The good news: I have moved out of my parents' house.

The bad news: For some reason, I feel nauseated by the mere thought of food and haven't had more than a bite or two to eat for several days. I don't seem to have any other symptoms of illness, though the lack of food is causing symptoms of its own.

The "Real World"

A suggestion to all of my friends currently in their 4th year at UChicago (or anyone who is coming to an end of their college career):

Go straight to grad school.

Stay in academia. The "real world" is a pretty shitty place, filled with bizarre social restrictions and general unpleasantness and unfriendliness. I wish so much that I had just gone directly to grad school... I was just so hoping that Peace Corps would pan out. I still am, really. But if it looks like Peace Corps isn't going to happen... straight back to university for me. And if Peace Corps does happen, afterwards, I'm going back to university.

I'm not cut out for anything else; academia is the only place where someone like me can succeed: smart, but not a natural leader, not someone who naturally puts herself forward. You need to be aggressive and a leader to make it in the real world; all you need in academia is intelligence and some discipline.

Almost as important are the social differences of the "real world" versus university. As I said earlier, there are so many bizarre social restrictions and "rules" about how you can interact with people in the real world that I don't see how anybody can make close friends there-- and indeed it seems that generally, they don't. On the other hand, when you're in a university setting, all of those codes of conduct are relaxed, and you can just do what you want without people pigeonholing you into one specific mode of behavior. Your action is seen for what it is, not for what it's expected to be. I hadn't really appreciated the degree to which people in university are socially free in a way that the rest of the population just... aren't. (Excepting, of course, one or two specific populations that unfortunately do not have enough of a presence in Philadelphia to solve my problem. You know who you are.)

And so, after my 3 months in the real world, I can say with confidence: I am going to spend my life in that ivory tower. It's where I belong.

Note: This post is cross-posted on both my Writer's Blog and my Travel Blog.

So, I just recently started thinking about trying my hand at blogging for real this time-- partly inspired by Kat, partly by Spider, and partly just because the idea had already been percolating in my head for a little while. I created a Writer's Blog about nine months ago, then a Travel Blog about five months ago, but didn't do much with either of them. With the Travel Blog, it's understandable; I haven't gotten to travel much recently (though I'm still considering transferring my travel posts from Livejournal and backdating them. Unfortunately a lot of the stuff from the Thai/Burmese border can't be publicly posted because it could incriminate people, but at least there'd be SOMETHING travel-y). With the Writer's Blog, I just don't know... maybe if other people were reading it I'd find it useful, but I have to write first, then people will read... shocking, I know.

So mostly what I'm wondering about (and it's not like people will be reading this and answering, because neither of these blogs has been used enough to have readers) is this: How should I work this blogging thing?


I could:

A) Merge the Writer's and Travel Blogs together, and just make it one general blog, meant to relate to all parts of my life and my observations of the world around me.

B) Keep one of the two blogs as it is, and then take the other and make it more of a “general blog.”

C) Create a third blog to have my general rants and observations about the world and the universe, separate from my other two blogs, and try to keep up with all three (or whichever seem the most relevant to my life and interesting to me at the time).


I'm really not sure which one of these to do... I suppose I shall have to continue thinking.

Pondering

So, I've been stuck in Philadelphia for the past nearly-three months, so I really haven't had anything much to talk about on a travel blog. Considering that originally, my graduation plan was to immediately hitchhike to Miami, then finagle a job as a boat hand on any boat headed to another country, this is something of a disappointment.

Travel is still going to be a huge priority in my life, but I do need to save up some money first, and I'm strongly hoping that the Peace Corps thing will come through-- because that really is what I want to do more than anything. I think I started saying that I wanted to join Peace Corps when I was 12 or 13, and still, at 21, I truly believe that is what will make me the happiest, the most fulfilled.

But I'm still going through the damned medical clearance.

All I have to do, though, is get two more shots, and get a wisdom tooth out, and then I'll be ready to send in all the materials for medical clearance. It'll be in by the end of this month... then I just have to pray they'll clear me, because if they don't, there will be a huge, almost certainly annoying appeals process through which I'll have to go. Eugh.


Anyway, enough with the whining. What I was pondering is this: I still have a lot of entries on Livejournal from my travels. I was wondering if I should transfer them over to this blog, so that it is at least something of a proper travel blog and not just a "this will become a travel blog soon, I promise!"

Is there a way to backdate posts on blogger? I have to admit, I really haven't used it much... was still in that "Livejournal" phase of my life. ;) I'll still have to use Livejournal for now, I'm sure, for my non-work-friendly activities.

Good News!

Yes!

As of today, I am a Peace Corps Nominee!

I am nominated for Secondary Math Education in Sub-Saharan Africa, leaving in November '08!

I still have to go through medical and legal clearance, and then get my invitation to a specific country and specific leaving time, but being a nominee is a definite start!

Where I've Been Thus Far!

Sooo, procrastinating from a paper that was due yesterday. *headdesk* What's wrong with me? Senioritis or what?

But anyway, I figured that since this is my travel blog, I should tell you where I've been so far, and what's better than a visual aid? Thus, for your viewing enjoyment, I present a MAP!:

Where Mel's Been

Map Legend: 6%, 17 of 263 Territories

© worldmapmaker.com | Travel Insurance

And there you have it, my travels thus far. Currently I am (unfortunately) in America, as I'm finishing up college, but I hope to rectify this sad state of affairs soon. More on that as news comes; I don't want to jinx myself.

I've left the country three times (well, kinda four). The first was when I was 17 with my family, and the second was when I was 18, a solo backpacking trip through Europe for two months. All the maroon European countries are because of those two trips.

The summer when I was 19, I went to the Thai-Burmese border to teach English to refugees for 2 months. I only entered Burma for an afternoon, because it was required in order to renew one's visa, which expires each month if you don't have a work visa. (Since my teaching work was, technically, illegal, since the refugees were there illegally, I didn't have a work visa.) I do not endorse tourism to Burma, because the tourism infrastructure has been built largely by their extremely corrupt government, and the tourists' money tends to be directly funneled into this government. Trust me, not a good thing.

Before I got to Thailand, I spent three days in Tokyo, Japan, on a fortuitous layover.

After I got back from Thailand, I went to stay in Canada for a few weeks.

And there you have it-- my travel history thus far. Hope to add to that list of countries before too long!

Tennyson's "Ulysses"

As some of you might have figured out, the title of my blog is a reference to Tennyson's "Ulysses", which is probably my favorite poem of all time. So I think it is appropriate for my first post to be that poem.


Ulysses, Tennyson

It little profits that an idle king,
By this still hearth, among these barren crags,
Match'd with an aged wife, I mete and dole
Unequal laws unto a savage race,
That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.

I cannot rest from travel; I will drink
Life to the lees. All times I have enjoy'd
Greatly, have suffer'd greatly, both with those
That loved me, and alone; on shore, and when
Thro' scudding drifts the rainy Hyades
Vext the dim sea. I am become a name;
For always roaming with a hungry heart
Much have I seen and known,-- cities of men
And manners, climates, councils, governments,
Myself not least, but honor'd of them all,--
And drunk delight of battle with my peers,
Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.
I am a part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethro'
Gleams that untravell'd world whose margin fades
For ever and for ever when I move.
How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use!
As tho' to breathe were life! Life piled on life
Were all too little, and of one to me
Little remains; but every hour is saved
From that eternal silence, something more,
A bringer of new things; and vile it were
For some three suns to store and hoard myself,
And this gray spirit yearning in desire
To follow knowledge like a sinking star,
Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.

This is my son, mine own Telemachus,
to whom I leave the sceptre and the isle,--
Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfill
This labor, by slow prudence to make mild
A rugged people, and thro' soft degrees
Subdue them to the useful and the good.
Most blameless is he, centred in the sphere
Of common duties, decent not to fail
In offices of tenderness, and pay
Meet adoration to my household gods,
When I am gone. He works his work, I mine.

There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail;
There gloom the dark, broad seas. My mariners,
Souls that have toil'd, and wrought, and thought with me,--
That ever with a frolic welcome took
The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed
Free hearts, free foreheads,-- you and I are old;
Old age hath yet his honor and his toil.
Death closes all; but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.
The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks;
The long day wanes; the slow moon climbs; the deep
Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends.
'T is not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down;
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are,--
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.