Sleepless Dreamer > Recent Status Updates

My econ textbook: Now we can finally calculate the compensated cross-price elasticity of demand!

Me: Okay, now why would we ever want to do that to ourselves?

“Our lives and value were measured in weeks served. People would ask each other what week they were in, and this provided a hierarchy."

I flat out refused to wear army ranks throughout my service due to this.

I wrote in my Econ exam "this seems highly unlikely. I've probably made a catastrophic mistake somewhere but this is my answer" and dear god, I was so convinced I was wrong since I hadn't studied for the exam at all but guess what?? I WAS RIGHT. This is the biggest confidence boost I've ever experienced.

“I’m a product of my time. I'm not a criminal.”

“I’d have been better off dying in Afghanistan. Honest, I get thoughts like that. In Afghanistan death was a normal thing. You could understand it there.”

I'm not emotionally prepared for this book at all.

This book is ridiculously slow and at this point, I'm so tempted to stop reading it. At the same time, I'm way too stubborn to leave it unfinished.

Writing final essays for courses like, "I've been waiting the whole semester to express this argument, this is so therapeutic, I didn't even realize i had so much pent up anger about this."

"America is a thriving religious marketplace and if Jews are going to compete, they will need to have more confidence in their message."

I really dislike this attitude, religion isn't a free market and Judaism isn't a product.

"In that sense, All-American Muslim is representative of American Muslims. As a group, they are uninterested in jihad and Islamic supremacism. They are by and large much less radicalized than their European, let alone their Middle Eastern, counterparts."

Right, everyone knows that all the European and Middle Eastern Muslims support jihad and Islamic supremacism. Come on.

Me, after reading 100s of pages about democratization theory:

Katniss' decision to kill Coin was horribly irresponsible and could have resulted in a brand new authoritarian regime. When a former regime falls, it is crucial to have a leader step in immediately, lest the confusion be abused. Coin's power grab was necessary, at least as a temporary measure. In this essay, I shall...

There are more interfaith marriages in the US than interracial and cross political marriages. This is wild, like I'd have an easier time marrying a Black Republican than a non-Jew by far.

“I thought about how surviving requires finding something that possesses the mind so thoroughly that nothing else matters...I thought about how we never really do manage to recover fully from whatever first wounds us... I thought about how some find God while trying to lose Him and how others lose God while trying to find Him.”

GR character limit doesn't let me copy the entire book, unfortunately.

Israel- Palestinian dialogue adventures: My pacifism equally irritates both Israelis and Palestinians- I must be doing something right.

In other news, dear god, I am unprepared for all of my exams but at least I'm very updated about Russian and Belarusian news so we have that.

Me: doing dialogue work is amazing, I want to spend my life talking to people who think differently than me.

Also me: this is horrible, how can people be so wrong, I'm so tired of everyone. When can I move into a cave alone and never have to deal with this?

Ahhhh.

“I left the academy to build my own.”

“Why’d you leave?”

“It was unsatisfying. Intellectually, I loved academia—I still do—but on an emotional level it felt divorced from something larger. I wanted Torah Umadda, the beauty of Western thought supplemented by a more spiritual sensitivity to the human condition."

This is such a mood.

Me: alrighty, time to begin studying!

10 minutes later....

"How does one become the pope"

"Let's listen to sea shanties!"

"Did Chile manage to truly change their education system after the democratization? Here are a few academic articles, they're not really relevant to my classes but damn are they fascinating."

This is going well.

Queer philosophy student adventures:

Becoming weirdly pleased whenever people write trans instead of transcendental. Like heck yes, give me those trans objects, trans realism, trans intuition.

I have never felt more alive than those 4 seconds while grades are loading.

“As the only child of a single mother, I had accepted one truth about human nature early on that I saw others trying to resist in vain: that loneliness was an inseparable part of being human.”

I haven't lived in the US for over a decade, why do I still feel so much anxiety about everything that goes on there, ahhh

“The problem with a democratic leader is that they engage with differences in opinion and give them equal weight, so that—just when a decision needs to be taken—it is delegitimized by those who disagree.”

This just feels like a reference for Trump's entire time as president.

"The past has always been the handmaid of authority."

The more time I spend writing this paper, the further the end of it seems, why is life like this

Philosophy student adventures: I can't decide what's worse, papers written so condensed that every single word matters for your understanding or papers that include tons of irrelevant rants so you have to work to understand what's the point.

Day 1 of writing this essay:

I have a fascinating research question and a great opening paragraph but absolutely no way to actually prove my point.

This is going great.

“Unsure how to make a graceful exit, Britain let Muslims and Hindus decide.”

Surely this will end well.

Dialogue adventures:
- Wearing a Christmas themed sweater to a Jewish meet-up cause heck, why not?
- The Haredi guy going, "you've definitely heard about where I'm from, we were famous in the first covid wave".
- Man, I just love hearing Haredi men communicate with each other,
- I am getting recognized for my note taking abilities, I feel at home here.
- I'm too leftist to convince others to join the army.

Disadvantages of online exams: a video of me panicking as I try to solve Econ questions will forever exist in some Zoom cloud. Like wow, do I really consent to this, can't my shame be private?

Advantages: My cat can sit on me and purr as I face this crisis, reminding me that truly, Econ is not the most important thing.

Today has been an impressively frustrating day. I forgot how some days can just take such a toll on mental health (ahhh, why isn't anything working right) but hey, that's why escaping into fantasy exists!

Me: I can't be anxious for an interview to a program that I clearly don't have time to attend. I can't be anxious for an interview to a program that I clearly don't have time to attend. I can't be anxious for an interview to a program that I clearly don't have time to attend.

My brain: ANXIETY