it's over. move to somnia.

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TARcon 4

I am an Internet TV geek. It is a long, slow process of realization, but at the point one finds oneself on the train to New York to watch a television show's season finale with a bunch of complete strangers in hopes of mingling with some of the show's stars--well, that's an undeniable fact. And that's where I found myself on Thursday.

The Amazing Race is not your average reality show. Contestants don't sit in a house all day or struggle to cook rice or jockey to marry one another; they run and fly and dive (and drive) and think. Over the course of 13 legs, they have to find their way around the world--in a given episode, they'll have to get from, say, Amsterdam to Bombay, load hay bales on an elephant, and navigate a crowded marketplace with any help they can get. They are eliminated not because their competitors have found any petty fault with them, but because their own luck and skill put them in last place on a particular leg. Better still, it involves teamwork: you're on the run with someone close to you (a friend or family member) and communication is paramount. This is a very good show. Consequently, its ratings have been permanently in the toilet--at least in the U.S. (Apparently, it has a very strong following in Asia.)

But there is a devoted core of American fans linked through the ether who have held a big party in Manhattan at the end of each season. They were surprised (and overjoyed) the first time to discover that many of the racers showed up. (Apparently, CBS had no interest in holding a celebration of its own. Their loss.) Having heard the descriptions from previous years' parties, being only three hours away by train, and knowing there's a good chance that this fourth season could be its last, I knew I had to go.

And I went. My schedule was somewhat thwarted by Amtrak: the train to NYC was over an hour late, which gave me under an hour to spent with some AmeriCorps friends I'd arranged to have a happy hour with. (But it was great to see them: Matt and Neene, you are patient and you rock.) Then the party got started...admission by prepurchase only, so no last-minute wanderers-in. It was intense. The episode itself was a crowd-pleaser, but an hour passes quickly. I have to admit that I spent well over another hour fighting to overcome my initial wallflowery inclinations, but it wasn't until around 11 that the racers started pouring in, and all of them--winners and losers, the on-screen pleasant and unpleasant--were given a hero's welcome. Oddly enough, I found that I wasn't able to make small talk with more than a few of the other fans and instead got swallowed up in conversation with the contestants. They were incredibly welcoming and very...physically affectionate. (I'll be curious to see how the pictures turned out.) Drunk and happy, yes.

It was agonizing to get on the train again at 3 am. Some evil part of my mind insisted that I had to be back in D.C. for the last day of classes (which, as it turned out, really wasn't necessary). Even before I'd arrived, I wished I were still in New York. But parties always end, and this one was no exception.

I guess it's appropriate that the culmination of my geekhood occurred just days before I give up all access to American television. It's probably a good thing...I need to spend more time outdoors.
peachy as always, Mike at 11:06 PM

 
Foot + Ball

Yesterday about two dozen of us played soccer in the Ellipse (a big grassy area between the Washington Monument and the White House). I thought that was pretty cool, especially after one of my teammates (a Palestinian) commented that there are quite a number of countries where it would be inconceivable for the public to use land a block away from the executive mansion for recreation.

Kind of sore today. And tired. But a good tired.
peachy as always, Mike at 6:07 PM

 
'Bucked-Up

Coffee coffee coffee coffee coffee. Coffee coffee coffee. My life in a nutshell.

Huh? Wha? I'm not a coffee drinker. In fact, when a classmate spilled her coffee all over the floor near me last week, I had to get up and move because the fumes were making me woozy. (True!)

But my resistance has been weakening. Yesterday on the Metro, I picked up the Washington Post and read through an entire essay* about how stressful it is to buy coffee at Starbucks because of allegiances to certain locations, the question of queues and motion, and the bewildering array of options on the menu. It was insipid, cliché, and five years too late, just as you'd expect. Later on, to recover from the midterm (midterms already!) I took that morning, I decided to go see Dirty Pretty Things.** The main character was fond of chewing on leaves (I assumed they were coca) to help him stay awake throughout his two jobs as a cabdriver and hotel concierge. Hmmm.

I haven't been up to par lately: a lot of studying, less-than-optimal nutrition, and choppy sleep. So today in class (at the ripe hour of 8 am), I found myself feeling unquestionably droopy. I turned to my roommate at the break and said--for the first time in my life--"I need coffee." Her eyes sparkled.

After being instructed in the differences between caffè latte and café au lait (foam, I guess), and a few more minutes of deliberation, I chose a mocha and headed back to class. It turns out everything I've heard is true: my head began to buzz pleasantly, my attention focused, my hand began to quiver as I quickly tapped my fingers (quietly, of course) and my bladder began working overtime. It was a rush! I'd tried to explain to one of my incredulous classmates ("Never? Oh, come on.") that I generally try to avoid things I can sense are addictive, and now...well, I want more.

It's true, then. Graduate school changes people. I didn't expect it could happen so speedily. Yipe!


*Yeah, when exactly did "the news" transmogrify from articles to essays?

** It's good. I recommend it. Your average finicky moviegoer might scoff at Audrey Tautou playing a Turkish Muslim despite her French accent. And the ending might be considered predictable or simplistic, but I liked it. The only part I found amusing was that the conversation (of immigrants from around the world in London) was about how much of a dream it would be to go to New York. OK, since you're talking about the difference in the standard of living: Calcutta to New York? Sure. London to New York? Not so much.
peachy as always, Mike at 2:26 PM

 
I

So I wrote a whole long thing about being an introvert and being suddenly reminded of it after a long time--since I'm now surrounded by unfamiliar faces and stuck in an intense situation with a lot of people in a small area--and how I know it'll take time for me to be at ease enough to make small talk with everyone (which is fine because I'm more given to standing back and absorbing information before I participate) and how it's a little weird sitting quietly among people chattering away during class breaks and also how some people seemed to instantaneously form cliques the first few days and how I'm ready to move on from D.C. already...but the stupid computers in this lab have a tendency to delete things when one hits "send" or "post" or "save" or "do not delete." Sigh.

All in all, I miss my friends. This starting-over process isn't fun.
peachy as always, Mike at 6:33 PM

 
Roses and Kittens and Air Travel...

My passport finally got delivered to the school, so I actually am free to leave the country as planned! Stupid USPS tried to divert my mail to Modesto before I specified and then apparently had a complete malfunction for a week or so.

So happy. So not-in-limbo.
peachy as always, Mike at 11:57 AM

 
...And then I went to the school's happy hour, drank a lot of free wine, met a nice Indo-Chilean girl named Maya, and we scoped out the cute-guy quotient on campus. The consensus: not much to look at. Oh, well. Good times.
peachy as always, Mike at 6:28 PM

 
Washington fucking scares me.

I don't mean it in the normal way: the people here don't really affect me much either way--so far, they seem like people anywhere. It's the city itself that gives me the creeps. It's gray and hot and wet and gray (first time, the buildings; second time, the sky) and loud. And OK, one thing about the people bugs me, but it's obviously related to the socioeducational circle I'm in: everyone dresses nice. I'm wearing shorts today (because, like I said before, it's hot. and wet.) and the minute I walked into the school I was very aware of it. People here wear khakis and dress shirts to class. Loafers. Vests. Granted, it's air conditioned in all the buildings, which minimizes the hot-n-sticky time to the few moments spent outdoors, but people! please! Think about personal comfort!

I'm pretty relieved that I chose to spend my first year away from here.

I'm also somewhat ashamed to say that, for the first time in my life, I'm feeling homesick. Pretty damn hard. California is really nice. I don't really know anyone here. I'm not sure if I'm going to do anything fun this weekend. (Except whining--that's pretty damn fun.) I think I may just be a couch jockey. I WANT MY PASSPORT!

Oh, but my preofessors are fun. 'N cool. Yeah.
peachy as always, Mike at 4:44 PM