if you don't like the smell of curry, don't move to the u-district

The heading of this post sounds like some sort of political/social statement. it isn't, it's just a fact because all the streets around my house smell like curry, all the time.

I'm thinking about my street a lot because we're apartment shopping for a new place. In my neighborhood, most buildings are really old, and pretty cheap. Except now housing costs are going up, even for students, and they're building really nice new buildings, but they're more expensive. So you can get a small-ish, older place for a decent price, or a larger, nicer one for a little more. The problem is that the older, smaller places are really old and small, and the nicer, newer ones are really new and nice, and the price gap between the two is substantial. But I love my neighborhood and want to stay. Curry smell nonwithstanding. I'm sure there's social commentary in there somewhere.

Today the weather is finally summer-gorgeous. I walked to meet Alex and Meghan (and Sonia, the prettiest dog ever) for coffee and to discuss our summer independent study. We're doing a summer study about Kant because Meghan and I decided it would enhance our scholarly-ness to have more read more religious philosophy, and Alex reads philosophy for fun, so he decided to join. Sonia is not participating at this time. Plus, we're getting Wellman to teach it, whom we love, so summer session with him has to be nothing less than super-entertaining. He agreed to do it only if we came up with the syllabus and agreed to meet with him only twice, so we got together to design the whole thing ourselves. We're reading both Critique of Pure Reason and Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone, so it's going to be kind of intense. Luckily, we won't start until July, so I'll have some time to get ready...

After that, I stopped at the used bookstore, but luckily didn't buy anything else. My summer reading list is getting longer by the day. I don't know where all this motivation is coming from. Maybe I feel like I didn't work hard enough this quarter.

Speaking of work, I got offered a research assistanceship this summer with the Jackson School. It's going to be really interesting, I think, and it's going to be great to have money coming in.

I also stopped by the YMCA on the way home and -finally- got a membership for the summer. I realized that I will never ever make it to the campus gym to work out (too far) but the Y is close, and cheap, and has fun classes. The people are also super nice. I used to go with Lindsay all the time to classes and the teachers are really great.

I basically seem to have really high expectations for the summer. I apparently want to do lots of reading and working out, and moving. I don't know, something about the potential of summer makes me really motivated every year. I also feel like turning 24 is weird, and there are more things I should be doing that I am not. There is no reason I shouldn't be reading the books I want (um, I also sort of started a book club), and no reason for me not to be in the best shape of my life. Also, no reason not to totally be taking advantage of grad school, and the city. It's the sort of feeling that I would bottle, store, and save up, to open when I'm 80 and remember what my life was like. I'm having a mid-twenties crisis, I'm pretty sure. Of course it's easy to make all these plans this week, since I don't have classes yet, or work. I'm a genius at making plans, my weakness is always the follow-through. When I'm turning 24, there should be no reason not to be following through. That's what I've decided.

Um, I also decided that Seth is awesome because our internet went out completely yesterday, and I was totally content on pouting and throwing tantrums until it came back on. Luckily, he was nice enough to call Comcast, troubleshoot it, then wake up early this morning for drive us down to the nearest location (fyi: way way way nicer than the one in shreveport), get a new modem, come home and hook it up, call the 800-number for assistance, and get it up and running again. Without him, I would still be pouting, for sure.