jimmy eat this

It's been years since I've listened to Jimmy Eat World, and wow, their poppy punk trash is music to my ears - this coming from a person who rocks out to S.H.E.'s "Superstar" and "Zhongguo Hua" every morning. I'm listening to "Futures" at the moment, and to tell you the truth, I'm not even bothering to figure out what the hell they're screaming. My thoughts about the Futures are all I can hear, which is probably what led me to throw a Jimmy party tonight.

Strange how we think we can control the future more than we can the present!
Yet I insist on tacking an "s" onto "future" because I KNOW that as much as I prepare, the next several years will be determined by a council of weary wizards. Poof. poof. poof. Options are a must.

Prepping for grad school is the one thing that keeps me Me, keeps me from integrating fully, from being the volunteer the Peace Corps wants me to be, from getting lost in Babara Kingsolver's Lacuna...

And it helps me cope with the fact that, well, I fucking miss school. I miss being a student.

Anyway, here is what I'm thinking:
I might as well retake the GRE.
I might as well aim for fluency in Mandarin, "aim" being the key word here.
I might as well apply to schools other than UH.

Time being the reason for the first two.
Curiosity of my own potential being the reason for all three.

The school I keep batting my Uchinanchu lashes at: University of Washington.
On the west coast (Seattle is home to the Blue Scholars, all of whom I plan to marry), beautiful campus, strong program, a bunch of law and gender-focused profs.... and even a prof who specializes in the politics of rural China (but who is currently on leave.. for how long???)
But OMG why do they accept so few, and fund even fewer? What is this, California???

Ack, the Jimmy party is over. Now JLO is on, thank you iTunes. "Love Don't Cost A Thing"? Hah, now that's a party for Berlant to crash - a sign I should shut the computer down. NOW.

The Futures can wait until tomorrow.