if i have time to blog...

...i have time to read the 300 pages that await me in A Hazard of New Fortunes. I mean, really, where is all of my free time going? Answer: Facebook (don't ask), Mad Men (1 hr/wk), True Blood (2 hrs/wk), Savage Love (1 hr/wk), This American Life (1 hr/wk), making food (combined? eh 5 hrs/wk and that's generous), consuming food (5 hrs/wk again, generous), partying (generally takes place on Friday and Saturday from the hours of 8 or 9 PM until, oh, I'd say 3 am so... 10 hrs/wk... still not enough).

I don't watch much tv, honestly, but it seems that my nights just disappear. There really ISN'T enough time in the damned day. Reading is my life. I read and read and read and read and read... you get the point. And it isn't always fun stuff. It's not one exciting novel after another. It's literary theory. It's critiques. It's genre-related babbling. Oy fucking vey.

I honestly understand now why The University of Texas gives us money to attend school: BECAUSE ADDING ANYTHING ELSE TO YOUR SCHEDULE WOULD BE FUCKING IMPOSSIBLE. Every minute I am not reading I feel guilty. I feel guilty for writing this blog! I need my party time, though. THEY MAY TAKE MY FREEDOM, BUT THEY'LL NEVER TAKE MY BEER! I'm pretty sure that's what Mel Gibson said in Braveheart.

Okay, I'm not really as sad as I'm pretending. I'm learning, yo. Yesterday I was a substitute TA for two discussion sections and had a classroom of 20somethings staring at me as though I was the source of all Early American literature knowledge. 'Twas brilliant! I could do this for life, stand up there and act like I know everything there is to know about Puritans and their writings. Hooray for American Literature!

I love to talk about those moments where I'm sitting in one of my grad school classes (again, that I'm paid to attend) and I float above the room, looking down on the six of us (professor included) as we try to resolve why James chose to describe Catherine as "soft" in Washington Square. Floating Yvette looks down at real Yvette and says "Who the fuck do you think you are? Look at you, you little pansy." Floating Yvette goes on mockingly, "'I'm Yvette, I'm a grad student, I think "soft" means marshmallows and pillows.' Get a real job, bitch." Floating Yvette quite obviously thinks real Yvette is a PHONY. Real Yvette is worried that floating Yvette is sometimes right.

That's right. I've reached internal struggle #1 in grad school and for once I'd like to say it out loud...

WHAT THE FUCK AM I DOING HERE?