One More Plane Ride Out

Oh man. Already off to a bad start. So much for me writing anywhere near regularly, eh?

So I’m in Virginia now. A little town called Blacksburg. You may have never heard of it. I actually didn’t know anything about it until about two months ago when I had to find an apartment here. It’s isolated, to say the least. I’m effectively trapped here, with no airport, bus station, train station…nothing. Not that that’s going to be such a bad thing for the most part…I’m so swamped! Grad school is already kicking my butt. I’m pretty sure a lot of that has to do with the fact that I spent the first half of my senior year in undergrad systematically destroying any semblance of being a good student while I was in Russia. Add a year and a half of chillin' at home/playing homemaker…and I can’t study / write / manage time worth a damn. So what do I do? Naturally I try and make my life extra hard. I’m taking three grad classes, two of which are going to be awesome, the other one redeemed only by my new friend (more later). I’m also in third year Russian (they tried to put me in second year, but when I went to class, I was nothing short of horrified…). And the icing on the cake? I’m a teaching assistant for a political science professor. Political Theory. AKA “not my strong point”. The prof’s cool at least. She’s from Germany. And “eccentric”, like professors do. Yeah, so my time is pretty much well-accounted for.

So, an unabbreviated rundown of my first week as a graduate student of Governance and International Affairs at Virginia Tech. I was registered for two classes with a Dr. Rupa Thadani. Turns out she took last-minute leave, for at least this semester (which, turns out, freed up funds so I got my assistantship!). My first class, Collaborative Governance, was one of those classes, so we have some random prof. He. Is. Awesome. He looks like a hobbit and has an awesome sense of humor. Plus he let us design the syllabus, which resulted in front-loading the reading for the first month, two case studies in the middle, and the last three weeks? Cake. I think we have one reading review in that time. And our final exam is going to be a take-home essay (that we’ll get several weeks before it’s due). Five pages. So we can get our shit together for our classes with the more sadistic professors. The other class Thadani should have taught is Contemporary Political Theory, which is now being taught by the GIA department chair. He’s awesome too. I met him previously regarding my teaching assistantship. The readings are kind of meh, but Thadani picked them, not him. The other class? US Policy and something else I don’t care about. Anyone who’s heard me talk about politics knows that I avoid US politics like the plague. Just not my thing. So of course what will likely be my most frustrating class is on that subject. The professor doesn’t believe in ordering books through the bookstore so she gave us the reading list the first day of class…like 1800 last Tuesday. We have to have a book read by tomorrow. So the next morning I ordered it…yeah, it won’t be here until next Tuesday. Fail. She could have been a responsible professor and emailed the syllabus/reading list ahead of time, so we could get our books in a timely manner. Not so much.

Like I said, that last class does have a redeeming factor. My partner for our term project is second in command at VT’s NROTC. And he’s about the nicest guy ever. He’s seeing what he can do to help me with my little recruiter issue…so I have contact information now for VT’s officer recruiter, and he’s going to look into what can be done about my waivers (once I get a copy of my files from Seattle NRD…). It’s really cool that he would go out of his way like that when we’ve met like, you know, once. Nothing in it for him (except another AWESOME naval aviator!). That pretty much made my Tuesday last week. Still pissed about that book though…

I’m decidedly disappointed in VT’s Russian program. I mean, the class I’m in now is at a good level for me. Then again, I haven’t spoken Russian in a year and a half, and they’re third year students. The professor described how last year’s class was “more advanced” and at the beginning of the year was studying verbs of motion (instead of going back to basics like we are now). Pretty sure I studied verbs of motion during my second year. The second year students here sound like they’ve been studying Russian for maybe a month. Granted, they just got back from summer vacay, but still. And their textbook, for most of the year, is the text we used first year. It was about my favorite Russian textbook ever, but it’s just not a high level book at all. The professor for the third year class is pretty cool though. He’s not Vajda, but he’s still awesome. He does let things slide a little too much, I think, feeding students answers so they aren’t forced to think about what they’re doing. Kind of a disservice to them. But whatever.

So in about five minutes I’ve written a longer blog post than the paper I worked like five hours on yesterday. Hah. Yeah yeah, I’m a little rusty on the academic stuff…hopefully it comes back! I’m already doing better on the reading side. Now I just need to step up the writing so it sounds like I actually read the damn books. Speaking of reading books…my reading list…oh my God. By December, I should have read 35-40 books. Now, they’re not massive textbooks or anything, but it’s still very dense material. And it’s political science. Suuuuper exciting stuff. Anyways, my time here in the office (yeah, I have an office haha) is about up and I’m all sorts of excited to get home. More later! Probably in a smaller dose at least…

Live Young, Die Fast

Another year at Warped Tour, beating the crap out of my body. It's what I used to live for. Now I make the annual pilgrimage to what's left of this heaven on earth for punk rockers. At least they manage to have a few good names on the list still.


This year I unfortunately missed Anti-Flag...at least they weren't like my must-see band. They would have been awesome though. 


Instead, I started the day with Alkaline Trio. Just about my favorite band ever. I love these guys...they make morbidity fun. Not in the I'm-sad-and-emo, or I'm-going-to-scream-your-face-off kind of way. I somehow fell about two albums behind with them, so I only knew the old shit, but they played a couple of my favorites. Armageddon, Calling All Skeletons, and Blue Carolina come to mind. The latter...funny story. It just so happens that the boyfriend and I completely relate to it thanks to his being in the military and disappearing for weeks at a time. We're now one of those couples that has a song. Didn't see that coming. At least it's not some cheesy mass-produced bullshit love song! 


After Alkaline, had to hunt down some water, my friends, and whatever the fuck stage The Casualties were supposed to be on. So at the Gorge, the main amphitheater stage is usually the "Main Stage" for Warped. Not this year. For some reason they chose a tiny grassy area surrounded by tents at the top of the hill for the Main Stage. Not the big open area designed for large crowds. Go figure. The Casualties played on the amphitheater stage though, so that was cool. Except that the blacktop was so hot it was burning my feet through my Chucks. But it's the fucking Casualties, so it was worth it. By the end of the set, I wasn't sure whose sweat I was soaked in...plus I'd moshed with Rick and Jake! They jumped down and played Riot in the center of the pit. On their way back to the stage Rick gave me a high-five too. During another song they instigated a pretty sick wall of death...I opted not to participate, after my trip to the hospital last year stemming from a rough crowd watching Less Than Jake. Not trying to make any friends at Quincy, that's for sure. 


Post-Casualties it was time for more major hydration (it was fucking hot out!), and I wandered around the tents and kept out of the sun waiting for Reel Big Fish. Saw a few Oompa Loompas too. Yeah. You read that right. Turns out they were doing a bit on the main stage before RBF. It was....interesting. And then I got nailed in the back of the head by Wonka candy being thrown to the crowd from the VIP tent (remember the whole trying to avoid the hospital thing?) Finally RBF hit the stage. They're one of my favorite live bands. Their setlist doesn't change much, but they're awesome when it comes to engaging the crowd. Like testing the crowd's flexibility when it came to musical styles--playing part of the same song in different ways, and getting everyone to dance to it. So we had skanking, booty-shaking, head-banging, square-dancing...ridiculous, yes, but everyone always loves it. I actually got a lot more roughed up at that show than I'd expected...apparently a lot of the younger crowd confuse skanking and moshing. Really guys? I stuck around for some Dropkicks after that, but there's only a few songs I like by them. 


Unfortunately, Sum-41 didn't make it to the end of the tour (thanks, Japan). Otherwise I would have been in Portland today too. So I wrapped up my day with a little Everclear. That's right, Everclear at Warped. Don't hate, they were way cooler than 80% of the bands there. So at the beginning of the set, this guy in a wheelchair right in front of me lights up a j. Okay, whatev. Then he's passing it around, kept trying to pass it back to me. Sorry man, not my thing. Once it's gone around to all the randos in the area, he jumps out of his wheelchair and tilts it forward....and out come about a half dozen more! He hid them in the rail of his chair. After that there were several just going around. I thought the whole thing was pretty funny :D


I did find a new band to like :) They're called The Sparring. Super new, super small, super awesome. I think they have a MySpace or something, but not much beyond that. Their singer used to play bass for Tiger Army, but they're not a psychobilly band. Just straight punk, and a good time.


I was also please to see a few more punks this year. I'm sure the presence of the Casualties boosted that a bit...it was too bad that bands like Pennywise and Bouncing Souls didn't finish out the tour. Last year I was disappointed to see that I was likely the only one rocking liberties at both the Boise show and at the Gorge.


Ended up riding home with my buddy instead of camping (turns out it was a good call--I got a hot shower and a bed last night; my other friend? Passed out face-down in the grass at the campground, liquor bottle in hand).  I've almost caught up on my hydration, can't hear for shit, and I'm still finding bruises...but it's always worth it :)

Now I Fight With The Words

After a two year hiatus, I'm deciding to try out this blogging thing again. My last blog was all about my life in St. Petersburg, Russia in the fall of 2008. You can read it here. I decided to leave that blog as it is, as a record of my time in Piter, and start something new, as a reflection of the next stage of my life.

I'm in a major transitional period. In a week I'll be in Virginia, preparing to begin my graduate studies. I've spent very little time on the East Coast, just a few trips growing up. And I've definitely never been to Virginia. I'm pretty nervous about classes themselves, after spending the last year not only not in school, but not working either. It's going to be a huge change to go from doing nothing, to leaping into a full schedule of graduate level classes, plus an under-grad level Russian class, and a job. On top of that, the bf won't be able to move to Virginia until sometime next winter. It'll be a tough semester, but I have so much to gain!

At the same time, I'm still wrestling with the Navy over my dream-job. In March I was professionally recommended by a board of Navy pilots to become a Student Naval Aviator. Which meant that all I needed to do was get my medical and security clearances, and pass my Physical Requirements Test. It took three months for my recruiter to get me into MEPS (Military Entrance Processing Station) for my medical clearance. Unfortunately, my medical clearance didn't go through after I had a waiver rejected by Navy Medical. I'm still fighting it.

I've wanted to join the military for years. When I finished high school, I'd gone and talked to an enlisted recruiter. I rocked my ASVAB, and was told I "could do anything". Trouble was, I was 17 and had no direction and didn't know what I wanted to do. At that point, if my recruiter had just said "sign up for this" I would have. But he didn't, so I didn't. Instead I went to college, with the goal in mind to apply for Officer Candidate School once I graduated. So this has been in the works for some time now. It has been unbelievably frustrating, having to fight so hard just to get in. It's what I want, though, so hopefully my hard work will pay off!

Either way, I'm taking those steps forward to prepare to start my life for real!