I loved going to Prof B’s office hours yesterday. Everything about his manner, his office, even his name, puts me in a literary frame of mind.* He has endless shelves of books arranged loosely by topic and author (and I recognised a couple, like Prof U’s “Age of Homespun”, from other classes I’ve taken here). He has the kindly face, deliberate and thoughtful speech cadences, and even the comfortably-timeless tweedy coats of the iconic English professor. Very much role-model material (he also founded a new subfield in his academic discipline and is among the best-loved teachers at the college). Maybe minus the wardrobe… or perhaps not.
*Which is a pleasant and comforting escape after weeks of microeconomic problem sets and GRE dianostic tests that have painfully and repeatedly demonstrated a massive failure of any previous quantitative reasoning skill I once possessed.
I am trying, somewhat successfully, to wean myself off heavily material constructions of myself. So, for example, I’ve essentially stopped going to Starbucks. Which is a good thing, on multiple levels. And what was the impetus of this turn away from materialism? Two weeks ago, the unexpected magnitude of the trauma resulting from the temporary “disappearance” of my iPod and B&O headphones got me critically thinking about, and repudiating, my increasing attachment to the meaning of the things I bought and owned. I suppose I shouldn’t have been so shocked, but growing up I never imagined that I would ever be so concerned and mindful of things like the burgandy alligator-band on my wristwatch. I always hoped that I would continue to be concerned only with utility (my fancy 6.1 speakers allow me to better appreciate music), craftsmanship (Ferragamos are simply better made), provenance or backstory (my stash of high-grown Sambhavy vanilla tea can only be bought in Madagascar) and to be satisfied with just the memory of previous possessions (so when my Adrienne Landau animal-print silk scarf flew off my head on a ride in Hong Kong, I just shrugged, albeit a little sadly). Which is why being packed off to the army, to rural South Africa, to Bangladesh and to Madagascar was perfectly dandy for me, suspicious water-quality, latrines, forest treks, jalopy-rides and all.
But in more recent weeks I was forced to reevaluate how entangled I had become in my possessions, and how I was becoming overly comfortable with leaning on them to project an image for me. Where then was there room in my overstuffed distressed-calfskin tote for my character, my humility and my soul? Was I forgetting to burnish my personal traits and condition my heart even while I buffed my boots with mink oil? I certainly hope not. Despite all appearances, I really don’t think any of the things of this world matter much, and I want to be confident that a loss of my collection of them (say, God-forbid, in a fire) would not put any over-great burden on my sense of self.
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In other news, last night I was quite revolutionary. I was in bed by 10.30pm, and awoke around 6am to start (and complete) my Ec1010a problem set. It’s nice to feel rested, and heathier for having that knowledge.
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I filled out a giant student health survey yesterday, and one of the questions was, “In the last 30 days, have you (check all that apply): (a) exercised to lose weight…” And I started laughing. Then checked “no”.
On the other hand, if they had asked —
“In the last 30 days, have you (check all that apply):
(a) bought 20 pounds of candy which you are steadily consuming
(b) gained over 5% of your body weight
(c) come to the startling realisation that your grades may be worse than last semester
(d) felt weary, restless and slightly anxious about the future
(e) detected an unusual and unwelcome trend of poor “luck”
(f) worried that your hair was falling out at an unnaturally high rate
(g) felt in severe need of a vacation”
— I could have checked off all of these.
