As someone who has chosen the ‘anthropologist’ label for myself, I am very aware of my own cultural biases and actively try to compensate for them whenever possible, especially if engaged in petty moralizing (which, let’s face it, we all tend to do).

My father, on the other hand, has a greater number of very egregious cultural biases than almost anyone I’ve ever met in my entire life, yet he is completely unaware of them and will never understand (or will always refuse to acknowledge) that there even exist such things as cultural biases. Worse, he will happily moralize from sunrise to sunet about even the most sensitive of topics, without any account for the feelings of others, myself included. I love my father, of course, but sometimes he makes me so incredibly angry that I simply have to call him fscking nuts and end the conversation abruptly, rather than continue to listen to his prophecies and admonitions. I hate doing it, though, because I know it hurts his feelings especially badly when I do such things because I am “his son” (more cultural bias, probably too much to explain here).

Now I hate the fact that I have even posted this. But I have.

Sometimes an incredible feeling of optimism breaks through the boundaries of your defenses and fills the moment with hope and familiarity. Someday, we will all be happy together, in this small blue world of ours. I am sure of it. Perhaps not soon. Or perhaps sooner than any of us think.

I am happy to be a budding anthropologist. I am incredibly grateful to have accidentally stumbled onto a worldview that I love so much. I can feel our collective soul, speaking to me from today and from aeons ago as well.

I wish I could give this optimism to my friends and family, so that they could feel it, too… But at least I can hold it, keep it, in case at some point they are able to hear it, to receive it.

Everything is beautiful. Life is beautiful.

I’d better go before this becomes truly tacky.   😉

The trouble with Milton is that it’s really basically impossible to find out whether he was right. But nevermind. My time is running out, it is time to stop studying this or that at random and really make some choices. Life happens very fast indeed.

Let me get this straight… Iraq agrees to allow weapons inspectors in, and now we say we will invade them anyway because their official statement of acceptance suggested that they have no weapons of mass destruction and “false information” is in violation of the related U.N. resolution?

This is a fscked up game, almost embarassingly petulant. The White House seems to be full of four-year-olds.

So many things to say, so many people to say them to, so many reasons not to ever let any of it slip out. Feelings and people are very complicated things, I think. God, it’s all so banal and yet so unbearable at the same time. Oh well. I love everyone and everything. I hope the snow comes. I hope we raise our hands in rememberance and solidarity. I hope when it ends we are closer together, not farther apart.

Having been very pleasantly awakened in the wee hours, I now find myself at something of a loose end. Back to sleep? Doesn’t look like it. So, I suppose I will now get a jump-start (having taken the GRE already) on trying to come up with a deeper, more specific set of research goals.

I believe I find myself interested in considering and of course studying whatever it is that occurs at the intersection between political economy and media semiotics in the developing nations of the east, especially on the individual or small population level. What exactly this means is not even clear to me. So I guess I’ll hang around for a few hours and try to make it into something both more clear and more sane.

God, I adore the early morning hours. I look at my clocks right now and together they tell me silently that it is 2.07 AM. I love them for it, every one. It is dark and quiet and there is a little rain outside, and I love that, too.

I have stumbled into a sudden moment of gratitude. My undergraduate study was a success beyond anything I could have hoped for. Then, I was able to travel throughout much of 2002, seeing family and friends and meeting interesting people along the way. I have just finished my third book. I have taken my exams and will be in a Ph.D. program next year — after I return from travel through China and Russia with one of my best friends. And, as if all of that weren’t enough, my cat is diminutive and white and likes me immensely.

Thank you, world. Life is good.

So I took the exam this morning for the first “official” time. I don’t yet know if I will try it again next month. My composite score is 1350 (710Q/640V), which is solid but not incredible. No analytical, of course, because that has been sliced out of the test.

I’ve never really faced the clock to such an extent on any other standardized test in my life. I still don’t lend this test much credence. I’d be surprised if most anthropology programs do, either, given the incredible cultural bias of this exam. No wonder my uncle (who now holds a Ph.D.) really disliked it so much when he was trying to get into graduate school. He took it several times, if I remember correctly…

But I’m not sure I really want to do that. (sigh)

My anecdotal findings on the GRE CAT: statistically, this test is utter crap. I have taken three sample exams from Kaplan tonight. On a quantitative test with a possible score range of 200-800, I have scored 450, 570 and 730, not in that order. My verbal scores have fluctuated almost as much. There is no upward or downward trend in either over the last few days.

These tests were all taken under nearly identical circumstances, between noon and 10.00 PM using the same work area. Obviously I am using the same mind and the same set of eyeballs each time.

I have decided to stop studying and practicing for the test and just go to bed. It feels like a crap shoot anyway. Very frustrating.

Had I known how poorly this test was designed — had I known that my scores on the component exams might fluctuate 300 points from test to test — I would have allowed myself time to take the exam four or five times over the space of a year.

As things are now, this is basically the one shot I get, unless my applictions are to be postponed for yet another year.

Like I said last night, this sucks.

I’m trying to study for the GRE. I got practice exams all around me. I take the GRE CAT practice exams from Kaplan and I can’t even make 1700. Stooopid, right? Not so fast. I take the practice exams from Arco. 2100+ and feeling more like my old self again.

In the Kaplan exams, my weakest area was analytical, by several orders of magnitude, followed by quantitative, with verbal the strongest. Surprise, surprise, in the Arco exams, my weakest area is verbal, followed by quantitative, with analytical by far the strongest. Both companies claim to be using GRE exams from last year.

This sucks. This is not a fair test, obviously, if I’m getting 400+ point swings on the same day and I haven’t even begun studying yet. And what exactly should I study for? Should I trust Kaplan and try to rescue my pitiful analytical scores, should I trust Arco and put faith in my near-perfect analyitcal scores and instead work on my apparently weak verbal scores? Or should I compromise and just study quantitative, which has been in the middle every time?

And to make matters worse, I found out that apparently the analytical section is being replaced by an essay section or some such nonsense? So how exactly am I supposed to practice for that, pray? And why do none of the current year books from the exam prep companies say anything about this?

Is ETS just full of shit? I’m beginning to think so. I can’t believe respected graduate schools are actually buying this crap. What about the good grades I worked so hard for? Writing samples? My research proposal and statement of purpose? Letters of recommendation? With so much other evidence, I think this wildly-swinging GRE thing should be left to swing from a tall branch.

“Why exactly do you think you want to stay in anthropology?” has been the big, operative question over the last couple of weeks while I’m doing the graduate applications thing. Today I woke up and it hit me. I want to be an anthropologist because anthropologists are happy.

I was back at the department yesterday talking to Dr. Loeb and I enjoyed myself immensely. Every faculty member I’ve met in the anthropology department approaches life with a sense of humor and terrific perspective. I think this comes from the nature of anthropology as a field — it is by nature the field of acceptance, understanding and solidarity within the boundaries imposed by the human condition.

I had occastion to study in a lot of departments while I was at school — psychology, sociology, philosophy, computer science, film, theatre, art, art history, history, linguistics, mathematics, physics, English of course (my second major) and so on. And I’ve had occasion to visit a number of universities as well. Wherever I go, only anthropologists seem fundamentally happy about life, about the world. I believe this is because of their unique perspective — the foundation of cultral relativism in sociocultural anthropology and the ever-present undercurrent of evolution’s influence in biological anthropology. You can’t possibly take yourself too seriously when you and everyone else around the world are just another monkey in a village of monkeys trying to get by, and you know that no monkey or village of monkeys has a monopoly on monkey-knowledge or monkey-goodness. It’s all pretty much ape, and we’re in it together.

I realize that I can’t give this answer as a research proposal or statement of purpose to a Ph.D. program. But the fact is that I want to be a professional anthropologist because I feel great when I’m around other anthropologists and I feel great when I’m thinking like an anthropologist. And like everyone else on the planet, I just wanna be a happy monkey.

Very rarely do I go to bed at any non-ungodly hour (in fact, usually I’m going to bed about now) and even more rarely do I dream (though I suppose theoretically I always do, at least that’s what the shamans say), so when I do, it tends to mess about with things in ways I’d rather weren’t messed-about-with.

And about the truth… Which half-assed idiot was the one who said that it would set you free?! The truth will leave you tied and broken and in need of drink. Or, as Father Jack says, “DRINK!”

Oh, Father… Where is the drink?!

Fscking.

And then you wake up at 3.30 in the morning and just when you think you’re getting it together, you remember something and get confused again, probably irreperably.

What is it I’m on about? Oh… Fsckin’ god knows. (**)

By the way, I am on an abbreviated study schedule, I will be taking the GRE this Sunday. Yes, Sunday. Odd day for a standardized test, yes? But that was what I asked for — the soonest slot available. Time marches and therefore so do I, so do I, so do I.

Ahhhh! I just heard it is snowing in Vermont. That is beautiful, and for that at least, I am very grateful. Hmm, now that I think about it, I s’pose I shouldn’t turn it off so often. No, not the snow, children, the phone! There are these people inside it, you see, and I’d rather talk to them than… do this.

But nevermind — and let’s be desperately honest about this, now — I’m barely here ‘t the moment (these mid-morning chats with myself and the Web… they do so exhaust me), so do so allow… (boisterously, to the tune of Deutschland Ueber Alles):

Paranoia, Par-a-noi-oi-a,
ich bin, ich bin, ich bin v’rruckt!

No encore. Now I’m leaving for winkyland again. Wish me fewer fscking dreams and even fewer still — ambitions. Thanks.

(Applause)

No, no, I do not need your applause!

(Applause)

I can’t HEAR you!

(** Oh mania, mania, wherefore art thou, mania?)

Driving down 17th South Street, the orange sunset over the most heavily gerrymandered state in the union was brilliant and at the same time subdued. Aron was trying to make his way home through a maze of street closings, police barricades and warning notices; the traditional holiday chemical spill had occurred in the old neighborhood just on schedule and, to make things a little more interesting, on election day as well…

Ever have one of those days when you are so fscking productive you doubt you’ll ever accomplish as much in a single day again as long as you live? I had one of those days today. Add a little luck and a lot of cash and things are rolling right along.

Meanwhile… Something like this should never, ever happen:

But unfortunately, when you’re living with family, it can and apparently does. The things you see…

Every time I watch 8 1/2, I end up on the verge of tears. There is more wisdom wrapped up in this little film than in any holy book or any philosopher’s pretenses. I only wish I knew what to do with all of these feelings. But then, I guess Guido wishes the same thing…

So I was downtown today and I was looking around and saying to myself, “Jesus, I don’t remember this being such a fscking cool city full of attractive, individualistic people… Has everything changed while I was traveling and writing?”

Then I remembered that it was Hallowe’en and all of these people don’t really look this good all the time, they’re actually costumed up right now. God damn. I especially liked the girl in the Raggedy-Ann costume with the wild red hair. Oh well, I guess tomorrow she’ll be back in her business-casual straightjacket.

I wish everybody would just relax.

P.S. The book is done. I rule.

Digable Planets says: “We be readin’ Marx where I’m from.”