The · Absurd · Life

Today (October 25) is the national call-in day for the American Horse Slaughter Prevention Act. As of right now, there are still 3 slaughterhouses operating in the US that produce meat for human consumption (much of this meat is exported to other countries, as there isn't a huge market for it in the US). This act, which has been approved by the House but still needs to be OK'd by the Senate, will ensure that the slaughterhouses are shut down.

The numbers for the Illinois senators are as follows:

Dick Durbin: (202) 224-2152

Barack Obama: (202) 224-2854

For anyone not from Illinois interested in calling in, the number for the Congressional switchboard is (202) 224-3121. Or you can look up your senator's specific number at the HSUS website. The HSUS is also trying to keep track of how many people are calling in, so if you have enough time to go to the website and let them know that you've called, that'd be great (but it's not necessary per se).

"According to the great Stoic philosopher Epictetus (AD 50-120) one of life's greatest values is contentment, a life of tranquility, serenity, and composure. There is nothing worth becomng disturbed about...Peace of soul is gained through self-mastery, which is the ability to harness one's desires, commanding them instead of allowing them to rule. To permit another person to disturb your mental equilibrium is to offer yourself in slavery to him, or even worse, because a slave is one in body only, whereas you have made your soul servile to him. Any person capable of angering you becomes your master...In order to become free it is necessary to...extinguish your desire for all things...Stoic philosophy emphasizes...that an individuals' will must be kept inviolable and autonomous; it must be his own, never subjected ot control by others. No one has power over a person's will unless he consents, which he should never do but rather should remain an independent and thus invincible spirit."

--From Ideas of the Great Philosophers (William S. and Mabel Lewis Sahakian, Barnes and Noble Books, 1966).

Hmmm...I must admit that most of my life I have tried to live by this philosophy, tried to embody the Stoic ideal. I'm not sure doing so has brought me "serenity," however. That's probably my own fault, though. Not demonstrating that a person has disrupted my "equilibrium" is one thing; genuinely not allowing them to do so in the first place is quite another. So this whole time I was attempting to be strong by HIDING my emotions, I was in actuality embodying servility because I allowed my feelings to be altered in the first place. Great.

Tentative classes for this quarter:

-HISTORY OF MODERN SPAIN
-CREATIVE COUPLES AND COLLABORATION IN 20TH CENTURY ITALY
-PROBLEMS IN THE STUDY OF SEXUALITY(Presumably enlightening but redundant required course for my major that interfered with my taking a class at the law school on the regulation of sexuality for the second quarter in a row--rah!!)
-HISTORY AND THE RUSSIAN NOVEL
-THE REPRESENTATION OF JESUS IN MODERN JEWISH LITERATURE (I can't decide if I want to audit this class or the above class)

University Theater's "Strindberg: One on One" Audition Side

Strindberg’s THE STRONGER: Female Monologue

MME. X:

Hush, you needn't speak--I understand it all! Now all the accounts balance. That's the reason I had to embroider tulips--which I hate--on his slippers, because you are fond of tulips; that's why we go to Lake Molarn in the summer, because you don't like salt water; that's why my boy is named Eskil--because it's your father's name; that's why I wear your colors, read your authors, eat your favorite dishes, drink your drinks--oh--my God--it's terrible. Everything, everything came from you to me, even your passions. Your soul crept into mine, like a worm into an apple. I wanted to get away from you, but I couldn't. I hate you, hate you, hate you! [a pause] I pity you, nevertheless, because I know you are unhappy. Yes, all that with Bob doesn't trouble me. What is that to me, after all? And what difference does it make whether I learned to drink chocolate from you or some one else. And if you taught me how to dress--tant mieux!--that has only made me more attractive to my husband; so you lost and I won there.

Hmmm...I am tempted to try out for this role. I'm not sure I want to be on stage, though--I hate the feeling of being on display. I'd probably be more suited to film productions. Assuming that I have any acting ability at all...

http://www.thelivemusicreport.com/theatre/fringe05/theStronger.html:

It's Christmas Eve, and a woman meets a female friend by chance in a café. Through the course of their meeting, the woman discovers that her friend is mistress to her husband.

Is the woman stronger if she speaks? Or is she a stronger person if she remains silent? What makes the wife different from the mistress?

I just cried during Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason. God DAMN it.
This is worse than the infamous Notebook incident. I mean, for God's sake, at least someone DIED in THAT movie.

"He found something that he wanted, had always wanted and always would want--not to be admired, as he had feared; not to be loved, as he had made himself believe; but to be necessary to people, to be indispensable; he remembered the sense of security he had found in Burne."

~This Side of Paradise ("The Egotist Becomes a Personage")

Someday I will be able to discern the fine line between intuition and illusion--and between what is rational and what is rationalization.

Yay grandiloquent alliteration.

I'm so excited for this week. Tomorrow morning I'm going to an environmental press conference with 2 other people from my office, and then after canvassing we're leaving to go to the state capital for some major lobbying action and more canvassing. I get back Saturday evening. I actually canvassed a state legislator today and we might go visit him at his office some time this week.

There'll be a press release about our trip to Springfield, so we might be on TV. I think the director hired me for the position because I was "articulate" in the interview, but I'm pretty certain I'd get uber-tongue-tied if I had to say anything on TV. Plus I don't want to actually have to worry about not looking crappy. So I'm divided between wanting the press to give us a lot of attention and wanting to shy away. Maybe I can just hide behind Laura.

The only sucky thing about the trip is the fact that now I won't be able to hang out with Maya before she leaves for Berkeley. :(

I'm also working on a letter-writing campaign--we're trying to get at least 12 letters published nationwide by the end of the summer. Coincidentally, one of the people I signed up yesterday actually directed me to a website that lets you download a program that allows you e-mail a letter simultaneously to 300 editors of newspapers nationwide, which should be a huge help.

So basically I actually like my job, but I still don't know if I can stick with it. I'm just not pulling in enough $, especially when you factor in transportation costs. I don't know what to do. I don't want to quit, but I don't think I can find or manage to work an additional evening job. I already work 48 hours a week as it is. I've put in my application to Connie's (waitressing job) and a Sears phone bank that makes delivery calls. At least that way I wouldn't have to worry about transportation $ and could count on $8-9/hr. minimum. I might not be able to get as many hours, though, especially at Connie's. It's just a huge mess.

I guess if I get really desperate I can donate eggs ($5000). But I dunno. I dunno if it would bother me or not knowing that I had a kid out there somewhere that I knew nothing about. I mean, I might feel responsible for the kid's well-being in some way. Plus taking huge-ass injections on a daily basis and turning into a cranky bitch probably wouldn't decrease my stress level much. Blah.

On a completely unrelated topic, HAS ANYONE SEEN MULHOLLAND DRIVE? CAN ANYONE EXPLAIN IT? Tom and I watched it last night and could make absolutely no sense of it.

Conversation from today:

Maya: YOU were never any one's bitch.

Me: No, I was EVERYone's bitch.

Maya: HAHAHA. True.

So, for everyone who's been asking, my new address in Naperville is as follows:

1531 Raymond Drive #103
Naperville, IL 60563

The apartment is right across the street from McDowell Woods and not far from Cantera. My mom has promised to actually let me have people over (and has also promised to buy a pull-out couch for the purpose of sleepovers--yay), which means no more "aura of mystery" surrounding the Schumann household (though I might actually miss having friends sneak in through my window in the middle of the night). :)

We will probably be moving on the 17th. I will also be moving my stuff that day into my new apartment in Hyde Park, the address of which is:

5332 Greenwood Avenue, Apt. 1A
Chicago, IL 60637

I feel weird moving into the Greenwood Ave. place--it's arguably nicer than any of the places my family has lived for the past 10 years...not quite as posh as Steiner's (and no view of the lake), but pretty damn nice. It feels too "hoity-toity" for a Schumann (Maya, I know you will probably laugh at this statement when you read it).

So...all this is very strange. In a little more than a week, my life will be completely different. Within a period of a few days, I will have a new job, a new family home, and my own apartment (though I won't be living in it much until the fall). I think the change might actually do me some good, though.

People have complained that I haven't updated in months so I feel obligated to write something. So here's a general synopsis of my life for the past quarter:

Classes:
I'm taking Self, Culture, and Society with Jeff Bennet again. We're studying Freud (the more I study him, the more I come to the conclusion that he's fairly brilliant, although his views on women are hopelessly contradictory and confused--he himself admitted as much), Fanon, de Beauvoir, etc. Reading Foucault's Discipline and Punish last quarter was amazing--I seem to apply his concept of the panopticon to everything now. I'm also taking Gender and Love in Middle Eastern Literature, Shamans and Epic Poets of Central Asia, and US Women's History, all of which are pretty good.

I haven't done a whole lot in terms of extracurriculars. I'm peripherally involved in a community puppetry project. I would have liked to play a larger role in it, but my schedule doesn't mesh with anyone else's and so it's difficult to take a more active part in most of the work. We're working with kids from Hyde Park Academy (a high school on the South Side) in producing a show parodying the parallels between gang violence and corporate America. Working with kids from the Academy made me realize howe sheltered I was growing up. It never ceases to amaze me how these kids deal with everything around them--how sometimes laughing off the violence in the community is the only viable self-defense mechanism available to them, how they all have these incredible aspirations even though their parents (and the world) don't expect anything of them, how incredibly funny and articulate they all are even though they're so young.

I'm reluctant to work at the shelter because I know I'll run into Joel and I don't know what to say to him. He's really nice, but he's said some fairly creepy things to me on the phone when he was drunk. Maybe he was just being honest in a way most people can't. He actually went to Hyde Park Academy for high school. He grew up on 63rd (only 3 blocks south of campus) when it was a much worse area than it is today. It's weird to think that a completely different world exists just a few blocks from where I live. You go from ivory towers and Gothic architecture and sheltered middle-class white kids to an area that 99.99% black (well, that's the make-up of the high school--there's a small community of Koreans as well). And it seems like there's all this energy invested in keeping the two worlds apart--so apart you don't even realize that there's a universe outside the pristine face of the University. And people told me Hyde Park was diverse when really it's just segregated. None of us ever go past the Midway. I wouldn't even have realized if I hadn't met Joel and visited him and heard his life story. And then I went to a party with him last quarter and I saw his mom smoking pot and getting drunk and rowdy at his graduation party and...wow. I can't complain about my life when she sent him out on the streets to sell drugs at age 9 and he watched his 12-year-old brother get shot and killed.

Anyway, it's late and I'm just turning things around in my mind. On a completely different note, I got a summer job as a canvasser and campaign coordinator for Illinois PIRG, a campaign for the environment. I'm really, really excited about the work I'll be doing and the people I'll be doing it with. The PIRG office is in the South Loop, but I don't feel like paying rent on the apartment I just got and so I will be staying in Naperville and the boyfriend of the girl with whom I will be sharing the apartment (Rachel) will be living in my room and paying my portion of the rent.

My "personal life" has been...not that interesting, at least for the majority of the last few months. I dated a 3rd year for 8 weeks, but we broke up. It was a weird relationship. I keep running into him EVERYWHERE on campus and at every party I go to and it's just really awkward because I don't know what to say to him. I'm not upset with him or anything, but I just frankly don't know why I ever went out with him...I don't know if he's the type of person I could even be friends with. Rah. Dating weird older guys seems to have been my life theme this year. I'm surprised I haven't dated any women yet on campus...I don't know why I haven't really. Ali would be happy to know, though, that I seem to have caused a minor scandal in my dorm by making out with my suitemate. There are other events which I could write about, but I think I will reserve them for my private journal...

I also accomplished one of my life goals over spring break--I went to NYC. I stayed with my friend Laura who lives in the Hudson River Valley (gorgeous area, btw, especially during "magic hour" between 4 and 5 in the afternoon during the late winter/early spring). We went into the city for a few days and visited Little Italy, Chinatown, the Bowery (and CBGB--sadly only a mere shadow of what it once was), Battery Park, the Metropolitan Museum of Art (totally amazing, with a very impressive collection of Degas), the Guggenheim, Times Square (too commercial), Soho (too commercial), and East, West, and Greenwich Villages. We also visited a few nice towns in the Valley, my favorite being New Paltz, a charming little hippie town with awesome stores--it reminded me of a quieter, less commercialized version of State Street in Madison. Laura had the most incredibly warm and cozy home in the world--I was so jealous. Her home life appeared so idyllic that it seemed too good to be true. But everything indicated that it's always that way--everyone getting along, not always in a rush. I loved her family--she had the most adorable brother who couldn't wait to show off his newly grown facial hair to her. Her dad was this laid-back teddy bear and her mom doted on me constantly and is the cutest little Jewish mother in the world.

I became vegetarian about two weeks ago. I am searching for religion and haven't settled on a particular faith yet. I have considered Quakerism, Judaism, Catholicism, Buddhism, and various beliefs expressed in various Native American tribes. Maybe I just don't like the idea of organized religion. I can't decide.

Blah.

Update of Recent Events:

1.) Thursday night I went to a club w/ Angel and Hector that was absolutely awesome--sort of the epicenter of the queer Latin American subculture in Chicago

2.) Friday was the Polar Bear Run (a proud U of C tradition), in which about 70 students ran naked through the quad, which was lined with cheering (and laughing) observers. The event was featured on the news, so of course my mom questioned me at length about it (she had a rather morbid interest as to whether or not I had had time to engage in a comparative analysis of the size of the men's genitalia--clearly she ain't gettin' none from my dad...hahaha)...Thank God I was only an observer--I would never have heard the end of it had I actually been among those running butt-naked in the bitter cold...

3.) I miraculously got into all the classes I wanted:
a.) Self, Culture, and Society with the awesome Jeff Bennett, who gave a fascinating lecture the other day on Durkheim and the "totemism" of the bourgeoisie...
b.) Postwar American Culture with the very eminent George Chauncey (Basically, I did everything short of getting down on my hands and knees, wrapping myself around his legs, and begging to get into the class...I absolutely worship the ground he walks on...BTW, anyone interested in queer/gender studies should read the introduction to Gay New York, or really anything by Chauncey--words cannot describe how amazing he is...)
c.) Genocide of the European Jews--a rather depressing class, with up to 200 pages per class period on the Holocaust...but the professor presents very good lectures and is very well regarded within the academic community
d.) World Literature with Myles Chilton...Reading Nietzsche's Genealogy of Morals has just augmented my like for the class considerably, as I am now presented with ample opportunities to write in the margins of the work things like, "Nietzsche, you anti-Semitic fucker" or "After reading this section, I have come to the conclusion that NIETZSCHE IS A DELUSIONAL WANKER!!!"

Yes, it would seem that you know that your existence is pathetic when your main source of joy in life is writing snide remarks about dead men in the margins of your texts...

Oh, and I got a second job working at the Telefund--basically calling up U of C alumni and asking them for $...what tells me I won't be any good at this job?

12 THINGS THAT MAKE ME HAPPY, IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER (10 was too generic a number):

1.) Hugs, kisses, and cuddling from Angel
2.) My roommate and her hubbie, whose collective cuteness is almost too much to handle
3.) Kellog's Pops, California rolls, and spumoni for lunch
4.) Leanna and/or Alex DePriest coming home after a long night of drunken partying (What? Harry Potter?)
5.) Singing "To Oregon" while "slightly" inebriated...and drunk dialing people
6.) Forging indelible bonds w/ Hector and Angel by spending a night taking care of guests...
7.) Any sort of correspondence and/or visits from my homies (ie. Tom and Lauren staying over in my dorm...and Elizabeth's brief albeit awesome visit...and dinner w/ Dima...and Maya's thoughtful Facebook messages) :)
8.) Marie Penner-Hahn's absolute reliability in providing entertainment at theater parties
9.) Ali scaring my parents by being unashamedly frank about her lesbianism
10.) My mom's message on my voicemail in which she took pains to inquire in a discreet and roundabout way whether Naked Theater was called such because we perform in the nude
11.) Joe Mulligan's appreciation of my sense of humor...and our recent dinners together...and sharing ice cream (in a word: Joe)
12.) Watching "Eating Out" with Eric and Qian

Without these things, my quality of life would be seriously undermined...

I am sooooooooo excited about my classes. They are as follows:

1.) The Biology of Gender (TTh 9:00 AM - 10:20 AM)
2.) Queer Life and Politics of 20th Century Europe (TTh 1:30 PM - 2:50 PM)
3.) Readings in World Literature (MW 1:30 PM - 2:50 PM)
4.) Self, Culture, and Society (MW 7:00 PM - 8:20 PM)

Yay for having Fridays off from classes to work.

I am especially excited about Queer Life and Politics of 20th Century Europe, although I'm the only 1st year in that class. The prof is amazing, and what we're studying is so groundbreaking, since the "queer history" of Europe is only now being written. Gender studies as a recognized area of specialization is only now taking hold in much of Europe. In America, women's/gender studies departments have been institutionalized within academia since the 1970s.

I never have to take another fucking math class for the rest of my life!!! HOORAH. I will, however, be buried in reading for the rest of my academic existence.

On a less happy note, my bike was stolen within 2 days of my arrival on campus. I knew that something bad was bound to happen to balance out all the good...