It's become clear over the last stressful month (i.e., since my last post... oops) that I'm not ready to present myself naked at the base of the ivory tower, which means that the Ideal Six-to-Ten-Year Plan is officially foiled. Consequently, when I get back to the States, instead of bumming on your couches for a month before starting PhD studies at the philosophical powerhouse of my choice (so ran the Plan), I have to find a legitimate and sustainable yearlong occupation from summer 2008 to fall 2009 (at least). I don't expect to have that figured out anytime soon, but this seems like a good way to spend a month. A little expensive, but tempting. If you have other suggestions, you will find me uncharacteristically receptive right now.
Unwelcome uncertainty and Ideal Plan failure notwithstanding, my brain feels a lot better, and it will be easier to justify spending time on the important stuff I've been neglecting, such as:
• Talking to people other than myself (preferably in German)
• Making a big blue penguin costume for a brazenly late Halloween party
• Tracking down vegetarian currywurst and the good Lebanese food I keep hearing about
• Traveling (Münster, Köln, Heidegger's Schwarzwald hut, Bodensee, Heidelberg, the Alps, usw.)
• Fixing my bike; biking to the nearest castle
• Sending US-bound letters, postcards, gifts, holiday greetings, etc.
• Homework (logic! Adorno! marxism! grammar! vocabulary!)
• Hygiene (laundry, showering, beard mowing, putting the banana peels on my desk somewhere other than my desk, etc.)
• Finally settling on a marathon (Vienna? Prague?) and training
• Taking advantage of library access to research Alexius Meinong and the debate surrounding the ontological status of nonexistent objects (e.g., Pegasus)
• Drinking liters of beer from the 1L capacity glass (or Maß) my host family gave me
• Looking for a new place to live in 2009 (when hostfamily host-disowns me)
• Finishing Mansfield Park; starting The Road
• Contacting with these apparent kindred spirits
• Getting appropriately excited for the two-part made-for-TV German adaptation of my old favorite The Sea Wolf, airing November 24 and 25
• Finding an internship, to start in February, for Phase III of my program
• Buying tickets for The Wedding Present's November 29 Frankfurt gig
• This blog, of course
Current mental state