the theoretical life

So only in the past couple of months, and thanks to a fairly recently developing interest in philosophy, have I been thinking about such grandiose ideas as the purpose of life and knowledge. It all started, I'll admit, with the book Closing of the American Mind, by Allan Bloom.

 

He expresses a lot of interesting ideas in the book. I agree wholeheartedly with some and disagree violently with others, but it was the first book I've read in a long time that really made me think. I read the whole thing twice, struggling to follow his arguments and seeking out some of his sources, but it was as if a door had been opened for me. He dedicates a large part of the book to an intellectual history, starting with Plato and following the development of philosophy in Europe, the radical break that was the Enlightenment and its effect on the founding fathers' doctrine of human rights. He then moves back to Europe and writes a confusing but intriguing history of the effects of Continental philosophy on America. His framework is a discussion of the state of American higher education, and it is in the last section, where he steps to the defense of the intellect, where he is most compelling.

 

Anyway, he offers an eloquent defense of the life of the philosopher and the intellectual, arguing that they have an invaluable place in society. He continuously hearkens back to the great minds of the past, and asserts that it is just because we have removed the classics and rigor from our curriculum and forgotten these great thinkers that we haven't seen anyone rise to rival them in our own time. The university, he believes, is meant to be a repository of all the accumulated knowledge, with philosophy, as the study of knowledge and the discipline that addresses life's most critical questions, at the head. Instead, philosophy and the classics are languishing, forgotten, thrown in with the social sciences that struggle from their inability to define themselves. In the meantime, the natural sciences, which never have to justify their existence, flourish separately, with no concern for the other disciplines. It is this radical divide, he argues, that is at the heart of the problem of the university.

 

He addresses the accusation that the life of the intellectual, a life spent thinking, is frivolous in the face of such real problems as war. Devoting oneself to thinking seems to lack utility, which is the American standard for value, and even the academics themselves have come to doubt themselves, and the usefulness of their enterprise. So, the universities are no longer unified and confident repositories of knowledge full of models of the theoretical life, but rather fragmented and uncertain, encouraging specialization and doing little to teach students how to think or live.

 

That defense of the theoretical life, of the pursuit of knowledge for knowledge's sake, was probably the thing that most affected me. In my first few years of university, I admired my professors deeply, wanted to be an academic myself and had great respect for the mission of the university. At some point, however, that started to peter out, and I began to doubt whether all that I was learning was really preparing me for anything. By the end the life of my mind, so to speak, was practically dead.

 

But Allan Bloom has almost singlehandedly revived it. I'm thinking again, and what I'm thinking about lately is the purpose of life. More on that later.

love letter to reading, cont'd

I felt an urge to write a little bit more about reading, and why it's so crucial to my life and sense of self. These two books in particular, both written by Alain de Botton, triggered these thoughts:

1. The Consolations of Philosophy. This book distills the work of six philosophers to offer practical advice for facing everyday social, romantic, and financial problems. The chapter about Michael Montaigne, in particular, talked a lot about the advantages (and shortcomings) of reading.

2. How Proust Can Change Your Life. In this book, de Botton offers more practical self-help advice, this time from the life and writings of Marcel Proust.

The Joys of Reading
De Botton quotes Proust in saying that in books, readers are actually "reading their own selves," and that he "privileges the connection between ourselves and works of art" very highly. But why? "Because it is the only way in which art can properly affect rather than simply distract us from life."

This is, perhaps, one of the best descriptions of the ideal purpose of literature that I've ever read. And it illustrates perfectly the dichotomy I see between bad art (escapist art) and good art (affecting, edifying art). All the "bad books" that I read in the past couple of years were nothing but escapism. I entered them with this purpose in mind, and they didn't touch me or affect me in any way. I didn't see, or read my own self, in the characters. And for this reason, they were, as Proust says, little more than a distraction, usually pleasant, from the dredge of everyday life. Which is not to say that there's no use for escapist art. Whereas I try not to waste my time on bad books, I frequently watch what I know are bad movies, and even enjoy them. They're not edifying, but they're still entertaining, which is their purpose. Most TV is the same. Sometimes, when I don't want to think too hard, I just want to laugh without being affected or edified too much. And that's the success of art as escapism.

But great books, and great art, de Botton argues, can do so much more than that:

"Ruskin had expressed things that Proust might have felt himself but could not have articulated on his own; in Ruskin, he found experiences that he had never been more than semiconscious of raised and beautifully assembled in language."

Everyone has, I imagine, had this experience, where the author seems to have plucked something inchoate from the soul, and expressed clearly and beautiful what had previously seemed ineffable. My favorite line in the movie The History Boys deals with a similar feeling:

"The best moments in reading are when you come across something - a thought, a feeling, a way of looking at things - that you'd thought special, particular to you. And here it is, set down by someone else, a person you've never met, maybe even someone long dead. And it's as if a hand has come out, and taken yours."

That "maybe even someone long dead" strikes me in particular, because I've been reading a lot more "classics" lately. I'd never been a big lover of the classics, dismissing them, obviously erroneously, as outdated and boring. I've always been more drawn to contemporary fiction--my three favorite novelists (John Irving, Richard Russo, and Haruki Murakami) are all alive. But thanks, again, to Tim, I read both Crime and Punishment and Anna Karenina in the past month. And I absolutely loved AK, although when I tried to read it in high school I found it boring and quit almost immediately. It's nice to know that my tastes are advancing, I guess. Shakespeare is a notable exception, a dead writer that I pretty much generally appreciate, but I still haven't read anything beyond his most popular plays (for fear of being bored or confused, I imagine). I guess it's not just that I dismissed the classics as outdated, as some aspects of them inarguably are, but rather, that I'd seen them as irrelevant. Proust expresses it perfectly:

"People of bygone ages seem infinitely remote from us... We are amazed when we come across an emotion more or less like what we feel today in a Homeric hero... It is as though we imagined the epic poet... to be as remote from ourselves as an animal seen in a zoo."

De Botton continues: "But an advantage of more prolonged encounters with Proust or Homer is that worlds that had seemed threateningly alien reveal themselves to be essentially much like our own."

The reason I'd previously been unable to appreciate books written long ago, and been skeptical of what they had to say to me, was because I suspected I had little in common with these characters from such a different age. Before starting AK I feared Russian society life would be incomprehensible (and boring) to me, then was pleasantly surprised. And as promised, I was able to identify strongly with Anna, and found that her world was, although vastly different, essentially much like my own in all the ways that mattered. At Proust's suggestion I would like to go back and read the Iliad again, keeping in mind particularly that the characters are, in fact, humans with emotions just like mine. Inevitably, I will see myself and people I know in all well-crafted characters, no matter when or where they were crafted. That's the mark of a good author. I guess Proust is right... I really do try to read myself in every book.

The Limitations of Books
There are, however, limitations to what we can learn from books. Tim and I were discussing, recently, how people who read often are generally assumed to be "smart," at least in some way. (I'm guilty, I suspect, of thinking that I'm smart for this reason too.) And while reading certainly is necessary, Proust argues that just reading is not enough to enrich onself.

"It becomes dangerous when instead of awakening us to the personal life of the mind, reading tends to take its place, when the truth no longer appears to us as an ideal which we can realise only by the intimate progress of our own thought and the efforts of our heart, but as something material, deposited between the leaves of books like a honey fully prepared by others."

I have, in the past, finished a book and felt as if I'd accomplished something, or gained something. But I've forgotten nearly every book I read in the past twenty-three years. I've forgotten most of the facts I memorized as a history major, and retained only a small percentage of the arguments I struggled to follow. I've read hundred of novels, but I can't name many characters that really affected me, or quote lines that struck me as so thought-provoking at the time. I like to read poetry, to pick it up and read it and put it down, can name several poets who I like, but I can't quote more than a handful of lines, or express, with any concreteness, why it is that I like them.

Too often the things I read go right through me. Looking only to be entertained, I don't grapple with the content, or struggle to understand, so I don't remember or learn from what I read. I stumble on striking ideas, underline or highlight them, then say to myself, "That's interesting." Maybe I even mention them to someone else. I then feel intelligent, accomplished, as if I've gained some sort of knowledge. Up until very recently, I would have considered just the fact that I read as sufficient evidence of my "personal life of the mind," but this is what Proust warns against. For the author, he says, the ideas of a book can be rightfully called "Conclusions." And, he argues, "There is no better way of coming to be aware of what one feels oneself than by trying to recreate in oneself what a master has felt." But for the reader the author's ideas can only be viewed as "Incitements," prompts to one's own thought.

"Reading is on the threshold of the spiritual life; it can introduce us to it: it does not constitute it."

I've made the mistake, for a long time, of thinking that just reading could constiute my spiritual life, could make me an intellectual. But that is, no doubt, one of the reasons why my spiritual life seemed lacking... In order to have a real spiritual life, I must look for myself in what I read, attempt to follow these masters to their conclusions, and then see how I can apply them to my own life and efforts. In this way, I pick up where the author left off, and only then can I say I've truly begun.

Something I forgot, the perfect summary of why I love reading, by Michael Montaigne: 

"It consoles me in my retreat; it relieves me of the weight of distressing idleness and, at any time, can rid me of boring company. It blunts the stabs of pain whenever pain is not too overpowering and extreme. To distract me from morose thoughts, I simply need to have recourse to books." 

... is not a fish you can catch

I was thinking, the other day, about when I feel truly happy. There's those fleeting feelings of sensory happiness--the involuntary smile when I taste something really delicious, or when a good song comes on the radio. And those are genuine happiness, but they're short-lived. But one thing that really makes me happy, an enduring satisfied feeling, is being productive. It's not just the feeling of success, or accomplishing something, although those cause happiness too. Just the indisputable knowledge that what I'm doing is leading me in the right direction. Put as simply as possible, I'm happiest at those rare times when I want to do happens to coincide with what I know I ought to be doing.

And the good thing, I guess, is that I'm starting to realize one or both of those factors can usually be changed in order to foster happiness. Like when I was doing an Honors thesis--I never ever wanted to work on it. I knew I needed to, but I because anxious and miserable and even the idea of it. It was becoming more and more clear to me that I was not going to go to grad school for history, and it was so unappealing. But I was so sure I had to finish it, so whenever I was doing something else (which was all the time), I felt guilty and miserable because I knew I needed to work on my thesis.

Then, a lightbulb: I realized that I didn't have to finish the thesis, and it was such a huge weight lifted off of my shoulders. I discovered that the thesis wasn't really that conducive to my long-term goals, so I quit it. But other tasks that I don't really enjoy are sometimes necessary, so I have to do them. In that case, in order to make myself happier, I need to either a) find a way to make them more appealing, or b) do them as soon as possible, as quickly as possible, and not let them weigh on me. This is how I used to feel about lesson planning. For my entire first year in Korea, I hated lesson planning. I loved delivering the lessons I'd planned, and teaching, so obviously this was something I would just have to work around. I always put off the planning until the last minute, and was miserable when I did it. Thus, I was always finishing things up at 1am or 10 minutes before class, which was stressful, and even worse, I didn't enjoy myself for the preceding evening while I was with friends, because I felt guilty about putting it off.

A big part of this, I know, is just my propensity for procrastination, which is something I tackled at the same time. At the beginning of my second year in Korea, I vowed that I would stop procrastinating, specifically on lesson planning. I had an average of 4 free hours at school each day, but because I hated lesson planning, I would do anything to avoid it, which was so much time wasted. Instead, I vowed to only lesson plan at school, because I had more than enough time, so that it would never be hanging over me after I left work. And to my own surprise, I actually did it. Sure I still didn't enjoy it very much, but two things helped: 1) I had honed my skills and now it took me less time, and 2) I was doing it in the most favorable conditions, when there weren't really other things to do that were much more fun, and I knew that doing it now meant I wouldn't have to worry about it later. So I'm at least satisfied a lot more often at school, because I'm able to enjoy what I should be doing.

---

Speaking of happiness, lately I've started reading a lot more, and it really is making my life better. It's as if in the past few years I'd somehow forgotten what I always loved about reading, and saw it more as a chore than an enjoyable pastime. I've also always loved movies, but in the past few months I've started to become a TV watcher, which I consider a huge waste of time. Part of the problem, I think, is that for the past year I've been reading books that were just bad. Korea gave me a lot of time to read, as it was one of the few ways I could amuse myself in my own language, but all I had was the dregs. I bought books I genuinely was interested in every once in awhile, but mostly I just read a mishmash of things I picked up and borrowed, and it stopped being enjoyable. But lately I've read a slew of really amazing books, and I remember what a sheer joy it can be to spend a whole day with a book.

Reading is, for me, the perfect hobby, because it often fills the criteria for happiness that I just laid out. It's an enjoyable hobby, but it's also edifying. Especially because I'm an English teacher and a writer, I can, without stretching, feel like I'm doing some sort of professional development--feel productive while doing something I enjoy. And since Tim inspired me to start reading non-fiction, my apprecation of reading has expanded even more. I love good stories, and believe without question that we can learn a lot from them, but there's something different you can get from non-fiction. I'm experiencing a personal renaissance with the classics lately, and have just been thinking a lot about why I think reading is so vital to human growth. And finally, (with the help of more reading!), I'm finding the words to articulate it:

Reading, better than any other medium, exposes you to the stories, experiences, and opinions of a wide variety of people, many of whom are wiser than you. When a non-reader attempts to answer the great questions of how to live life, or faces a problem, who can he turn to for help? His family, from whom he may have consciously or unconsciously gleaned many of his beliefs, or his friends, who often have the same level of experience and wisdom as him. Oh, and sitcoms.

A reader, on the other hand, has access to, quite literally, the wisdom of the ages. Alain de Botton's Consolations of Philosophy has been revolutionary for me because he does a great job of showing that philosophy offers much more than pie-in-the-sky abstractions, which is what I previously thought. These great thinkers have offered some real, concrete advice on how to live a good life and deal with troubles. And reading is the only way to access the ideas and thoughts of anyone born before the twentieth century. Do I seem to have an overinflated sense of the importance and usefulness of the past? I guess it's just because I'm also a historian.

So unlike watching television and using Facebook, when I read, especially non-fiction, I actually feel like I'm improving myself. I don't feel guilty, as I do when I feel like I'm wasting time, or when I know I ought to be doing something else. It's enjoyable and productive--my perfect recipe for happiness.

twenty-four

So I have twenty-four more days in Korea, and rather inexplicably, I'm suddenly starting to realize what this means. In twenty-four days, I will no longer be living in Korea. I'll be leaving behind this country where I've been living for the past two years. Leaving behind a job I've spent a long time adjusting to. Leaving behind an apartment I've grown attached to. Leaving behind people... 

Well, that part's a little harder. Thankfully, or unfortunately, I haven't become so close to any Korean people that it will actually be hard to leave them. I'll miss my students, but I had practice with saying goodbye to two groups of them as they graduated, so I'm not terribly attached. The co-teacher I was really close with changed schools this semester, so I haven't been seeing her as often, and though I'll miss her, it won't be devastating. Plus, I'm sure we'll still e-mail. I'm starting to feel a little sad about saying goodbye to Mrs. O, the only co-teacher I've had for the full two years. She's the one who isn't very good at English, but we've been together a long time, and she's always been helpful. And I know I'll never talk to her again, which is, I guess, what makes it sad. 

I'll miss the job, but hopefully I'll be teaching in America. I will, I'm sure, sometimes feel marginally nostalgic for the streets of Naju, my haunt, but the good qualities of Orlando will hopefully make it easy to let go. I think I really might miss Korean food. Scratch that, I just Googled it, and there seem to be three decent Korean restaurants in Orlando. Excellent.  Mostly, I'll just miss Tim. I mean, I know that we'll keep in touch, and I'll go visit him in California sometime. But it's just sad that we won't be able to have dinner three times a week and share books anymore. He was such an important part of the past two years that it's hard to believe he won't be a physical presence in my life anymore. 

I was reading a few blog entries from last year around this time. I was counting the days until I thought I was leaving for good (before I decided to extend), and was full of these big plans to blog everything and take lots of pictures and travel so that I could be sure I accomplished everything I wanted to in Korea and wouldn't have any regrets. Now that I'm getting so close to the end again, the same worries are arising. I should make sure that I blog often, not only for the purpose of having these entries to look back on but also just because I feel like I get more out of life on a daily basis when I'm doing some reflection. I should take pictures, although I'm no photographer, but just to have some to look at when I feel inclined. It sucks that I haven't had a cord to upload pictures for the past six months. I feel like if I had I would have taken more, but I can at least take a bunch in the next few weeks so that later I can create an album of the best of Korea. 

As for travelling... that's tougher. The one place I really want to go is back to Chuncheon, where we stayed for six weeks during Orientation, and Tim and I have plans to go sometime in the next couple of weeks. I want to revisit the university where we stayed, walk around, take pictures. The city is famous for two dishes which I'm dying to eat, so it'll be nice to have those. I feel like I should go to Seoul and do all of the touristy things that I've never done, but... I don't like Seoul. I don't like doing touristy things. The weather's too hot, and it's exhausting, and I'm just not that interested in it. There's a few other cities I feel like I should go, or that I once felt compelled to visit, but again... it's money and time and energy that I just don't feel like expending on it. People are going to ask me all these questions about what I did in Korea and where I went and I'm going to say... I just hung out in Naju, a tiny farming town, for two years. 

Is that weird? 

dance like you've never been hurt

"Just think of how many projects, travels, love affairs, studies, it--our life--hides from us, made invisible by our laziness which, certain of a future, delays them incessantly."

--Marcel Proust, as quoted in Alain de Botton's How Proust Can Change Your Life

This is one of my favorite passages in this book, where he reprints Proust's reply to a Paris newspaper that asks the question, "What would you do if you had only a short time to live?"

It's not that question that struck me, although I should probably think about it. It was more the way he described our laziness as "hiding" possibilities from us. It seemed strange to me at first, but then it really struck a chord. There are so many things that I want to do, so many steps to my grand plan that could be done on a daily basis, that I just... don't do, and I don't even know why. Is it really just laziness? When I have a rough day it's just easier to go to bed early than to stay up and think about what went wrong, or to watch a meaningless show on TV rather than write, or to spend mindless hours with friends rather than study a language or read the news. In short, it's just easier to fill time with distractions like those than to motivate myself to work independently towards my goals. Why? Two reasons. One, because those activities are not actually more exciting, but are less mentally and emotionally demanding. And two, what Proust says, because I'm convinced that I have my whole life ahead of me to accomplish anything I want. When in reality, that's just as likely not true.

But for me it's not so much that I worry about being struck down before I have time to accomplish goals X, Y, and Z. It's more that I feel like the quality of my everyday life would be better if I was really doing the things I wanted to be doing everyday. Taking the bull by the horns, seizing the day, whatever. It's easy to bide time, to find reasons not to do something quite yet. And even easier to find things to do to fill the hours, things that aren't demanding, that seem like living. But I don't want to watch TV anymore, or spend hours on Facebook stalking acquaintances. I want to read thought-provoking books and spend time with real friends. Don't get me wrong--watching TV and Facebook can be entertaining, and it's fine to do them briefly for that purpose, but I feel like I get them confused with living, and that's not how I want to spend any large percentage of my time on earth. That's not what I would do if I had only 24 hours to live, and it doesn't make me any wiser or kinder or better in any way. It's just filler, and in reality, we might not have as much time as we think.

60 days

Wow, this is the longest I've gone without blogging for two years, I think. Slightly over two months. But I'm back, and just in time, because... I only have 60 days left in Korea. I think I'm only just now starting to realize that I'm actually leaving. I've had this sensation before... I could probably scroll back not too far and find another entry where I wrote the same thing, but that was before I met Manuel and before I decided to stay an extra six months. And every other time I thought about leaving Korea I felt there was something holding me back, or that I just had more to do or more to learn and wasn't ready to go. Now, I don't feel that way. I'm definitely ready to go home.

Don't get me wrong, I'm starting to feel sad about it. I mean, I've lived in this town, and done this job, for two years now. That's a long time. Almost as long as I worked at the Honors College, half as long as my whole college career, and four times as long as I spent in Ireland. This is a big chunk of my life, and I can intuit that I'm not going to have the slightest idea how important it really was until I've left it behind for good. So in honor of that, a new feature of this blog, which I'll try to do daily, if possible.

Things I Will Miss About Korea (TIMAK):

#1 Noraebang

I've raved about this before, but it is something I'll really miss, so it bears repeating. As you know, noraebang is like karaoke... sort of. At a noraebang, there are a bunch of private rooms, ranging in size from relatively small (two people snugly) to huge (>10 people) with karaoke machines. There's lots of English songs to choose from, and obviously loads of Korean ones, and some of my best memories were made in these rooms. Back in the day when we used to go with Amy and Meghan, and even now, when Tim and I just go and spend an entire hour singing the same songs by ourselves... It's so fun. I will go ahead and acknowledge that I obviously harbor secret dreams of being a famous singer, and that I love holding the mic and rocking out. But I'm not brave (or talented) enough to do this in front of a crowd, so it's nice to be able to do it alone in a room and not have to worry about what other think. I'm proud of the awesome repertoire of Korean songs that I can sing, and I should probably be ashamed of the number of hours I've spent practicing them, but I'm not. It was loads of fun, and I'm going to miss it a lot when I leave.

I was going to announce that I'd made another big change to my life plan, but then I realized that I hadn't ever even written about the last development, so I hardly need to. :) I ended up getting offered the AmeriCorps position with College Forward (in Austin), and was, for about a month, really really excited about it. Even now I'm sure that I would have really enjoyed it, but recently I decided not to accept it. I started thinking about graduate school again, and realized that I think it's time to do it. Then I started looking into the application process and came upon a possible problem. Most schools look for the letters of recommendation, and I can think of only one person who I might possibly be able to ask, and she's changed universities. Yes, the letters are relatively unimportant when applying for an MFA in Creative Writing; it's the writing sample that they really look at. But I still need to be able to at least get three letters from people who know who I am, and it's been two full years now since I was even at UCF, 4 since I took English courses.

Then, I had a miraculous thought. I'd committed almost entirely to College Forward, but what if I... didn't go? What if I went back to school at UCF instead? I could take the one workshop I needed to graduate, and also a couple of other writing workshops. That would give me time (read: force me) to create a few more pieces for my grad school application writing sample. It would also give me a chance to work with some professors and cultivate some letters of recommendation. Plus, I'd get back into the swing of school and make sure that I'm ready for grad school. So I've been re-accepted to UCF, fought hard to get the perfect classes, found a place to live, and now the only task left for when I get back will be finding a job. I'm not looking for anything great. I want to live frugally so that I have few expenses and thus have to work few hours. I want as much time and energy as possible free to write write write.

And so far, tentatively, we're off to a good start. I edited the hell out of one of my old stories, and am still doing so, in order to submit it to a few literary magazines when I get home. I'm pretty sure that once I manage to do this once, and receive my first rejection letter, the dam will be broken and I'll feel like I'm really doing it rather than thinking about it. And I've written the first four pages of three new stories in the past week. The problem I'm running into is the will to continue, but I guess I have to tackle one problem at a time. It used to be the will to start that was my problem, so this is progress.

More later.

i love crime shows

I got a complaint about how long my last entry was, but I had a lot to say. I have a lot to say today, too, because I haven't blogged in a week. Some things did start to resolve themselves a bit, and I feel better today than I have in a while. 

He's not the most important thing, but I'm going to update and conclude the Manuel topic now and get it out of the way first. He texted me on Monday morning to say he couldn't meet in the evening to get his stuff. Didn't say why, but then he said something else in Korean, that might have been "Do what you think is best with it" or "Arrange it for me." Tim wasn't sure. I said, "Hey, whatever. I'm not mad at you. If you decide you want your stuff, call me." He replied with: "I don't have any bad feelings towards you either. I'm just really sorry, so I can't meet you anymore." Okay? So I put it all together Monday night and texted him to make sure he was in the dorm before leaving it under a bench where we used to meet. It was weird that he didn't reply to say thanks or anything at all. It's possible that he actually did want to see me to receive the stuff, but he said he couldn't meet anymore, and I wanted it out of my apartment. I texted him on Thursday to ask if he'd received it (I shouldn't have), and he said: "Yeah, I got it. Have a nice life." That's not as snippy in Korean as it is in English. It's sort of a common thing to say. "Live happily" is perhaps a better translation. So yeah, that's totally over, my apartment is purged, and I can honestly say I don't miss him. I sometimes miss having someone on call, but that's unromantic, and it's not him, and things about him that bothered me a lot still come to me unbidden on a fairly regular basis, so... that's that. 

I was really dreading yesterday, because it was White Day. White Day, as I've mentioned before, is the day when the Korean man returns the favors he received on Valentine's Day (which is a one-sided affair), and girls get theirs. As I now no longer have a Korean man, I figured the day (and the accompanying displays in every store), would just bug me to death. Not so. I texted Tim to see if he wanted to go to Gwangju or go into town. He didn't reply right away, so I figured he might still be sleeping, but then around ten thirty there was a knock on my door. I figured it was probably Jehovah's Witnesses, but I was pleasantly surprised to see Tim standing there with a White Day basket of goodies for me from the bakery. I got candy and lollipops and cookies, and it got my day off to a good start in spite of the odds. 

And more good news... the job search is going pretty well! I had an interview on Tuesday which seemed to go well. He seemed to be into me, and said he would set up another interview with a few other people within the week, so I'm waiting to hear back from him. That interview was for Phoenix Charter Academy's Urban Fellows Program. It's in Boston. It's a tutoring job, working with high school students who "didn't experience success in other traditional schools." They provide housing (sharing a room in a house) and insurance, plus a $15,000 living stipend. So it sounds like a good deal. I want to work with high schoolers preferably. I wouldn't mind living in Boston. I found out during the interview that this is the first year they've actually done this program, so he started talking about how it would be good for someone with an "entrepreneurial spirit." I know what that means: Things will be crazy and disorganized, but I can say I was in the first class of tutors and helped to start it all out (if it turns out well). It was really appealing to me as I was talking to him, and I feel good about my chances of possibly being offered the job. I should also say that of all the ones seriously pending, this one one of the highest living stipends.

I also heard back from another program, College Forward, which is in Austin, Texas. I have an interview on Wednesday morning with them. It's an hour long interview, so it might be the real-deal all-in-one final interview. (I'm just so relieved that I'm even hearing back from these programs who know that I can't be there in person to interview!) College Forward would be really pleasant too. They provide insurance. They're a non-profit that works in a few under-served high schools with the mission of helping disadvantaged HS students get access to college. It sounds super cool. (See the website.) There's an application process for the kids who want to get involved. They have to be in the top 60% of their class, eligible for free/reduced lunch or prove need in some other way, and get letters of rec and write a personal statement. So I would at least be working mostly with students who really wanted to be there, which would be great. The position is called "College Coach..." I'd be teaching SAT/ACT prep courses and helping with basically every step of the college application process (researching colleges, writing application essays, financial aid, etc...) This sounds like fun! And according to their website they have a 100% success rate with their alumni getting accepted to a university, so they must be doing something right! My best friend C lived in Austin last year doing AmeriCorps with a different program and loved the city, and she said she met some of the people doing College Forward at an AmeriCorps rally and they seemed cool. 

So yeah, upsides: great city, closer to home than Mass (though not by much), established program, friend who has experience with the city to help me out. The only downside, really, is that the living stipend is pretty small. They don't provide housing, and it's $950 a month. Carrie lived on approximately the same amount. She said you just get roommates (probably from the same program) and live frugally. I won't be able to save any money, but Carrie says surviving on that amount won't be difficult. And that's fine. I want to teach and get experience for a year, and I just don't want to have to dip into my savings. The nice thing is that it starts in mid-August and ends in mid-June (only 10 months), so I'd definitely be able to finish and get the $4,725 scholarship for grad school and do TFA or a similar program if I wanted to without quitting early. So I'm nervous about the interview, because it sounds so good.

I got emails from two other programs that they received my application and would be considering it, and I should hear back within the week. One was my first choice, the prestigious program in Boston, and the other is in California. The CA program is similar to all the others, but there's more teaching training and a relatively huge salary. You get $30,000 for the year as well as a $2,500 relocation stipend. So if I did get this one, there would definitely be an appeal in that, even though it's so far away. I want to get at least three offers... so I can have a choice, and talk it over with the fam, and weigh the pros and cons. I want to know that I'm wanted at least by a few places, and not just one. 

I ate really really badly all week. I didn't even get on the scale the past two mornings because I didn't want to see the number. I was afraid it would depress me and I'd have to fight temptation to give up. I was feelings down about things, which was part of it. I also hadn't been able to run for ten days because of my foot. Not being able to exercise is so hard on me. Partially because I still struggle with snacking and eating right, so I rely heavily on exercise to offset nutrition indiscretions. And it works... I haven't lost any weight in the past month, but despite eating a lot, I also didn't gain any... until I stopped exercising. Plus because I don't spend an hour or so everyday exercising, I have more free time... to fight the urge to eat. And exercising is just good for me. It gets me out of the house, it clears my head. I'm less tempted to binge eat when I've run on that particular day, because I don't want to invalidate a 45 minute workout in 5 minutes. For the past week, I've just eaten everything, and a lot of it. 

I'm starting to figure out why, maybe. When I feel down, like this week because of my foot injury, I feel helpless. I feel like I can't control things, or I stop caring about the immediate future. When I eat three donuts I know, intuitively, that it's bad for my efforts to lose weight. I know that it won't even feel good an hour later, when I feel gross for it. But when I feel down and lose sight of caring about the future, I only care about the immediate gratification of the donut.

The good news is that I ran today, and it was wonderful. I bought new running shoes last weekend, thinking that the oldness of my shoes might have had something to do with the injury, which was probably a repetitive stress injury of some sort. It was frustrating, because the selection was really limited and they didn't even carry women's shoes in my size, so I had to buy a pair of men's. Then I got them home only to discover that they're a little smaller than I would have liked. I tried them out today, though, and it was okay... I had a little bit of a strange feeling and discomfort in my other heel at first, but I ran on the grass around the track and it was fine. I did about two and a half miles, thirty minutes straight, and it felt good. I'm going to cut down to three runs a week instead of four, take it easy, but I think I can get back on track now. And I went to the store and bought weights so that I can lift at home from now on. It's good.

School is better too. I have my schedule. I teach 15 hours a week, down from 17 last semester. My new students are okay. Plus... I just don't care nearly as much. It's a good thing, perhaps, because I definitely used to care too much. I deliver my lesson. Everyone speaks at least three sentences. It's four more months.