A Week in Beach Town
The week in beach town is coming to an end, and I've had a fantastic time. Not in the rip' roarin', endless partying sort of way, but just genuinely a good time. It's been everything a vacation should be. There's not much of interest inMadeira Beach, but it's sort of a blessing. For people like Abigail and I, who are rather aggressive travelers, eager to see and do and absorb everything in sight, it's nice to not feel pressure to get out and DO. Instead, we've been able to thoroughly relax. It actually took me a few days to completely wind down , which - after finals and papers and a hectic 72-hour pit-stop in Buffalo - is perhaps not surprising. I have so enjoyed the complete and utter lack of responsibility - it's been heaven! Abigail and I make good vacation partners. We're very similar (as if four years of living together hadn't already proved that): we're both content to just sit on the beach and read the same book for 3 hours straight.

We did manage to find some points of interest, though only just today. We found a crepery! Which serves up a delightful assortment of both meat/deli crepes and dessert crepes. Today we sampled the strawberry and nutella (fresh strawberries!) and also the butter, sugar and cinanmon one. They were amazing! It was kind of good that we didn't discover this place any sooner - otherwise I'd be fat and poor right now. We also finally found a good coffee place - just a few places down from the crepery. Abby and I are both coffee snobs, so you know if it meets our standards, it must be good!

We're heading back to New Haven tomorrow night, for what is likely to be the craziest week of our lives: Senior Week.
- posted by Nicole @ 9:27 PM

 
Places to Deteriorate Pleasantly
Nicole came in from the balcony overlooking the intercoastal and sat down at her computer and the NYTimes online, vowing to read only the latest entertainment news coming out of the Cannes Film Festival. Abigail handed her a freshly made mimosa to go with her breakfast of scrambled eggs. It was noon. After breakfast, Nicole went to put her bathing suit on - a brand new brown bikini. She and Abigail - the only two creatures under the age of 40 for miles - had attracted a considerable amount of attention on their daily outings to the beach. Nicole searched for a bottle of sunscreen in the living room, which was strewn about with British and American modernist classics (Waugh, Scott Fitzgerald, etc...), assorted editions of world literature, and smutty magazines. As Nicole packed her bag for the beach, she knew F. Scott Fitzgerald was right: "There were so many places where one might deteriorate pleasantly."
- posted by Nicole @ 12:12 PM

 
Last Class EVER!
Yesterday was my last class EVER. I've been trying to decide how I feel about it, but realized that I can't really feel anything right now because the residual alcohol and the residual caffeine in my system are having a war and my body is losing.
- posted by Nicole @ 2:53 PM

 
The Hampster
The hampster, having not been exposed to elevated stress levels all semester, is suddenly confused....
- posted by Nicole @ 3:40 PM

 
Thoughts on 9/11
I know it may seem like in odd time to be posting about 9/11, but I've been thinking about it a lot this week, since my film class screened United 93 this past weekend. My professor's lecture today was particularly interesting - he talked about how Hollywood deals with issues of national trauma, with particular attention to the competing imperatives of profit and memorialization. Although we screened United 93, we spent more time talking about the movie World Trade Center, which came out last year.

Essentially, Hollywood has dealt with the issue of 9/11 in the time-honored tradition of NOT dealing with it. E.G.: Shots of the world trade center were digitally erased from films like Spiderman, and it was not until just last year that feature-length cinematic representations of the event began to emerge.

But I think Hollywood's relutance - indeed, inability - to deal with the events of 9/11 is a manifestation of a much bigger, nationwide reluctance to deal with these issues in any sort of nuanced, analytical way. Movies like World Trade Center demonstrate how the American post-9/11 mindset is jammed in neutral. We are mired in self-absorption and and a mentality of victimization - in addition to an unabating motif of revenge. As a nation, we refuse to deal with the complexities surrounding 9/11, which has become such a politically and emotionally sensitive issue that it's not "ok" to talk about it beyond the narrow framework of trauma and memory. We are not moving on. This refusal to analyse the reality of the events - causes, systemic failures, ideological conflicts, consequences - has led us to blindly irrational behavior, characterized predominantly by revenge. We remain stuck in an emotional space. And as a result, our response to the events has been similarly emotional.

I don't have the answers, but the problem is, no one is even asking the questions. I think we are in denial.
- posted by Nicole @ 1:01 AM

 
Thought of the Day
I am writing to tell you that I have just solved the world's problems. I have come to the conclusion - based on my own research and the research of my most distinguished colleague who is a specialist on African affairs - that the US suffers from chronic strategic myopia in the area of foreign and security policy. At the same time, in reading about the EU's ambitions for a Common Security and Defense Policy, I have come to the conlcusion that the Europeans are strategically brilliant. They see the big picture, they consider long-term consequences, and approach foreign policy problems with this strategic mindset. The Europeans are, however, a little tactically retarded; whereas the Americans tend to be very effective tactically. Therefore, in order to save the world, the US and the EU should get married. In addition to the obvious benefits of not having to fight your enemies AND your friends at the same time, strategic brilliance will inform tactical efficiency, and the world will be a much better place. The End.
- posted by Nicole @ 2:17 PM

 
The General Has Breakfast at Eight
So, continuing the theme of interesting people in my life, I thought I’d take a moment to reflect on my acquaintance with the General (aka – William Odom). I’m taking his seminar on American National Security Policy this semester, and it’s been really interesting so far. The class is the perfect combination of “War Stories with William Odom” and a lot of really practical, insightful information on the national security policy-making process. I feel like I’ve learned SO much from him. And on top of it, he’s a really nice guy! I was kind of intimidated at first. I mean, it’s not every day you have a retired general up at the front of the class. But he’s got a terrific sense of humor, and he’s really personable. He eats breakfast and dinner in the dining hall the days when he’s on campus, and I’ve gone to eat with him a couple of times now. He’s a very engaging conversationalist, and you could really just sit there for hours with him without getting bored.

He runs the seminar…well, like a general. Which is good, because he doesn’t tolerate any BS (an epidemic, as far as the political science department is concerned…) The readings have been good, and the assignments have been really interesting and genuinely thought-provoking (which is not something I can say for every class I’ve taken). For example, this past weekend, I devoted my life to our second class assignment: solve Iraq. No, seriously. In the first part of the paper, we had to assess the performance of the top administration official in the Iraq war (oh – and did I mention we had to base it on Clausewitz?), and then he thought it would be “interesting” if at the end we wrote about what we would do if we were in charge to rescue the strategy. ?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!??!!?!?!?!? After overcoming the initial shock, I dug in, and I’m actually really happy with the way the paper turned out. Perhaps I’ll publish my strategy in a post at some point in the future...

But it’s been a great class – not least because there are a lot of good students in it. And I’ve really enjoyed getting to know Odom. He’s really broadened my perspective on a number of national security issues; but I think most importantly, he’s taught me how to think about them, or perhaps more precisely, how to approach thinking about them – skills which are infinitely valuable in any walk of life.
- posted by Nicole @ 10:35 PM

 
A Series of Encounters With Interesting People
The events of the past few days have reinforced my affection for my beloved coffee shop, Willoughby's. My affinity for this establishment dates back to my very first visit to the Yale campus. While we were waiting for the campus tour to start, my mom and I went to the Chapel Street location and had coffee and pastries. As we sat there - on an absolutely gorgrous Spring morning - I decided, "I'm going to Yale." And so I did.

Sadly, the Chapel Stret location closed after my freshman year, so now I (almost daily) make the 20 minute pilgrimmage to the Whitney Ave. location. And with pleasure - even when it's raining, as it was today. But this week, I was able to enjoy not only their incomparable coffee, but also the company of their colorful patrons. One of the (many) reasons I like Willoughby's is its location in the more "real-world" part of town. It attracts a completely different crowd than the coffee shops on the other side of campus. While the latter attract mostly students, Willoughby's attracts real peple - like adults, children, business people, and other professionals, as well as professors (who, I'm convinced, eschew the more popular places like Starbucks for fear of running into their students....)

On one not particularly special Wednesday, Willoughby's became suddenly crowded, and as I found myself sitting at a table alone, a fellow coffee addict asked if he could join me. It turned out that he was in town to interview the author of a new book that just came out; the author had come to campus to speak. No ordinary book, it was the personal account of a Sierra Leonean guy who was forced to become a child soldier in their civil war. It's a topic I know quite a lot about, since Beth has spent so much time there, and so we had a really fascinating conversation about Africa, Sierra Leone, and the way Hollywood treats Africa (hint - disingenuously). I even contributed a question to his interview.

As he was poacking up his stuff to go to the interview, an older man was making gestures that he would like to have the place as soon as it was vacated. Being magnanimous, I consented. He sat down with his tea and chocolate chip cookie, and asked me what I was reading. I replied that I was doing reading for my political science seminar. "Poilitcs isn't science, it's an art," he said, at which point I capped my highlighter and resigned myself to the fact that I was not going to get any work done that afternoon. Which was just fine with me. He was a Yale professor who, before his retirement, had been chairman of both the Linguistics department and the Slavic Languages and Literature Department. He was born in Poland; grew up in Italy; he speaks all 8 Slavic languages, and all the Romance Laguages, in addition to a few others. We chatted a bit in Russian, and then in Italian (embarrassingly enough, the Italian conversation went better than the Russian one, despite the fact that I've been studying Russian now for two years, and have only dabbled casually in Italian for about 2 weeks....) I left WIlloughby's that day feeling so much more human than when I'd arrived. It was a truly uplifting experiene.

Continuing the trend of Nicole sitting at a coffee shop and God throwing interesting people to talk to at her, the following day, I was joined by my film TA, whom I really like. She's originally from Russia, and she's one of the best TA's I've ever had at Yale. She's so articulate, and I love her interpretations of the films we've been watching. We had a great conversation. She knows I've been trying to learn Russian, and so she offered me encouragement. We also talked about the class and the films we'd been watching. It was great to be able to talk film with someone who has all the vocabulary. Once again, I left Willoughby's feeling uplifted and rejuvenated.

I remember once hearing a woman talking on her cell phone at the table next to me in Willoughby's. To the person on the other end, she replied, "Well, I'm not where I should be, but I'm where I' m happiest." I whole-heartedly agreed.
- posted by Nicole @ 9:30 PM