End of college

That's me on the screen. Photo credit: My dad. 

A Pub gargoyle. I miss UChicago. 

Clouds, cotton balls, or fabulous dogs? Photo credit: My mom. 

Not the University of Chicago library 

Convocation 2005

Hot weather, direct sunlight, and black gowns do not go together well. Still, I'm happy with my diploma, and unlike the one I got from high school there was not a single mention of "mathemetics" or any other typos. The ceremony began with a speech from Professor Cathy Cohen. Her speech didn't thrill me (a bit too PC, humorless, and assuming the entire audience shared her liberal politics, in such a way that I'm sure all the conservatives in the audience only became more fervent in their beliefs), but which was hardly disastrous. A few things confused me, though:

1) Why no lunch after the ceremony? Champagne, strawberries, and brownies are charming, but at 1 pm, everyone, grads, extended families, and friends all are forced to scramble around Hyde Park and fight over tables at such hot spots as Edwardo's pizza on 57th. Providing some kind of food rather than drinks and dessert would probably cost the same and would make much more sense.

2) How are student marshals chosen? They're clearly people to be looked up to, but what did they do to get there? Are they the people with the highest GPAs? Who decides these things? I'm not necessarily against rankings, but it's always nice to know what the rubric is for these sorts of things. It's the mystery that gets to me.

3) Why no outside speaker? Not that I'd have liked there to be one. Just curious.

Back online

Pictures of graduation, pictures of nice dogs, and witty, informed commentary from a University of Chicago graduate (!) will follow.

Since she won't say it...

Congratulations are surely in order to the intrepid figure photographed above, who, barring an event unknown to me, graduated today from the University of Chicago.

Welcome to the land of the un/under-employed!

I could really go for:

Pasta.

Air conditioning.

A mysterious force that would pack up the rest of my stuff and return my books to the library. I'm thinking the "underpants gnomes" from South Park would be just right for the job.

Not so bad after all

I spent the first part of my time as a Chicagoan thinking the city was all strip-malls, empty lots, Talbots, and long lines for popcorn, which even extensive exploring can lead one to deduce, since there are long stretches of the city which do fit that description. I spent the next chunk of time oblivious to the fact that I lived in Chicago, figuring that enough time spent on the U of C campus or at places like Fox and Obel along with the occasional trip to the Gap would permit me to believe this was all just an extention of the Upper West Side. Now, in my last week here, I've seen a bit more of what's out there, and have hit upon some areas that are, to put this in NYC terms, either like massive versions of the Lower East Side (around 2000 W Division/Damen) or the newly refurbished West Bleecker Street (Webster between N. Clybourn and the lake). While Chicago's Belmont is a huge disappointment if you're looking for NYC's 8th Street, those stretches of Wicker Park and Lincoln Park I just mentioned do not pale in comparison to their NYC equivalents. Other areas, like the Swedish/gay/dingy/yuppie Andersonville, have no NYC equivalent, and are simply awesome in their own right.

Less awesome is the packing-in-no-airconditioning situation I'd be in right now if I weren't blogging....

Wicker Park/River North, 6/8/05

By far the greatest dress-store window ever. 

Dachshund decals at a deli-type establishment on Division Street. 

Sunset in Wicker Park. 

It was Wednesday. 

New music, old motel. 

The Soviet Socialist Republic of Chicago 

"Foresight without the foreskin"

That's the post title I wish I'd used when responding to the Ashkenazim-are-brilliant article. Again, I'm not one of the clever ones, so I only just now thought of this.

Because you came here for francophilic Zionism...

WWPD reader and fellow French major Lauren pointed me to this story (well, a site linking to that story) about Le Monde's conflation of "the Jews" and "some Israelis." I guess those of the "the Jews are a nation" school of thought would not consider Le Monde to be racist and would not consider their choice of wording to be an example of conflating two separate ideas. The problem is, the French mainstream take on these things is--and has been since the emancipation of French Jews, albeit with certain notable gaps in the early-mid 20th century--that the Jews are a religion and not a nation. You know how people always say communism is great in theory but terrible in practice? ("People" does not include me, but that's for another time.) Well, the French take on Judaism is great in theory but somewhat lacking in practice. If France were a truly secular and label-and-hyphen-free nation, in which all are Frenchman regardless of religion or ethnicity, then hurray for secular France. But France's version of liberalism only works if the French Jews get to be French, because it's common knowledge that Israel would be happy to have them but they nevertheless choose to remain French, and, in theory, France happily permits them to stay so.

Columns, dachshunds, and class: Random musings of yet another Ashkenazi genius-blogger

My last Maroon column is online.

Dachshundwatch continues; this time the dachshund was spotted on Gawker.

I was going to do a whole takedown of the NYT "class" extravaganza, but things like going to the zoo, drinking iced coffee in the land of the Lincoln Park Trixies (otherwise known as "Lincoln Park"), and pondering life after graduation have gotten in the way. The zoo was a bit sad, since one of the monkeys had had its arm amputated and the polar bears were away for the day due either to their pool being cleaned or the 100-degree temperatures or both, but so it goes. But...as for the takedown of the class series, my main complaint about it was that rather than raising awareness of inequalities (or, alternately, celebrating inequalities, or just painting a neutral picture of them) the series made everyone who's not doing the highest-level intellectual activity and living the fantasy Upper East/West Side life out to be miserable. Because how could someone possibly be happy without a college diploma, or moving from town to town as the wife of a businessman? The tragedy of capitalism is that some people struggle and get nowhere, not that some people lack tenured professorships at Harvard or op-ed columns in the Times. It's as if anything short of being Susan Sontag in Sevens is a wasted life. Very much eh.

The most annoying person profiled in the NYT class series is __________?

My vote is the grande dame of Nantucket, Nina Chandler Murray, who comes from an old family and misses the days when blue-bloodedness and calculated understatedness, not hard work and intelligence, were what that island was all about. In Bobos in Paradise, David Brooks talks about the transition of the NYT Vows page from WASP to just plain wealthy, and sees progress. Frankly, so do I, and Murray's nostalgia for the "genteel" days, when ostentatiousness wasn't needed because blood was all that mattered... who needs that?

Last night

Last night was the last Maroon party of my time at Chicago. It was not the most wild newspaper party I'd been to, but there were drunken discussions of blogs, the Upper East Side, the merits of joining the IDF, and the merits of mixing Midori with whatever else happened to be nearest on a table, so from where I stand it was a success. I also went to a track party that, as you might infer from the pictures below, was held quite high up in a skyscraper in downtown Chicago. The line of people pictured below waiting to enter a club on Rush Street gives some sense of what alternatives are out there to the U of C nightlife.

 

 

 

 

 

End of college, in images

The beer I almost finished, celebrating finishing college. 

Does this look familiar?  

Pierce dining hall, on a good day. 

Determinism down the drain

"A team of scientists at the University of Utah has proposed that the unusual pattern of genetic diseases seen among Jews of central or northern European origin, or Ashkenazim, is the result of natural selection for enhanced intellectual ability."

And yet I am neither ill nor brilliant, despite being something like 110% Ashkenazi. Wait, percents only go up to 100%? What? I don't get it.

Dachshundwatch

 
While Will combs the Web for evidence of a certain political science professor, I seek out dachshunds all across the Internet. My former lab partner Kei has a picture on her blog of a wirehaired dachshund "walking hunched over (as impossible as it may sound for a Dachsund to do."

It's over, but it hasn't hit me yet

This is my last night at the Reg. Not my last time at the Reg, since I've got plenty of books to return and a few I'd like to take a look at before my fabulous library access disappears, but it's my last time actually studying here. Argh!

"The little animals of the earth will thank you."

--Sam, providing a silver lining for my story of being charged the shocking (for Bartlett) sum of $6.99 for oil-drenched dining hall pasta because, though this was in no way obvious when I ordered it, the station I got the pasta from is "organic" on Thursdays.

"Vocab for Final"

So I made it to the library, after several hours of contemplation and indecision, only to have a message on my phone about a "free beer for seniors" party right outside of the library that I'd somehow missed on my way here. Then two friends who'd already had some of this free beer came upstairs, found me in my usual spot, and told me that they were giving free beer--"good beer"--to seniors right downstairs on the quads. After some more contemplation and indecision I went downstairs, but only to the lobby of the library, where I chatted with a "friend of WWPD" (using Will Baude's definition of a "friend of Crescat" as often being someone who reads the blog and is his friend in real life but does not have a blog of his/her own) on the phone, then finally made it back upstairs, fully sober, and with a notebook open to a page I've called, creatively, "Vocab for Final."

Multilingualish

Thanks to UChicago-blogger Victor for wishing me well post-graduation in my second- and would-be-third languages. This seems like the time to note that, during my Hebrew presentation this morning on the Dreyfus Affair, I referred to Bernard Lazare as "il" and it took me about 30 seconds to accept that this pronoun came from the wrong language.

Where to study for tomorrow's final (Unabridged Edition)

1) My room:

Pros: I'm here now, so I wouldn't have to go anywhere; all my stuff is here.
Cons: My bed is here, which means the ever-present temptation to nap.

2) The Reg:

Pros: Nowhere good to nap; lots of studious-looking people around me exerting positive peer pressure; peanut butter M&Ms and coffee in Ex Libris.
Cons: A number of the "studious-looking people" are friends or acquaintances, which will mean chatting; the Reg means relocation, and relocation means going alllll the way to campus, and is a change of scenery worth it?

3) Classics Cafe:

Pros: Mocha-availability; well-dressed grad students and profs; a pleasant non-basement environment; wireless.
Cons: Again, requires leaving my room; might not be any free tables; the people who sit there and pretend to read exert less-than-positive peer pressure and my studying will turn into "studying" will turn into not even pretending to study.

WWPD Contest Time!!!*

"And that's why I didn't go to Hebrew school."

A Lab school guy said this to some of his buddies while having lunch in the park over by Medici, and Sam and I overheard only this snippet of their conversation. Since Sam and I did both go to Hebrew school, we were curious as to what preceded the sentence we overheard. The kid was really indignant, so we wanted to know what he thinks might have happened had he in fact gone to Hebrew school. We had a few guesses, but none were satisfactory. So I ask my readers to answer the following question: Why didn't the Labbie in the park go to Hebrew school? The commentor with the best answer wins...not sure, but perhaps the next contest will be to decide what WWPD contest prizes ought to be.

*Continuing on the Jewish theme. Buddhist theme will follow, once post-college finding-myself commences.

Is college over?

Not as an institution (leave that discussion to Allan Bloom's successors), but for me. I had my last day at work today, and this evening was the last food-based Hebrew-class event I may ever attend, since all that's left are a review session and the exam. And then that's it. Various cliched college experiences have yet to happen. In sitcoms, when a 40-something female character knowingly says "college" that's code for lesbian experimentation and rampant drug use. When I'm a 40-something female real-person I'll say "college" and that'll be code for a different experience entirely.

A serious post with a serious question:

Why are 15 members of the facebook group "25 hottest guys" members of the football fraternity? Is this actually what most girls (I'm thinking that gay guys are not involved in this) at the school find attractive? Just curious.

Vote "Euh"

Wouldn't it be awesome if, along with "oui" and "non," the French, when voting on things, could vote "euh"?

Born-again atheists

There's an interesting post at UChicago blog Apt3W about born-again Chabad Jews. I don't know enough Hebrew to understand all of the post, but I think I get the gist of it, which is why do different Jews have different religious odysseys. This is something that, for all my reading on the Jewish response to the Dreyfus Affair, never really came up, and it's something I know very little about, and am trying to figure out why that is, so here's my best guess:

For whatever reason, Jews who rediscover their religion--unlike, say, Protestants or Muslims--tend not to do so religiously. In "Arguing the World" Joseph Dorman writes about how New York intellectuals Irving Kristol, Nathan Glazer, Daniel Bell, and Irving Howe all rediscovered their own Jewishness as a result of the Holocaust, which they experienced either indirectly as American Jews or through serving in WWII in Europe, noting that none of these men themselves became religious as part of their reawakening. Reading testimonials of Jews who returned to their roots following the Dreyfus Affair, one encounters the same story.  Nationalism, ethnic solidarity, a desire to help Jews in other countries, all of these sentiments surged in many, but God was never especially important. The pattern into which Theodor Herzl, Bernard Lazare, and Edmond Fleg (a Swiss-French Jew) fell was this: Assimilation, antisemitism (both from themselves and from the outside) followed by an acknowledgement that they're Jewish and there's nothing they can do about it, followed by a desire to make being Jewish a positive thing since, after all, they're stuck with it. But the inescapability of Judaism makes belief in God sort of secondary. To give my own story, such as it is, (and leaving out the large chunks of "my story" that involve going to Fox and Obel to buy cheese, thinking about nice dogs, or putting on glitter eyeliner), I've experienced something not unlike the post-Dreyfus contingent, which is perhaps why I find that whole crew so interesting. Various factors--moving away from NYC where being Jewish is something one never has to think about, September 11/neocons/war on terror, making a good friend who follows rules I'd previously only heard vague things about, reading books about Judaism written by people other than Philip Roth--made me more interested in, if not exactly my roots, then in Jewish history more generally. While things like living in Israel or going to grad school for many years to study European Jewish history seem perfectly reasonable, doing something as radical as going to services never crosses my mind. That's why the story of the newly-Chabad couple makes for an interesting change. I never think of someone Jewish having any sort of faith--pride, maybe--and certainly not as being born-again, although all this reveals, most likely, is my own ignorance, which cannot be overestimated. I think of Jews as returning to the fold as a response to issues larger than themselves--often but not always a discovery of just how much the world hates the Jewish people--and not as a response to personal crises or work-related disappointments, and as having revivals that are emotional or intellectual but not exactly spiritual.