got your earrings in my pocket till i see you again

I am finally settling into the give and take of things here, and am realizing that I turn twenty in eight days. How strange a thought is that?

What else is there to say, except that I miss the relative comforts and companionship of the summertime? I've made a promise, foolishly and selfishly, that the weather will break by my birthday and be incredibly, breathtakingly, a Blue Ridge fall day. Perhaps that's more hope than anything.

Things I have gleaned from my classes so far include:
-hope and doubt are two sides of the same peculairly human state
-I am violently appalled and sickened by the not-so-ancient (though more and more discredited) notion that history is a a grand, divinely ordained, *progress* toward liberty, perfection, and telos -- that there is an END to this thing that we are tearing apart.

I need to see my fellow DMP students step away from the blindness of faith, that the world is some non-accidental creation, that the "great men" of history were somehow preordained and "chosen" to grasp the reins of historical change. I am prepared to slap everyone in the face with Britain's crippled postwar economy, the unmitigated disaster of Vietnam, the Armenian genocide, the formation of terror cells in countries whose leaders do not care about the welfare of their citizens.

I just can't reconcile myself with the unbelievably arrogant idea that we are progressing -- socially, morally, economically, politically, and religiously, toward a predetermined telos. I will not be cheated out of the intense intellectual pleasures of ripping down old theories, sustained research, a true quest for understanding, an admission of the senselessness and vastness of the past. By default, I have an incredibly dim view of the future, of the times that we can't think about and the incredible disparities that we face every day.

No one's fought me on it yet. I have to admit that I have more respect and perhaps even affection for my fellow DMP'ers than of any other class thus far. The redheaded boy with the impatient quotations who will challenge me on Voltaire, the gorgeous Russian girl who speaks with conviction, the girl from Georgia whose apologetic drawl does nothing to soften the barbs of her criticism, and all the manifold others.

Oh, and art history can be boring and fascinating by turns.

Sprained ankle - healing well. Skinned knee - healing slightly less well. Test in six days, oh panic.