Mad Men is so awesomely sad, it makes me happy.

I thought a meal plan would be a really good idea in terms of there being a salad bar and me eating more vegetables on the daily. And I do partake of the salad bar, and that is a very good thing. However, the dining hall also offers the potential for me to eat three huge tamales stuffed with cheese, which are decidedly not vegetables, but which I consumed this evening at dinner. But the tamales were decidedly delicious, and I'm only a little bit sorry about going back for the third one.

Unrelated to dining halls: The thing I've noticed about graduate school is that there is always more reading to do. Like, I've done all my reading for tomorrow, but there's still more reading for me to do for upcoming papers, presentations, and projects. And if I were finished with all of that, I would still have other reading I could do: for working group meetings, for curiosity, for sucking up to professors by asking them about things they've written. There are a lot of g.d. books in this world, is what I'm saying.

Unrelated to dining halls and books: I bought actual shampoo tonight. Checked the label twice before I left the store. And again when I got back to my room.

Today I realized that for more than a month, I've been washing my hair with conditioner.

By the way, my family's totally fine. Mostly without power, but totally fine. They're "mostly" without power because my grandparents had a backup generator, because Grandpa just buys things, so that branch of the family has been cooking food and watching tv just like before. I'm sure they don't have cable, but you don't need cable to watch Judge Judy, so really their lives are exactly the same.

My Cultural Studies seminar today was painful. I spoke zero words because I have nothing to contribute when I'm asked to think about a poem (I don't do poetry) and an avant-garde art installation (I don't do art, and I absolutely don't do avant-garde) in the context of a theoretical work I didn't understand (I don't do theory). It was my personal Intellectual Axis of Exil, for two hours. It even hurts to remember.

I am writing a blog entry, which means that there is something that I am not doing. Since I am now a student, that something will almost always be reading and/or writing. In this particular instance, I am not reading The Insubordination of Signs by Nelly Richard. The book is a theory of language/history/meaning by a Chilean writer interested in post-dicatorship Chile.

The course is Cultural Studies in the Americas, which is the bilingual class I'm using to fulfill my language requirement, because, as I indicated to both of my programs, I am "conversant" in Spanish. There are levels of "conversant," so I'm fully expecting to struggle in this course. But this text has been TRANSLATED into ENGLIGH, which is a language I would say that I've reached the category of "proficient" in.

Last night, I read eight pages over the course of, I think, four hours. I use the word "read" in the most liberal way possible, because out of those eight pages, I understood maybe three paragraphs altogether. There's nothing more frustrating that looking at a sentence and realizing that you know the meaning of every word in it, but not being able to construct a meaning out of the sentence when all of the words are put together.

Now, as I will admit freely, theory brings me no joy. I don't have, as colleagues of mine have, "a theoretical mind." But I read a different theoretical work earlier this week (Pedagogy of the Oppresed), which changed my fucking *life*, so I know that I DO have a mind that can understand things. So I don't understand why writers think it's appropriate to construct sentences within which they introduce and don't explain ideas that they just made up as if their meaning was self-evident. I don't understand why they then construct paragraphs out of these sentences, chapters out of these paragraphs, and books out of these chapters. And listen, I would be totally fine not understanding all of the previous, if I didn't now, and didn't ever, have to read 100 pages of a book that is entirely incomprehensible.

I used to feel like a dummy when I didn't get theoretical works. Now I just think it's stupid to write things people can't read, and stupider to think that because something can't be understood, that it's brilliant.

My first full week of classes is over and done, and I've got a final schedule:

1. Introduction to the Public Humanities -- Investigation into how to bring academic training and work into the public sphere; weekly visits by people like curators, public historians, performance artists, filmmakers, and academics whose work crosses over. Very practical training, directly in line with my own career goals, and the class I'll be putting the most effort into.
2. American Scholars -- Required introductory class for all first-years in AmStud. Professors in the department come in each week and talk about the people who have influenced them/their field of study.
3. Cultural Study in the Americas -- Looking at social movements/popular culture/etc. in Latin America, and the Caribbean. It's a bilingual course, so it's gonna get my language requirement out of the way, which is critical because I will *never again* use Spanish in my work. (Mainstream US filmmaking has one language, friends, and that language is English.)
4. British Cinema -- My first class in a national cinema, and the only film class because there's no Hollywood cinema courses this semester, and this is my compromise. Go, Michael Powell.

Tomorrow I have a coffee-meeting with a kid named David, who is committed to abolishing the prison-industrial complex. (This is not why we are meeting, but I feel compelled to say that, because David does, at any free moment. Really, he's very sweet, adorable, with basset-hound eyes that belie the rage that pumps through his veins.) We're meeting because I am, like the rest of the incoming American Studies students, being recruited to join the graduate students' union (GESO), which is not recognized by the university, because Yale is a bastard about a lot of stuff. GESO is mostly run by American Studies students, and pretty much all American Studies students are in GESO. Because we fight the power like that.

(And who was it that founded the union while she was a graduate student at Yale? I believe it was the woman who is the answer to all things, Mary Renda. *sigh*)

Also coming up: American Studies apple-picking event on Saturday afternoon, featuring the entire department -- students, professors, and all associated family. I've never been apple-picking, despite all that time in the Pioneer Valley. (I did go to an Apple Festival with Aislinnmarie and Sharon T. Smith in central Pennsylvania in 2004 while on fall break. That was pretty fly.) I'm wary of anything meant to be "fun" that requires you to perform labor, then pay for the [literal] fruits of said labor. There's something suspiciously Tom Sawyer about that. Further, since I won't be doing any canning in my dorm room, I'm not sure what a single woman can do with a bushel of apples. Ah, well -- one can nevertheless look forward to the reception-thing afterwards, at which there will be pie. And probably alcohol. Receptions in graduate school are the best.

A couple of days ago, I was watching Camp Rock (acquired through alternate channels; don't ask) and trying to learn the choreography of the finale, "We Rock." This is much harder than it sounds -- I know I can do it, because I can do anything Joe Jonas can do and probably look less awkward, additionally -- but without a resident choreographer, it can take a while to get some of the moves down. I told my sister about this, and she responded, "YOU NEED TO GO TO CLASS. WHEN DO CLASSES START?"

My sister [and likely, you readers, too] will be relieved to know that my Camp Rock time will be severely curtailed as of tomorrow, when the semester finally begins. Today, AmStud met with Kathryn Dudley [hereafter: K-Dizzle], who advised us on course selection. On the day before classes start. Okay, Yale. Whatever. There's a two-week shopping period, so this isn't final, but I'm almost certain I'll be taking: American Scholars, the intro American Studies seminar; Introduction to Public Humanities, which is about exploring careers in public history/museums/etc; and British Cinema, which is about British cinema. I'll take one more course, and maybe I'll audit another. I'll have to see how much work each class involves.

In social news, I had MHC mini-reunions over the weekend -- pretty sweet. Sharon T. Smith invited me to her sister's 40th birthday party, so I spent Saturday with Sharon T. and varied members of the extended Smith family, for which "extended" is the most appropriate word. Sharon's dad, semi-retired professor of Dickinson College, offered me two pieces of advice for graduate school:
(1) Don't let them take your joy away.
(2) It's a game.
Check, Doc. And, noted. Also, he told me I should see some Bollywood movies (current count: 0), and he's absolutely right. Which is why I currently have an Indian version of Seven Brides for Seven Brothers in my Netflix queue. Bet you didn't know that there was an Indian version of Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. Me neither, until Saturday. And actually, there are two such versions.

On Sunday, I was visited by Ashley Brown, who wanted to see an exhibit at the Yale Center for British Art (portraits and such by Joseph Wright of Derby). We went to brunch with some other students (part of another orientation function, the "Brunch Bunch"), which didn't suck. Then we saw the art, which also didn't suck. And then we discussed Judy Garland and Barbra Streisand and Katharine Hepburn, 'cause, well, it's what we do. Good times.