Philly at Night

I love walking in Philly. At any time. So yesterday I offered to show a new student around since she'd never been in Philly.

"I love Philly," I told her. "I love walking there, and I know these great places!"

And because I didn't feel like driving, I suggested we take the high speed line. Which would have been perfectly fine, if the sidewalks had not been covered in two feet of snow. So that was an adventure.

And then, to my horror, I could not remember which subway stop to get off at. Or the cross street for the restaurant. I couldn't remember how to get to my favorite restaurant ever and I've been going there for almost eight years. (Eight! Years! So crazy.) I need to get back into the city more!

So then we walked to Penn's Landing.

"I definitely know where I'm going now," I told her. I didn't actually. Also, I hadn't counted on the sidewalks still being so snowy. It was epic. I deeply regretted wearing boots I had not yet waterproofed.

Philly is beautiful at night. I'm just not so keen on the winter part.

So, New Zealand might still be an option

Just kidding! I'm not ready to move to New Zealand just yet. But I got an email from a woman I talked to at NCA about a PhD program there, telling me I CAN STILL COME. On the one hand, that could be pretty cool (particularly since a lot of the scholarship I find about Thailand comes out of that area of the world). But she also told me that it's mostly independent work, no classes at all, and frankly, I just could not do that. I love classes. I am upset at the thought that school might be closed tomorrow due to snow because that is the day I have class. I LOVE CLASS. (I also hate snow, so it's a complex anti-school-closing-desire.)

Besides. I'm pretty sure they only want me to come because Americans are seen as being able to pay all the fees. (We got loans, y'all. And they are accepted by unis in the Commonwealth, based on the research I did that one time I thought I was going to England for my MA. Funny how different my life would have been.) Call me a cynic. I'll go there as a visiting scholar and they can pay me. Someday.

Actually, I was telling a senior undergrad last night about how life was terrible after I graduated from college, when my plans to go to England fell dramatically apart and I didn't have a place to live or a job or anything except my car and several boxes of books. It felt like I was just balancing on the edge of a precipice at every moment, and I couldn't stop and really, truly say, this utterly sucks because I just had to get through it. Undergrad was horrified, and actually, it was really her horror that let me admit how awful it was to myself. Have back up plans, I told her. This is advice I plan to have for myself too, as I graduate this time.

Thesising with a friend

Writing with a friend makes life so much better. Because I can't mess around on the internet so much. She might see that I'm reading a blog about microagressions instead of dealing with the complexities of space, power, and protest. Or whatever it is I'm writing about.

More thoughts on "home"

I ran into a professor just now coming into the library. "Well, you're here," he said. "You're dedicated."

That's one way of putting it. Last night at a training session (on a Friday night, that I came in for even though it wasn't part of my normal office hours) one of the topics of dinner conversation was, "What do you do when you're not at school?" And literally, my reaction was, well... I'm always at school.

Because, really, I always am. If I'm going to be a student, my reasoning goes, I'm jolly well going to be the best student I can be. And that translates to the jokes about how I'm always on campus. I love being a student.

So it might seem strange that I decided to put off going on for my PhD for now. When it came right down to it, I couldn't bear to leave Philly yet. And overlaying all my thoughts about the possibilities of going on were these deja vu feelings from when I was graduating high school and it felt like the world was ending and it didn't matter where I went or what I did, because I would hate it. I felt that would not be a good way to start a PhD program. College was not a happy time for me, in part because of those intense feelings of loss. And on top of all these half formed feelings old and new, my parents will be leaving Thailand for good this summer and... I just couldn't bear to let go of my Philly home along with everything else.

The other thing I kind of felt I should figure out was, who am I when I don't have to leave? It's a troubling question, weird as that may sound. I'm really used to (and good at, might I add) being super good friends with people and then feeling really, truly sad when I leave or they leave but knowing all along that one of us would eventually move. I've put that question of leaving off for now, so now I'm left with, oh crap. I have to figure out how to graduate without pushing everyone away. Philly is a unique city in many ways, but not least because I actually have friends here who have known me - consistently - for over ten years. Friends from high school through grad school are all represented in Philly's population, not to mention my sisters live here too. I couldn't leave all of them just yet. Such a situation may never happen again!

So now I have to also find a job and housing and all that. But it feels exciting, so I think that's a sign I made the right choice. Also exciting (for now): writing my thesis. Which is kind of really sort of important for everything.

Who even knows

I realized today I may be a bit superficial when people ask me how my trip was. It was wonderful, it was warm. And that's all I guess I really want to think about right now. It feels like I have to find my feet again in a lot of ways. And the snow just isn't helping!

I hate winter

It was a shock to walk out of the airport into the lovely northeast winter. I seriously don't think I will ever like it. (And anyone who tells me BUT THE WINTER SPORTS YAY! should prepare for a death stare. Give me 12 hours of sunlight and temperatures that never dip below freezing.) I may be slightly grumpy still.

HOWEVER. As I was waiting for my flight in Chiang Mai, I watched part of a Thai TV shows with vampires. I found this extremely intriguing and one of my new life goals is to find this show and watch it. Something I have wondered for awhile is how do you defeat a vampire in a non-Christian context? Would a cross still work? I have never really found this dealt with (admittedly my engagement with vampire lit is very cursory), except in Cassandra Clare's series that I cannot currently remember the name of. I read it for the extreme teenage angst. But I found it really interesting because one of the characters becomes a vampire and it is hard for him because he was Jewish and that was important to him and he could no longer say God's name. I wanted to see this explored more, but that intriguing story line was passed over in favor of the angst of the main characters who are Separated Due to Possibly Being Siblings ZOMG. It was intense. I laughed a lot, although I probably wasn't supposed to.

It's supposed to storm tomorrow. I feel very woeful about this.

Goodbye เชียงใหม่

I thought about writing a Good Night Moon type entry, but I thought I would cry too much. Today is my last day in Chiang Mai, and the last one in my parents' house here. Little things like realizing that I can erase their computer network from my preferred networks make me tear up.

My parents' house is on the flight path for Chiang Mai International Airport. My mother tells people she never wants to live near an airport again, because the sound of planes makes her too sad. When I lived here, it was a ritual to go to the airport to see people off. I think it still is, but my brother never goes. My mom says he stands outside and watches our planes take off from our yard.

We went around the city to visit all the houses we've lived in over the last decade and a half. It was very strange. Our first house is surrounded by university dorms and seems much smaller than I remembered. The second house looked pretty much the same but the roads had been repaved and a giant fence constructed to separate the muubaan from the swamp near by. The third house, the one we lived in the longest, that was a shock. No one has lived in it since my parents moved out because of the floods my junior year of college. And it is all over grown. The gate is inaccessible and only the top windows are visible from the street. It hosts a veritable jungle. At the time I thought I was okay, but the more I think about it the sadder I feel. There's no going back there, apparently.

In some ways, this final visit doesn't feel so final. Because of my research I know I will probably come back. But it won't be "home" anymore in the same way. I have plenty of invitations from various aunts and uncles to stay should I visit. But in a few years, five or ten, very few of them will still be here, probably. My school will be moving from the building it has always been in in the next few years. Everything changes.

The cat has been very strange and whiny this whole visit. My personal theory is that she knows my parents are leaving and is afraid of being left behind. I wonder about that too. They want to bring her but she is old, and has lived in the tropics her whole life. We are all afraid the move would kill her, or that winter would. I hate these choices.

And so, goodbye, Chiang Mai. I will miss your sunshine and your humidity and Doi Suthep and the markets. I will miss the rice paddies and the funny signs and the lovelorn pop music. I will miss the living green. I will come back, but nothing will be the same. Or rather, in the words of a t-shirt I always meant to buy, it will be: "Same same. But different."