do with feeling guilty about actual bad behavior. Embarrassment, on the other hand, is just about ego. When you have a very well-developed sense of pride, almost everything is embarrassing--mostly because it's all in your head. It's exhausting, really, because you're constantly on the look-out for the possibility of losing face, when in reality you're obsessing about minutiae that no one in the world sees but you. It's extremely tedious, let me tell you. So, a few years ago, I quit embarrassment. This was just around the time I started this blog, I think, which was also around the time I decided to apply to grad school. Not at all coincidental, I would say.

Why I am bringing this up now? Well, I was at a grad school dinner a few weeks ago where a visiting professor told us (in the midst of making introductions) that his favorite thing to do with his students on the first day of class is to ask them to tell everyone one fact about them no one would know, and one embarrassing story about themselves. Picture it, if you will: this suggestion is made to a handful of graduate students (mostly male) and a handful of middle-aged professors (all male) and someone then says, of course, "Julia, please, why don't you start us off?"

If there was ever a time to be embarrassed, this would have been the moment. And it was embarrassing, but not for the reason you would think. The problem was not that I was asked to start, since, having given up embarrassment, I no longer care that much about telling personal stories to a table full of professors and colleagues. No, the embarrassing part was that I couldn't think of any embarrassing stories. I've got stories, sure--I was mugged at gunpoint once, there was a time when I fainted in an elevator, and I fell into the lake in Central Park when I was little--but none of those stories struck me as really embarrassing. Fainting and getting wet just don't count, as far as I'm concerned, and everyone just gets nervous when I bring up the mugging story. In any case, I just blanked! At the time, I actually considered making something up, but I'm not that good a liar.

Being embarrassed about not having anything to be embarrassed about is a strange payback for a life of pride, I think. Probably serves me right, though.

there she ain't!

Four (true) scenarios:

1: I run into a friend in the hall. He says "there she is!" in response to my greeting.

2: A professor, upon entering a room in which I am the only person present says, "there she is!" in response to my greeting.

3: Another friend enters the grad student lounge. Despite the fact that there are four other women present, he says "there she is!" in response to my greeting.

4: Sitting at a table in the library, I see yet another friend approaching. I wave. And guess--just guess--what he says in response: "there she is!"

Very good, dudes. Here I goddamn am. What is with you all these days, anyway?

the people we used to be.

"I think we are well advised to keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be, whether we find them attractive company or not. Otherwise they turn up unannounced and surprise us, come hammering on the mind's door at 4 a.m. of a bad night and demand to know who deserted them, who betrayed them, who is going to make amends. We forget all too soon the things we thought we could never forget." > Joan Didion, On Keeping a Notebook

the gender gap.

Yesterday, my new glasses arrived in the mail. I picked them out a couple weeks ago, when I was in New York visiting my family. After opening the package, my first thought was that there had been a mistake, because these glasses were way more hipster than I remembered. My second thought, on realizing that I had not in fact been sent the wrong pair of glasses, was that I couldn't imagine my mother actually allowed me to purchase them. After spending the whole morning wearing them, however, I think I remember why I picked them. The moral of this story: change is hard, especially when it messes with your face.

Also, I had coffee this morning with three of my closest male grad school friends. I was wearing my new glasses, feeling all self-consciously hipster, waiting for what I thought would be the inevitable snide/disingenuous comments. The result: not one of them said anything about my new glasses, despite the fact that two out of the three of them walked right past me without recognizing me.

Men are so strange.

that point.

Remember when I wondered if I would ever reach the point where there were simply not enough hours in the day and days in the week to get everything done? No need to wonder any more: I have reached that point. It is a very unfortunate point to reach.

I hate finals. Can coursework be over now, please?

the aristocrats.

Undergrad student: I just really can't reconcile these obvious contradictions in the text. Why can't we just say the author [name redacted] is wrong?!

Professor: Well, it really comes down to whether or not you have an aristocratic or democratic sensibility...

Undergrad student: Excuse me?

Professor: If you have a democratic soul, you will always have an impulse to finally reconcile the whole with the parts. You won't be able to live with contradiction; parts that don't fit with the whole will have to be ignored or discarded. If you have an aristocratic soul, you will be able to appreciate contradiction and realize it is often the most interesting part of any text. You will be able to fall in love with great authors, while still remaining critical of their work.

Two hours later...

Me, to a friend: I always knew I was an aristocrat! And today, Professor [name redacted] just confirmed it. Score!

a mind is a terrible thing to lose.

I lost my wallet this morning, for the second time in two weeks. Both times, I've lost my wallet somewhere in the library, and both times, someone has turned it in to the front desk without taking any of my money (or, thank god, my coupon for 40% off at Banana Republic). While I'm concerned about my inability to hang on to my belongings, it could be worse: prior to these last two mishaps, the last time I lost my wallet was in college, also at the library, and that time I got it back with no money left in it. (However, in terms of bad news, it just so happens that this morning one of my students was working the front desk at the library when I went to retrieve my wallet. And yes, I am shallow enough to have been embarrassed that he saw the hideous picture on my student ID.)

Alas. There are two lessons to be learned here: 1) Students here are remarkably honest and trustworthy (or perhaps, simply, less in need of my $5) and 2) I am well on my way to becoming an absentminded professor.

Time to buy a tweed jacket and start smearing my lipstick all over my teeth.