Thursday, November 1, 2012

As everyone walks the Manhattan bridge in post-Sandy NYC...

...I think about this bridge in Prague...



...and this one in Köln...









...and even this one in Regensburg...


...and I wonder. 
Paris has such a bridge.
Rome, too. 
And Google has a picture of at least one somewhere in Poland.

I would have said the Brooklyn Bridge or the Williamsburg Bridge would be a more intuitive location for New Yorkers if we decided to hop on the bandwagon (since when is New York the last place something happens?) 
...
but if everyone's walking the Manhattan anyway
...



Friday, October 5, 2012

Rationale Season!

I've been very inspired since being back to the city, but nothing really felt like blog-post material...But with the first rationale deadline passed and the second one approaching, I'm hearing more and more seniors fretting about what the form is. This, then, is for all the Gallatin seniors working on rationale prep, book list prep, and colloquium prep in general.



 Since I've been bounced from adviser to adviser, my rationale prep process involved bothering lots of professors, teachers, and friends I respect and just asking for any feedback they might offer. I also consulted Google. One key thing I learned is that EACH ADVISER HAS HIS OR HER OWN IDEA OF WHAT A GREAT RATIONALE LOOKS LIKE. I might venture to say that some of the very new ones don't have much of an idea yet. The point? I'm no authority; just wanted to save future Gallationians some footwork by putting all the advice I gathered in one place. Really, though, you just have to ask around and then go with your gut.

Anyway, I have lots of useful links for you. But let's be methodical and dissect this thing in an orderly-ish fashion.

ONE: What is this thing and what is it for? (Questions I won't answer: When is it due by? What do I study?)

The formal process of presenting one's concentration for review takes 3-7 months. That's not as scary as it sounds, though, because hopefully you're presenting something you're passionate about and have been studying for the past 3+ years. Throughout your academic career, you should also have been meeting with your adviser and with other professors whose interests are close to yours. Make sure you schedule time to talk to these people, and try to go in with specific questions so that you have productive meetings.

The process has three parts: the rationale, the book list, and the colloquium. We'll define them each separately below. The point here is also three-fold, in my opinion. First, this is the school's chance to evaluate each student's course of study. Second, it provides a chance for the student to practice presenting his or her work coherently in a formal setting and see what questions the panel raises. Lastly, it lets us talk about all the things we think are so super interesting.

TWO: Brainstorm.

Call it what you will: mental vomiting or intellectual masturbation or any other slightly disturbing name the kids have for it these days. Back when I was a third grader, we called this stage "brainstorming."

Sit down and write or type everything you can think of that relates to your concentration. Start abstractly with themes and questions. When you get stuck, move on to consider classes you've taken, internships, jobs, projects, trips, papers, conversations, questions, case studies and all such things. Don't be afraid to double back if something reminds you of something else that you forgot elsewhere--jot it down. Read back over that and add anything else that comes to mind. 

It may also be useful to sit in front of your books/movies/music and pull out anything that may be relevant. You may find that just by doing this you transform the process of "building" your book list (stressful) to "distilling" it from works you already have and know (not-so-stressful).

These may help. I found the workbook to be particularly helpful in the brainstorming/organizational process:

Now that all your ideas are out of your head, you can work with them without worrying about forgetting any in the process. Tie them together, split them apart, experiment, play...You'll find yourself noticing themes, questions, and uncomfortable (useful!) points of paradox. Congratulations!

THREE: the Rationale.

"In addition to the book list, students are required to submit a rationale (3-5 typed and double-spaced pages) about a topic or topics they plan to discuss in the colloquium. The rationale should establish the central theme of the discussion, and then go on to identify and explore the major related questions that the student wants to address in the colloquium discussion. In describing the main colloquium questions and topics, the rationale should refer to several (on average, 4 - 6) of the texts on the list. Questions raised in the rationale should be formulated in relation to the texts on the book list. In order to contextualize the rationale content, the rationale can also include a student’s area of concentration, internships, independent studies, courses, and extracurricular projects. Note however that the rationale should place primary focus on explaining the central questions through textual evidence."

That's from Gallatin's website. Here are the key parts:
  • 3-5 pages
  • topics to be discussed in colloquium
  • identify major related questions
  • references to 4-6 book list texts
One approach to this is to pretend that you are writing the syllabus for a Gallatin course on your concentration. The rationale is the blurb at the beginning which outlines the progression of and questions raised in the course. That mindset is also useful in preparing the book list.

Another professor suggested writing this a map of the development of your concentration. That approach would draw in relevant courses/experiences. My problem with this approach was that I sounded too much like an essay-writer in my first draft and too much like a research paper writer in my second. In short, I told my reader too much and didn't raise enough questions. The rationale is your conversation starter for your colloquium; it is not a thesis which you set out to defend. 

The third approach provides lots of scaffolding. Here are two writing exercises:
Work through them, then go back and see what you've written. Expand, cut, and re-arrange as necessary, and your rationale will--as I was told--write itself. Just don't get too caught up in following the recipe! These are scaffolds to support you, guidelines to work around. Make sure to be you.

FOUR: the Book list.

Don't be scared. You read a lot. You do. Look at those ridiculous bills you have from all the books you buy at the beginning of each semester! And you have Bobst (Fales and Avery-Fischer center included). And the NYC public library. You've got this in the bag.

Feel better? Good. Now then. These are the current guidelines for the book list, from the school website:
"The texts should be of high quality - the kind of books or other works you encountered in your courses - but they do not have to be part of a recognized canon of "great books." Avoid pop fiction, how-to manuals, self-help books, and textbooks unless you plan to engage critically with these genres.
The book list should consist of 20-25 texts, arranged according to the following four sections:
Ancient, Medieval, and Renaissance Classics
At least seven works produced before the mid-1600s;
Modernity-The Humanities
At least four works, produced after the mid-1600s, in Humanities disciplines such as Literature, Philosophy, History, the Arts, Critical Theory, and Religion;
Modernity-The Social and Natural Sciences 
At least four non-fiction works, produced after the mid-1600s, in the Natural Sciences and Social Science disciplines such as Political Science, Economics, Psychology, Anthropology, and Sociology.
Area of Concentration 
At least five additional works representing the student's area or areas of concentration; students whose area of concentration already appears among the above categories may simply choose five additional works from these categories."
So dig out your old syllabai, talk to professors, email your high school Latin teacher and your friend who teaches literature courses at that college your sister goes to. Of course, do these things after you've taken a good look at your bookshelf. I'm confident you'll be surprised by how much of your book list is sitting over your desk waiting for you to notice it. 
Talk to your friends. Talk to people in your field. And for those super scary classics, remember that you can find them for free online. Project Gutenberg and Google Books are your friends, as is BobCat (the library thing...For classics check out "Articles and Databases" > "Philosophy" > "PastMasters"). 
You have time to read/re-read some of your books, but don't pick 25 that you've never opened. Also be sure to take advantage of the "Area of Concentration" section. One of my listings for that section is composed of 5 children's books, and another one is composed of 3 short films. This is a good place for specialty texts or non-text sources.
FIVE: um...
So you put these things together in a word document and send it to your adviser for approval. You can also send it to friends. It's really helpful to send the rationale to a friend who's a solid writer from a different discipline; he or she can let you know if your writing is accessible to someone with a different background.

That's it! Submit via the school website and you're good to go. Until you start preparing for your colloquium itself, but I don't have any tips about that yet. I'll start asking around this week and hopefully have some insights to share soon! In the meantime, here are some sample rationales:

Friday, August 17, 2012

On Teenagers: A Life Lesson from a Kindergartner

Once classes start again I'll have real things to write about. My summer statistics course just didn't give me much inspiration. Luckily, I have relatives. My cousin Madison was overjoyed when my sisters (18 and 20 years old) stayed in her sister's room while visiting. The second day of the trip, my parents and sisters went to move Emily into college. Meanwhile, Madison's father arrived home from an international business trip. His very excited kindergartner ran up to him, and this is the conversation that followed, as later related to my parents and me:

Madison: Dad! Come upstairs! You HAVE to see something!
Father: Ok... Follows to bedroom door where Madison looks at him expectantly
Madison: SMELL!
Father: What is it?
Madison: A TEENAGER was here! And look! She points to my sister's overnight bag. Look at all her make-up! Teenagers have a lot of stuff!
Father:.........

Father: What do teenagers smell like exactly?
Madison: Sunshine and Barbies.

Friday, July 20, 2012

Overheard on the Subway

Location update: New York city; this is "home" again for at least a year after 2 years away.

I've been doing lots of everything between choking on formulas for my stat class and catching up with wonderful people I've missed. One of the best things about life in New York city is that nothing seems unexpected or absurd enough to mention...but this also means that every time I've sat down to write something I've started to doubt that the story is interesting enough for the internet. Real New Yorkers don't seem to blink at anything; maybe my moments of naive amusement are best kept to myself.

Maybe.

Or maybe I'll tell you what I heard on the subway this week and hope you chuckle:

Yelled by a woman waiting board AS the doors are just opening:
"'SCUSE ME"

Conversation between a woman sitting across three seats and a girl standing (not touching the woman at all, really) on a rush-hour subway:
"Can you move? Your ass is touching me."
"Where am I supposed to stand?"
"But your ass is touching me. I don't want your ass touching me."
"It's a crowded train ma'am. It happens."
"Your ass is touching me."
*sigh* "Well, I don't think it is."
"..."

Singing:
"We can talk about Jesus while you wait for your trrrraaaaiiiiiiiinnnnnnnnnn!"

Old man who startled me by tapping my Howard Zinn book as he passed me:
"He was a very. radical. man....But he's usually right."

A girl approaches a group of older women laughing and conversing in a foreign language:
"Excuse me. Can I ask you a strange question?"
Loudest of the women:
"Sure"
Girl:
"I'm trying to break up with my boyfriend. How should I do it?"
Woman:
"Tell him to fuck off."
Girl, before walking away:
"Ok. Thanks."
Woman to her cackling companions:
"Wait...Was she serious?"

This one, admittedly, was above-ground:

Man who really wanted a dance:
"Wait! Where are you going? Don't worry; you can't get pregnant like this! The bow-tie has to come off first!"

And lastly, from a random (since I'm pompous and trendy if I call it "obscure") documentary a friend showed me:
"You always giggle falsely! You're never genuine!"

Sunday, May 20, 2012

როგორ გადის დრო...

I don't have time to write, but just to tantalize you here are some details of the past week:

1) Looked up sourdough bread and pretzel recipes
2) First sunburn of the season!!!!
3) Interviewed for a segment on Georgian television
4) Had a bunch of junior wrestlers move into (and then, thankfully, out of) our house
5) Used Facebook to follow NYUs graduation and then toasted to brilliant futures for my friends
5.2) Realized that a lot of really cool people won't be around next year when I'm finally back at school :(
6) Dipped my feet in the very cold Rioni river
7) Dreamt about riding a little black pony named Chiko
8) Threw an impromptu ice cream party for my school to celebrate a first grader's graduation
9) Played barefoot American football with a rugby ball
10) Noticed that the tadpoles I pass every morning have grown legs

Ah spring...

Monday, May 14, 2012

"Les hommes? Il en existe, je crois, six ou sept. Je les ai aperçus il y a des années. Mais on ne sait jamais où les trouver. Le vent les promène. Ils manquent de racines, ça les gêne beaucoup."

Fact: I'm my parents' tumbleweed child. A few months here; a few months there.

And for the time being it's lovely, but I have these crazy dreams of a garden with fruit trees, a big table (of recycled wood) surrounded by friends, a well-stocked spice cabinet, and a place to paint. If I'm really dreaming, I'd also like either a horse or a kayak, dishes painted by my friends, a library stocked with Dr. Seuss/Roald Dahl/Maurice Sendak/Shaun Tan, wide window-ledges to sit in, and maybe a kiln for bread-making...but that's only if I'm really dreaming. My point is, dreams like deep rooted fruit trees can't be realized unless I put down some roots myself.

Why am I posting this instead of editing and posting the pile of Georgia writings I have sitting on my hard-drive? Because--while I'm in no rush of course--thinking about future travel plans (because applications have due dates, though I'm loathe to plan) and possible places I could stay long enough to design and tend a garden, I'm surprised to find that I often think of Chester County.

I hate the suburbs. Mostly because I hate that getting anywhere requires driving. But from Philly I can get to the beach or to Lancaster or Longwood Gardens or Hibernia Park or Valley Forge. I can even take a train (or Megabus) to D.C. or New York or Boston. I can drink Hopdevil from Victory Brewing Company, eat apple cider doughnuts at Highland Orchards , or picnic during a concert at Twin Brook Winery. There's the Strasburg Railroad and the Chester County Historical Society to visit, and Marsh Creek to kayak on.

For the best ice cream, I'm a fan of the Chester Springs Creamery...And in Philly itself? The best ice cream there is probably at the Franklin Fountain. I already love the Philadelphia Orchestra, Capogiro Gelato, and the Philadelphia Art Museum. I'll even admit to enjoying an occasional cheesesteak from Pat's and a Flyers game as much as I like little old brick houses and the fact that there (is?was?) a Loving Hut on South Street. And since this has gone from a reasons-I-could-live-near-Philly to an adventure-guide-for-enjoying-whatever-area-this-is...I should also mention Doghouse Burgers in Downingtown (my family loves that place) and Baldwin Book Barn nearby. And if you're adventurous, I happen to know one of the masterminds behind Cabaret Red Light, and the tag-team comedy sketches she does with a friend of hers are (aside from being entertaining) impressive because of the brilliant acting.

And if I was to find myself back in Philly and ready for a few adventures myself? I'd pick up the latest issue of GRID, stop by the Rosenbach Museum to pay my respects, find out what Little Berlin is up to, and taste the Pub and Kitchen food I've been reading so much about.

Ta daa! Who needs travel guides? Now you know what to do in and around Philly. Go do everything so I can live vicariously through you on the next rainy day.

Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Easter Monday (and Tuesday, too?)


When Georgian Easter was explained to me, I was informed that Easter Monday is the best day. They explained that they pack picnics and go to the cemeteries where their family members are buried. When I woke up Monday, I realized almost immediately that this day would be nothing like I had expected. Eka and Maguala were packing the picnic; Jumberi stood watching and giving orders periodically. Then we drank coffee and watched the clock. At 11:30-ish we packed Eka’s car and drove to the path that leads up to the cemetery. We then unloaded the car and carried everything up the hill to Jumberi’s parents’ grave. There was a metal table next to it, where we unpacked and sat down. Jumberi lit candles and laid red eggs/cake/candies at his parents’ graves. But then we just sat quietly, everyone ordering each other to eat and drink but actually eating and drinking very little. I looked out over the graveyard—with it’s fences and tables, flowering trees and pictures of the deceased—and I thought about the Czech graveyards I’d found so beautiful and the Dios de los Muertos picnics that I’d read about but never experienced. Then Maguala interrupted my thoughts by calling me to follow her to her father’s grave, on the other side of the cemetery.
As we walked, I learned what the day really is about. We zigzagged between the graves, instead of taking the most direct path, so that we visited a large portion of the cemetery. Every few steps, we would stop at a grave. The family there would hand Maguala a glass of wine, and they would exchange a ritual greeting:
-Christ is risen.
-It is true.
-For the souls of your dead, your family, those you love, and you yourself, that God raises you as well.
-The same for you and yours.
The wording wasn’t always exactly the same for the last two lines, but this was the jist. Then Maguala would spill some wine on each of the graves at the family plot, kiss her glass, hand it back to the family, and call for me to follow her onward.
When we were back with our family (i.e. at her husband’s family plot), I sat at the table with everyone and joined them in handing glasses of wine to guests. I had expected the day to be about the family’s deceased: us sitting at the grave eating, with food and wine set out for them, talking about their lives. Instead the day was much more a social performance. Each person was expected to visit the graves of their relatives, friends, friends’ relatives and relatives’ friends to spill wine, bless the grave, and demonstrate to the others present that they considered their life intertwined with the lives of these others. Children went around cracking the red eggs with their friends, since they couldn’t drink the wine. Most women didn’t drink the wine at each grave; like Maguala, they kissed the glass and returned it to the family full. Many of the men drank slightly more, and many were thoroughly wasted by the time they went home.
Family members took turns circling the cemetery, keeping someone at the plot of the patriarch’s nearest relative at all times. Whoever was at the family plot offered food and wine to guests. I realized that the family wasn’t eating much because the food was first and foremost an offering to those who stopped by to pay respects to the dead or demonstrate a social connection to one of the living present. The fact that this was a spectacle became all the more obvious when guests stopped by who the family didn’t want the public (with everyone always closely observing each other, of course) to consider in relation with them. Courtesy and tradition dictated that every guest be offered wine and allowed food. Most were offered food and even entreated to sit with the family at the table for a time. But there were a few guests—a drunk man who offended Jumberi with an inappropriate question, an old woman who has repeatedly offended the women of the family with her patronizing comments, a socially out-of-tune drunk who barely knows the family but stopped by on his way to relieve himself in the trees—who (after their departures, of course) inspired scowls and scathing comments.  
We arrived at the cemetery around 11:30 and were home around 3. Jumberi laid down to nap (I feel like he’s gotten very old recently), but Eka suggested we go out for a bit. A friend of Maguala’s has three sons, who are friends of Eka’s. They were having a supra, so we went to their house. I like this form of supra attendance, usually only excusable for women who are close to the family. After the men have their long meal and have drunk most of the wine, we show up and sit at one end of the table. We sit together, and the women of the hosting family finally take a break from serving to sit down with us. We nibble on the food and have a glass of wine if we want, but there’s much less pressure than when we attend supras as official guests.
As soon as we walked into the house, I knew that this was going to be a good time. The men had already drunk quite a bit, but they were good-natured and polite regardless. One of the sons thought I was Georgian at first, and when he found out I was American he started talking a mile a minute in English. At one point he said, “I’m just talking this much so that my friends see me speaking English.” A bit later he said, “You know, there’s someone else here who speaks English well, but he is shy. He’s, in fact, sitting right next to you.” From that point on, they both chatted away at me in English, with the others occasionally slipping in a Georgian word or a toast. They were joking and laughing the whole time. Their toasts to Maguala and Eka were pointedly extravagant, and their mother called them out of a few lines of cliché, over-the-top flattery.
Then Mamuka made a toast and included a personal wish for me to get married in Georgia. I chuckled and gave my usual reply about not having the time or patience for a husband. He was aghast: “Don’t you want children?”
“I like kids, but I don’t know if I want any. And the husband bit—”
“Why are you here and beautiful?”
“Ummm…” (Here at this supra, in Oni, in Georgia? Here on Earth? Ummm…)
“Because of your parents! So you should repay them the favor and do the same and make beautiful children!”
“I don’t want—“
“In 70 years, I want your children to be guests in my house as you are now. Promise me you’ll see to that?”
“No! I can’t promise—“
And so on and on until eventually I just laughed. The other English speaking man next to me nodded and said that he for one likes my thinking. I eyed his wedding ring, wondered if he had what my students refer to as a “second wife” (or was looking for one) on the side, and again laughed instead of answering.
Then, mercifully, one of the women asked me to come outside and help her translate a document on her laptop. This was amusing, too. She asked me to come help instead of either of the two men, because I’m a native speaker. But then she didn’t believe what I translated it to, because I’m not a native Georgian speaker. So then she called one of the men out. He translated it the same way I did, and then she didn’t argue.
Neither conversation was tense at all, just interesting. Eka and Maguala seemed to have as good a time as I did. Then we went home. Eka and I worked in the yard for a while. While we were working, Jumberi came out and urgently called for me to come take a picture. I was confused: a picture of what? Eka told him that we’d be finished in 5 minutes and he could wait. He shuffled back inside, and in 5 minutes he re-appeared in dress clothes. He make his way down to the pavilion in the yard, and he pulled out one of the white plastic chairs. He set it under the pear tree and sat down to pose. Eka and I looked at each other, confused and amused, and then I hurried over with my camera. He tried a few different poses, and he told me for each picture where he wanted me to stand. When we finished, he went inside and I went to sit with Eka on the steps.
Back in October, Jumberi was old. I remember thinking that this must be the price men pay in societies with traditional gender roles: once they stop working, start collecting their pensions, and realize their children are full-grown, their contribution to daily family life becomes less clear. Sure, they still chop firewood and prune the grape-vines and make wine; meanwhile, however, their wives and daughters are still cooking, cleaning, socializing (because their social habits always involved visiting and being visited by neighboring housewives), and generally keeping the house in order as they always have. An old man here either has to find a new sense of purpose for his life or wander around the house wondering what he’s good for. It’s a depressing way to spend old-age, though perhaps life alone in a nursing home isn’t much better. The thing is, since the weather has warmed up we’ve stopped needing as much firewood. The grape-vines don’t need any care right now, and there’s already a stock of wine in the cellar. Increasingly, Jumberi spends the day sleeping, watching television, and smoking. He used to spend a lot more time watching television, but I think his hearing has gotten worse (he talks louder these days) so now he watches it a bit less. When he started sleeping during the day instead of watching television, I didn’t think much of it. Then he started smoking and eating less because he was sleeping more. At this point, he’s almost always asleep on the couch in the main room. He gets up a few times a day to eat a little food, smoke, or wander outside to talk to a neighboring man in the street. He’s become more irritable, more lethargic, more hard-of-hearing…just generally more…old.
So when he decided suddenly that it was very urgent that I take a picture of him (that he can’t access because I’m the only one in the house with a computer and they don’t have a printer), Eka asked, “He’s not losing his mind, is he?” We later learned that someone at the cemetery had asked him where he wants to be buried. The other man had honestly been thinking of his funeral arrangements and wondered what his old acquaintance thought. Though the possible connection between this question and the photography session was never discussed, I have a feeling that Jumberi may have decided that he’s not so worried about where he’ll be buried as which picture they’ll use as a reference when engraving his likeness on his tombstone. I don’t actually mind thinking about those kinds of things, but I’m not a 76-year-old, chain-smoking, Georgian man with a cough that suggests he has destroyed his lungs nearly completely. I can’t tell if he thinks about death and feels relieved or amused or scared or apathetic. He answered his acquaintance’s question, “100 years from now, I’ll be buried here, next to my parents.” Others picked up the conversation topic, but they were younger and just musing for amusement. I doubt any of them went home and ordered their young houseguest to take pictures of them to ensure that their tombstone renderings would be ones they approved of.
Tuesday, I got dressed for school and waited a half-hour at the car station for my co-teacher. Then a woman who teaches at Oni school came by and told me that we were still off school for the Easter holiday. When I’d been at school the week before, the other teachers had said multiple times to me and to each other that we would be back at school on Tuesday/Samshabati/April 17th. I walked home, not really minding the extra holiday but wondering at the miscommunication. I dropped my bag at home, changed into jeans and boots, and went for a bit of a hike. The path I chose took me past the old Armenian cemetery, which I had expected to find empty. Instead, I saw red eggs and cakes laid at many of the graves, just as at the main Georgian Orthodox cemetery. I decided to walk through the Orthodox cemetery as well. I looked at Monday’s aftermath: the wine and broken eggs, the flowers (laid by humans and blooming on the trees), the cigarette butts, the slices of nazuki and paska, and the candles blown out by the wind. Even some over-grown graves had offerings laid at them, which reminded me of watching Giorgi’s mother wander off to leave an egg at an “abandoned” grave. We later toasted to those who don’t have families to pray for their souls or bless their graves. I thought for a brief moment about how this second condition is true of most graves in the US (we just don’t spend time in our graveyards), but then turned my thoughts to a few lines from The Unbearable Lightness of Being. Sabina, my favorite character, has lived in many countries by this point, late in the novel. In the Czech Republic, she liked walking through cemeteries, because they were peaceful and natural places. When she realized that Western European graves are covered with big, elaborate, stone grave heads or mausoleums (which, to be fair, I did see in Czech cemeteries from time to time), she is horrified. She recoils at the thought of being dropped into a deep tomb and covered with a stone; she’d rather be buried like her father, in a shallower tomb under grass and a tree. That way, she feels, her soul would better be able to escape. As she wander farther and farther from her homeland, both physically and mentally, she always remarks in each new place that she can’t stay to die there because she doesn’t want to be covered with a stone. I wonder how she would feel about the Georgian graveyard, where the stones have pictures but the length of the grave usually has grass or flowers growing on it. Would she like that there are picnic tables at the graves? Chuckle at the fences around the grave sites (to keep out cows and pigs, presumably)? Cringe at the way All Souls’ day is a day of performing social identity?
At the end of the novel, the men Sabina loved are buried under head stones with lies for epitaphs. Sabina decides to be cremated and scattered into the wind. I still think I’d prefer to be buried under a tree.
I looked wandered into an old part of the cemetery and admired the flowers, then I went home to have paska and coffee with Maguala. Which was when I was told that paska (pancetta, I think, in Italian) has a pretty grim symbolic purpose at Easter. I’d wondered at the Georgian name for it, trying to figure out if it was linguistically connected somehow to the word “pascal.” I was told that it actually is the shape that matters, because the shape looks like a mountain. Specifically, it looks like Golgatha, apparently. Makes me hesitate before enjoying another overly sweet piece of almond-covered, rainbow-raisin-filled cake. Maybe I’ll stick to the nazuki.
Tuesday night was very important for me personally, though not so much for everyone else here. At 10:30 pm Georgian time, it was 2:30 pm in New York, meaning that it was time for me to register for fall classes. I’ve been here for two semesters. Last year, I was competing against a smaller pool of students for classes because I was abroad both semesters. I’ve missed school a lot. It’s almost absurd how excited I am to get back to classes. Of course I’ve learned  a lot this semester, and it’s been good to learn from primary sources (you know, from people and experience) rather than from academic essays written by researchers about what they read from other researchers. Some of my NYU classes were very good about looking at primary sources and original resources, of course, but I did find an old paper on my computer the other day which reminded me that everything is about balance. It was from freshman year, and I wrote that I was sick of reading for the first time in my life. The reason, I wrote, had nothing to do with my interest in the material or the quantity I was expected to read. I was frustrated, I wrote, of always being fed pre-digested, pre-interpreted information. I was aching to be allowed to consider original material and think about its implications for myself. Now I’m aching to go back to an environment where I can bounce my thoughts off others and have theirs thrown at me.
Well, I’m going. And amazingly I got all the courses I wanted. Eka sat beside me watching the whole process, and I explained to her how class registration works and why it’s nerve-wracking. Now here I am, SUCCESSFULLY REGISTERED FOR ALL THE CLASSES I WANTED NEXT SEMESTER!!!!!!!!!! How is it that registration went more smoothly from here than it ever has from New York? I’m excited to go back to school and soooo excited for these classes. This semester is going to be really really challenging but absolutely fantastic. The classes have names like “Creative Democracy,” “On the Road: Tourism During the Great Depression,” “Narrative Investigations,” and “Doing Things With Words: Art and Politics.” And I have a basic sociology class with a not-so-exciting name, but it’ll complete a minor that I unknowingly fulfilled all the other requirements for already sooo that’s not bad at all. Somehow, all five classes are on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays. This means that I’ll spend all of those three days in lectures and discussion groups, and then I’ll have Friday through Monday to work/intern/study. Since it looks like I’ll be living in Brooklyn, I’m going to do my best to find a job there. Four days of not needing to commute (though I may still sometimes for events and clubs and such on campus) will be nice since subway fares are rising.
At the moment, it looks like I’m set for a good penultimate semester. Gmadlobt, mghertmas!

A few recipes I should mention:

Bozinaqkhi (New Year’s/Christmas sweet)

500 g. walnuts
300 ml. honey
40 g. sugar

1.       Chop the walnuts and toast them.
2.       Put the honey in a pan over low heat. Heat until thin (because fresh, local honey is thick here).
3.       Stir the sugar and walnuts into the honey.
4.       Spread on a wax-paper lined tray and let cool.

Maguala’s Blini

6 eggs
½ l. water, room-temperature
1 c. flour
½ c. sunflower seed oil
salt to taste

1.       Beat the eggs and salt together.
2.       Mix in the flour.
3.       Stir in the oil.
4.       Add the water (be sure to add the water last!).
5.       Let sit for 5 minutes.
6.       Pour into shallow oiled pan (crepe pan / blini pan) and fry.
7.       When cooked through, remove and let cool. Can be filled with savory things (Maguala likes rice and ground meat) or with sweet things (I like chocolate or fruit).

Nazuki
1 l. warm milk
1 kg. sugar
15 eggs
2 tbs yeast
300 g. margarine
assorted spices (cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, vanilla, anise, etc.)
raisins (optional)

1.       Dissolve the sugar in the milk.
2.       Melt the margarine in the milk.
3.       Beat the eggs and stir them into the mixture.
4.       Sprinkle in the yeast.
5.       Spice.
6.       Let sit 5 minutes.
7.       Knead for 1 hour.
8.       Let rise, covered and at room temperature, overnight.
9.       Shape into loaves and bake in kiln (or perhaps on a pizza stone).