Yes, I do have a self-righteous streak, thanks for asking.

Those of you who've been reading for a while probably know that I go to a little two-year residential college at a little state university. I'm graduating soon, and will finish out my education under the auspices of the Department of Interdisciplinary Studies, or possibly with the flaky people over in anthropology.

I will post more about this as the graduation date nears - it's been a wierd emotional roller-coaster of a two years - but I just want to comment: there are other residential colleges out there, I've visited a couple of them. There are much better universities out there, of course, I'm at Podunk State, where the major industry is producing accountants and elementary school teachers. But I challenge you to find another group of two or three hundred freshmen and sophomores that don't just read Derrida with enthusiasm, but go around recommending it to all their friends. I have been in a little hive of very bright, inquisitive people for the last two years. If only some of them weren't boys.

Yeah, one of them told me yesterday - a person I didn't think noticed me enough to know I was lonely - that he thinks it's because I have no female peers. For some reason, all the bright, inquisitive, involved people of my year are male, he said, and no matter how bright they are, it's hard to be friends with a bunch of college-age males. This was flattering, but only partially true. There are some really intelligent women here; they just haven't formed a coherant unit that likes to talk about Derrida.

I realize - forgive the introspection, but this is my journal - that a lot of my intellectual isolation is self-inflicted. The core group of males here - those Proust-reading, protest-attending, pot-smoking-hippie intelligensia - are willing to ignore the fact that I have breasts if I'll just discuss the meaning of life for a couple of minutes. This is why I'm glad that I'll know them after graduating my program. Some day, maybe soon, I will no longer be so shy. Then maybe the Derrida and me, we can get down.
love,
alex