Cambridge.

So I have arrived. After two grueling days of driving, covering roughly 1300 miles from St. Louis to Cambridge in a car stuffed to the absolute gills by my Jew Buddy's industrious stuffing of clothing, pots, pans, glassware, television, and guitars, and essentially an ENTIRE apartment into a reliable Korean (Alabaman?) Hyundai Sonata. I haven't changed clothes in four days, probably smoked about 3 packs of cigarettes, listened to Top-40 radio to stay awake (Justin Timberlake's song sucks really really hard by the way), drank and ate my way through pounds of grease, sugar, and caffeine, and am now ready for orientation.

I did have a good time listening to my brand new Barnes & Noble Professors/Lectures on CD...which was basically a long lecture on macroeconomics. That stuff is fascinating. I realized that all of my political views on economic policy have been radically skewed by political rhetoric by the jackass soundbites on each side and the uninformed arguments given by people I argue with...liberal or conservative. Of course, I fall squarely into the uninformed group myself. The warring schools of Classical economics, Keynesianism, Monetarism, New Classicism, and Supply-Side economics are all very different. It doesn't fall into a simple right/left dichotomy of free-markets v. regulated/centralized markets. Instead it breaks down into all sorts of mini-rifts and splits between and within schools of thought. It's really quite fascinating. I'll probably talk more about this as time goes on and I learn more, integrate into my thinking better, and get a real grasp for what's going on...so I'll stop for now. But I will say one thing: It's really hard to believe that the jackass politicians actually understand this stuff. Or at least the modern day ones. I understand teams and teams of advisers making these policies, but I simply cannot imagine George W. Bush having any idea about the differences in Keynesian and Supply-Side tax cuts and the effects on the economy...or understanding the dire consequences of his decisions. Anyway...

What's really on my mind is leaving my girl. There's really no point in trying to elaborate the depth and appreciation I have for my relationship with her. It's simply fantastic. It is what it is, and it is great...through and through. Of course like any relationship it's riddled with its own frustrations and problems...but, hot damn again, it's something that I look forward to in all of its little manifestations...whether it's cooking terrible concoctions of refrigerator scraps in fat-free generic italian dressing or going to the nicest restaurant in st. louis, or taking a long car trip...my quality of life has been immensely improved by her mere presence. It is my hope that such a beneficial presence not necessarily have to be a close physical proximity, and that a relationship between two people is more intangible than that. I believe it is...and instead of absolutely dreading the misery of the distance, I revel in the possibilities it holds...even if it is terribly depressing and disappointing to have so little time together. I'll cut this short here to avoid going on for pages and pages.

At this point, I'm still acutely self-aware of the fact that I have a blog now. And I'm not sure who I'm writing to...whether I'm writing to an invisible audience, or whether I'm writing to people I imagine would read this, or whether I'm simply talking in the third person to myself...but I'm very aware of how self-indulgent this seems...and am going to see how this experiment goes. I assume that if you find this sort of crap terribly self-indulgent, that you won't bother reading it anymore...and that seems to be a nice little system of self-selection that will make me more comfortable doing this.

One last thing...is that if you DO read this...please feel free or encouraged to say anything you want in the comments. Like, ranting bank, or telling me I'm an idiot, or just anything. Anything (although preferably I'd prefer not to have my feelings hurt over and over again). I'm very bad at keeping in contact with people and hopefully this will provide some sort of basic, if inadequate, dialogue and interaction with the people in my life.