Captain of a Shipwreck

So, this week, I have two deadlines.  On Thursday, I have to prove I can actually speak and read Portuguese proficiently so I can earn a language credit for my PhD--instead of taking advanced statistics.  Considering that I will fail advanced statistics, it's relatively important that I not fail the Portuguese exam.  Have I studied?  Does reviewing the beginning part of 501 Verbs, reading an Isabel Allende novel in Portuguese translation, and listening to a lot of Grupo Revelacao count as studying?  If so, then yes. 

On Friday, I should have written a 20 page paper on political economy, tourism in New Orleans, and Casa Samba to enter into a grad student paper contest.  Since the UNO Anthropology Department appears uninterested in paying me, winning this contest is important: it pays $250.00! Have I written the paper?  Well, I have an outline in my brain and probably have a ton of component parts on various computers.  I've been trying to funnel them into a single device since last week with limited success.  Tonight, by the time I go to bed, I intend to have a nearly complete draft of this paper though.  Watch.

I also have papers to grade, a midterm to write, oh, an abstract for another paper I'm purportedly presenting in November to write (that's due tomorrow!), and I've had enough coffee to stay awake for a week.  It should be no surprise, then, that I'm having flashbacks to my life as an undergrad: this was the norm.  I've been lucky as a graduate student.  I've always been hyper-busy, but I've never been in danger of destroying my kidneys with coffee as I was so frequently between 1997 and 2001.  Partly, that's come from being in school in New Orleans instead of D.C. this time around.  D.C. is inherently stressful, New Orleans is stressful in some of the same ways: concentrated poverty, shitty governance, odd class polarization--but we lack that weird constant surveillance feeling here.  Maybe that's not even the key difference.  Maybe it's true: maybe we don't take things so seriously here in general, including school. 

Maybe it has nothing to do with New Orleans.  In D.C., I could never go to my brother's house and watch 5 DVRed episodes of The Real Housewives of New Jersey--and not just because the show hadn't been invented.  Between 1997 and 2001, I was in college, I was living in D.C., but I was also spending a lot of time worrying about things I couldn't control, such as my brother's life (which ranged during that period from chaotic to disastrous).  Times have changed.  We've both grown up.  My school-related stress is no longer a mere enhancement of the depth of concern for my brother and the selfish impulse to want to fix his life for him.  My school-related stress is school-related.  If I don't do the paper, I'm not even sure I will care.  If I don't pass the exam, I will find another way to get credit for knowing how to speak a language I already know.  None of this shit matters!  Hooray!

Comments

[Carolina Gasolina]

passou a prova?? quantas pessoas no depto la sabem que um "scratcher" eh chamado reco-reco em portugues?

isso deve ser a prova!

[Lauren Lastrapes]

Passei, Carolina! A "prova" foi assim: o profesor, quem falava portugues como seu terceiro lingua--depois de espanhol e ingles, e eu conversemos por meia hora. Meu portugues foi melhor do portugues dele. Depois, eu traduzi dois trechos do texto em portugues que ele procurou no internet. So isso. Ninguem sabe que um "scratcher" eh "reco-reco." Chora reco-reco!