I'm back...

Hello world,

I couldn't bear to reach the three year mark of blog abandonment so I decided to revive my external (though silent) monologue. I think today I hit the wall of reality, familiar to my graduate school peers. The recession has sunk in. The long, unsettling road of a graduate career has revealed its questionable engineering. I get it, this sucks. Not graduate school itself, but all the theatrics we daily perform to stay in the game. I'm also turning 28 in one month. Am I still in the range of a quarter-life crisis?

But maybe before I talk about now I should do a quick review of the past 3ish years:

1. The World Cup was a multi-linguistic, multi-sensory, multi-jersey circus. Three weeks of beer, sausages, soccer, contemporary art, Birkenstocks and dudes. My dudes. The Earworks German was very helpful and I'm still conspiring to get back to Germany.

2. RH and I had a blow-out despedida on a friend's roof. Then we travelled for almost 4 weeks, starting at Santiago and moving in a counter-clockwise direction to the tip of the continent, through Patagonia, Buenos Aires and then due west. Mostly by bus. No more ham and cheese sandwiches with salsa golf. Salsa what?

3. Started 2007 back in south Florida. Felt weirded out by everything for a few months. Picked up where I left off when I graduated in August 2004: where am I going? Thought about the last time I was really happy with my work; remembered the Norton internship; and locked in my goal: graduate school in art history. Spent the next eighteen months preparing for grad school by taking lots of art history courses, German courses and working at the FAU University Galleries, one of the best gigs I've ever had. Applied to lots of schools, got stressed out, realized that at this stage of the game graduate school is not the means but the end. Hello, my name is Doris, and I am professional student. Had this epiphany at UT and felt it was a sign. Started practicing my "hook 'em Longhorns" finger salute. But I'm still all about the U.

4. Of course I still had a life. Besides academics, I went to two weddings, hung out with family and friends and fell in love again with Florida. Not the hardest thing to do, she's kind of slutty. RH moved to Miami and started culinary school. Score! No more cooking for me. Got engaged a few days before we left paradise. But someone is holding our spot.

5. Fall semester starts at UT. The heat, classes and throngs of students was a heady experience at first. Fear what an actual fire drill would look like with everyone in the streets at once. Got a bike and feel like I'm crossing the finish line in "Breaking Away" everytime I make it to the campus. OD on Tex-Mex on a weekly basis. Try to connect with the Austin swing, but mostly feel like Steve Martin in "My Blue Heaven." Actually, my first few months in Texas can be expressed in several obscure 80s movies.

6. Winter break is 6 weeks long. The U of C would give us 10 days off if we were good kids. Went to San Antonio and visited the Alamo. Had some more Tex-Mex. Started Spring semester with a heavier load but I'm happy to carry it. The specter of post-MA life haunts me everywhere. It's hard to keep things loose. Maybe I should take it all in 2 hours at a time. When will the stimulus stimualte? Where's my bailout?