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ravenIt is my birthday! It has been my birthday for a whole hour, and I am twenty-four years old, what the hell is that about. The last time I had a birthday in this house I was eighteen and Bush was taking office for the second time, welcome to adulthood, yeah. I'm older than Wikipedia and the Liberal Democrats and the National Lottery, a little younger than the mobile phone and Matt Smith, and much younger than John McCain and the Grand Canyon. I was the only post-1963 generation not to have grown up with Doctor Who, the youngest to remember the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the last to remember a time before the internet.
Here is something nice that has happened on my birthday so far! I am signing up for my one permitted non-law-school course this semester, a grad seminar in the school of government; the professor knows me, and was happy to sort out the admin for me when I emailed her. "By the way", she wrote, "congratulations on the award you won in my class in the fall, it was well-deserved."
I wrote back to say what award.
Apparently the law school thought it not quite worth mentioning to me! But I won something we-know-not-what for my work in the normative political theory colloquium, and when I return I shall find out what it was exactly; in the meantime I have that, and I took honours in three of four classes anyway, so I'm on course to doing okay, and I'm happy.
Here are some other nice things that have happened to me recently! Last week I went down to London to seegavagai, and we saw lots of people-including-happydork-back-from-Americaland, and Laura bought me a pendant from Claire's Accessories that says "I Love Werewolves", and it may be twelve years too late but I love it very much. And hey, I live four thousand miles away from my best friend and it sucks but over a couple of days it didn't suck, and we ate pancakes and she showed me Huge and The Good Wife, and while I liked the latter, we then sat down and watched seven more episodes of the former. I really, really like it; it's so clever and witty and endlessly sweet. I think Laura's right and it would have been less fun to watch ten years ago, because it does capture teenage drama and the life-and-death aspect of it all very well, but from this elderly wrinkly distance it is great fun.
And then there was my birthday party, and that was very lovely; Shim and I piled a bunch of people we know and love into the living room and plied them with drink, an approach which has never failed to work well. There was mulled cider and pink wine and sweets in glasses, and some rumoured spring rolls, but mostly people. I spent another couple of days with Shim in Oxford, which is murky and wet, as it always is in mid-January, and it's comforting to know that nothing ever changes there, and comforting to know you can step into the well-worn grooves of your life even if you can't go home again, but there was still an unease there. You know what, long-distance relationships suck, don't do them. They really suck. They involve crying on railway station platforms in the pouring rain and then telling yourself sternly that this is no way to behave, this is not a romantic comedy, this is real life. And then you feel obscurely worse.
Here is the not-very-nice thing happening to me soon: I am going back to Ithaca. Yes, soon. Very soon. But not today, and not tomorrow. On Friday morning I am departing and on Friday night the South African Siren is putting up with me on her sofa, because she is kindness itself and everything I own on that side of the pond is in nine not-very-large boxes, but, but, I deal with all that when I come to it.
How can I be in my mid-twenties you guys. I should sleep.
Here is something nice that has happened on my birthday so far! I am signing up for my one permitted non-law-school course this semester, a grad seminar in the school of government; the professor knows me, and was happy to sort out the admin for me when I emailed her. "By the way", she wrote, "congratulations on the award you won in my class in the fall, it was well-deserved."
I wrote back to say what award.
Apparently the law school thought it not quite worth mentioning to me! But I won something we-know-not-what for my work in the normative political theory colloquium, and when I return I shall find out what it was exactly; in the meantime I have that, and I took honours in three of four classes anyway, so I'm on course to doing okay, and I'm happy.
Here are some other nice things that have happened to me recently! Last week I went down to London to see
gavagai, and we saw lots of people-including-happydork-back-from-Americaland, and Laura bought me a pendant from Claire's Accessories that says "I Love Werewolves", and it may be twelve years too late but I love it very much. And hey, I live four thousand miles away from my best friend and it sucks but over a couple of days it didn't suck, and we ate pancakes and she showed me Huge and The Good Wife, and while I liked the latter, we then sat down and watched seven more episodes of the former. I really, really like it; it's so clever and witty and endlessly sweet. I think Laura's right and it would have been less fun to watch ten years ago, because it does capture teenage drama and the life-and-death aspect of it all very well, but from this elderly wrinkly distance it is great fun.And then there was my birthday party, and that was very lovely; Shim and I piled a bunch of people we know and love into the living room and plied them with drink, an approach which has never failed to work well. There was mulled cider and pink wine and sweets in glasses, and some rumoured spring rolls, but mostly people. I spent another couple of days with Shim in Oxford, which is murky and wet, as it always is in mid-January, and it's comforting to know that nothing ever changes there, and comforting to know you can step into the well-worn grooves of your life even if you can't go home again, but there was still an unease there. You know what, long-distance relationships suck, don't do them. They really suck. They involve crying on railway station platforms in the pouring rain and then telling yourself sternly that this is no way to behave, this is not a romantic comedy, this is real life. And then you feel obscurely worse.
Here is the not-very-nice thing happening to me soon: I am going back to Ithaca. Yes, soon. Very soon. But not today, and not tomorrow. On Friday morning I am departing and on Friday night the South African Siren is putting up with me on her sofa, because she is kindness itself and everything I own on that side of the pond is in nine not-very-large boxes, but, but, I deal with all that when I come to it.
How can I be in my mid-twenties you guys. I should sleep.
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no subject
on 2011-01-20 01:59 am (UTC)no subject
on 2011-01-20 02:03 am (UTC)no subject
on 2011-01-20 01:59 am (UTC)(Nine not-very-large boxes doesn't sound like a pleasant space to come back to, though - I hope it's all made homey very swiftly.)
no subject
on 2011-01-20 02:03 am (UTC)no subject
on 2011-01-20 02:09 am (UTC)<3 Happy birthday!
no subject
on 2011-01-20 02:09 am (UTC)And if it's the Ithaca I'm thinking of, I have a vague inkling of maybe having to move somewhere near it in the foreseeable future.
no subject
on 2011-01-29 01:54 am (UTC)no subject
on 2011-01-20 02:39 am (UTC)Back when you had just turned five, Jeremy Bentham (that article doesn't do justice to just how big an influence his writing was for my generation of fans) told the Oxford DocSoc that we were too young to remember a time when there wasn't a Doctor Who and how dull the world was then, which is why we should campaign to bring it back. I'm glad you discovered it and glad it's back to transform and be transformed in the minds of new generations.
Good to see you the other day, if briefly - the fact I am awake at this time perhaps suggests my predisposition to be slightly dazed during daylight hours.
I can't remember what I did when I turned twenty-four, which is a sign of how long ago it was...
no subject
on 2011-01-29 01:55 am (UTC)(no subject)
Posted byno subject
on 2011-01-20 06:16 am (UTC)no subject
on 2011-01-20 10:04 am (UTC)As someone who did a successful long distance relationship, I definitely hear the bits about 'this is real life'. It's so very awkward.
no subject
on 2011-01-29 01:56 am (UTC)no subject
on 2011-01-20 03:20 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2011-01-29 01:56 am (UTC)no subject
on 2011-01-20 06:53 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2011-01-29 01:56 am (UTC)no subject
on 2011-01-21 03:31 am (UTC)no subject
on 2011-01-29 01:56 am (UTC)no subject
on 2011-01-20 02:04 am (UTC)But hey, for another full year, you can still technically say "I'm in my early twenties," if you define early twenties as "before the halfway point"?
So many congratulations on all of the academic ass-kicking you did this past term. You show those damned colonials how it's done. :)
Finally: once you get back to Ithaca, we should MAKE PLANS. If you want to.
no subject
on 2011-01-20 02:10 am (UTC)(My mother this morning: "I am totally still middle-aged. If I live to 110.")
PLANS YES OF COURSE I WANT TO! We should definitely start plottin'. :P
(no subject)
Posted by(no subject)
Posted byno subject
on 2011-01-20 02:07 am (UTC)no subject
on 2011-01-20 02:11 am (UTC)no subject
on 2011-01-20 02:17 am (UTC)So fucking true. I once cried so hard upon leaving my beloved that my nose started to bleed, right there in the middle of the airport. God, it was awful.
Anyway: happy birthday! I just turned 32. While I am no longer a prime number, I am now a multiple of 8 - and that I rather like. Some numbers are just oddly comforting...
no subject
on 2011-01-20 02:13 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Posted byno subject
on 2011-01-20 02:29 am (UTC)no subject
on 2011-01-29 01:42 am (UTC)no subject
on 2011-01-20 02:33 am (UTC)no subject
on 2011-01-29 01:42 am (UTC)no subject
on 2011-01-20 03:20 am (UTC)no subject
on 2011-01-29 01:42 am (UTC)no subject
on 2011-01-20 03:37 am (UTC)no subject
on 2011-01-20 03:38 am (UTC)(no subject)
Posted byno subject
on 2011-01-20 09:36 am (UTC)And ditto on the wince at your first paragraph. I'm 26 and I think I'm the last generation to remember handwriting essays for school.
And I'm still cross about the Doctor Who deprivation, though my dad and I used to watch repeats (with Tom Baker, I think).
no subject
on 2011-01-20 11:07 am (UTC)Iona: BTHUTHDAY :) Happy one. Also: PIECE OF THE BERLIN WALL AWESOME.
(no subject)
Posted by(no subject)
Posted byno subject
on 2011-01-20 09:55 am (UTC)no subject
on 2011-01-29 01:44 am (UTC)no subject
on 2011-01-20 11:19 am (UTC)I was the only post-1963 generation not to have grown up with Doctor Who, the youngest to remember the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the last to remember a time before the internet.
Do we count as the same generation, do you think? Because I didn't grow up with Doctor Who either (the last episode of Old!Who aired two weeks after I was born, and New!Who didn't begin until I was 15), but the Berlin Wall fell two weeks before I was born and I only just remember a time before the internet (or at least, before it was anything like it was today).
no subject
on 2011-01-29 01:46 am (UTC)(no subject)
Posted byno subject
on 2011-01-20 12:14 pm (UTC)btw I owe you a tenner, on behalf of
(no subject)
Posted by(no subject)
Posted byno subject
on 2011-01-20 01:16 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2011-01-29 01:47 am (UTC)no subject
on 2011-01-20 01:53 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2011-01-29 01:47 am (UTC)no subject
on 2011-01-29 01:48 am (UTC)no subject
on 2011-01-20 03:03 pm (UTC)And congratulations on your mystery award!
no subject
on 2011-01-29 01:48 am (UTC)