The Other Pasture: Why's it Gotta Look So Damn Green?

I mean, I know why. You know why. So why can't I catch myself making it so green that all I want to do is run over to it and frolick naked and free? That's the real question.

So what the hell am I talking about?

I am talking about how today I had one of those, "it'll all be better when I'm not a student" moments. Not that unexpected seeing as how I'm a first year PhD student. Even less expected seeing as how I'm Isaac Curtiss Brandt. Man I can really be flighty and fantastical in my thinking. That last sentence was probably redundant.

Anyhow, after having a bit of a freak out after really contemplating what I think is the thin line between sacrificing and suffering. It's one thing to be consciously choosing the sacrifice of the lonely grad student life for the eventual satisfaction (and hoped for fulfillment) and security. It's quite another to just be unconsciously suffering through something (whatever the underlying motivation may be). I know, I know, I'm probably starting to sound a bit Freudian here. But stick with me.

Two things. One, I think that this is the first time in my life that I've committed to something requiring serious sacrifice. Two, I'm realizing that I didn't fully comprehend (really how could I have) just how big a sacrifice it would be to leave my close friendships, family, and familiar surroundings. Three (you knew there couldn't be just TWO things), I'm not good at sacrificing. I am extremely selfish. I am also extremely childish. I think it may ultimately just come down to the fact that I pretty much just want to play all the time. Can't do that in grad school.

Good news is that I do HAVE to play in order to be a healthy, effective grad student. Bad news is that I can't always play when I want to (which is pretty much all the time). Even harder news is that because I don't have that circle of close friends I can just call up to hang out with, I have to be willing to do things solo. The days I can just accept my loneliness, the grass in my pasture seems plenty green. Actually, when I'm in that accepting frame of mind, I don't even see that other pasture.

Funny how that works.

The Old and the New

I'm sitting in the outdoor amphitheatre on campus watching some friends throw a frisbee and feeling the warm spring sun temper the biting, winter wind still in the air.

You know how sometimes, when you're stressed, and someone asks you, "hey man, how are you?"- and despite all that's going on, you realize, perhaps only because you had to really stop and think about it, that you are doing quite well despite all that's going on. Yeah, that's me today.

I just finished writing a letter outlining that I am planning to break my lease at my current apartment. This may come as a real shock to the few of you who actually read this (namely you mom), and I think probably did somewhat to my landlord. However, I have been more or less for the last month sleeping in my living room as there is water in my bedroom. The mold that was growing on the walls, I kept at bay with some bleach and elbow grease. And I guess I was giving my landlord the benefit of the doubt with my calls about needing a solution (a long-term, structural one) that he would understand the seriousness and pressing nature of the problem. My phone calls always started with me trying to convey my frustration and need for an immediate addressing of the problem, and invariably ended with me feeling like it wasn't that big a deal (that he would get around to it when things dried out).

Well, I just wrote the letter and made an appointment with the UT Legal Clinic (free for us poor ass grad students) and am feeling good about not only the reality of a new place to live, but the possibility of a new way to live as well.