(no subject)

While filling our houseguest in on my life in the last couple years, I talked about being in Syracuse for my master's program. Talking about urban geography theory and systemic inequality is often my grad school emotional rollercoaster in miniature. I get excited about the topic; how fascinating these systems are and how much could be done with them. Then I feel the depresson and futility I felt, especially in my urban social justice seminar, as I talk about how impossible it seems to make a difference.

As I talked to him over dinner, I paraphrased a thought from David Harvey that struck deep and has been in my mind since I read Harvey's "Social Justice and the City;" that one more study of man's inhumanity to man will do nothing to *stop* that inhumanity. I've sometimes wanted to talk to Harvey and ask him how he manages to keep fighting. I probably could/should have had that conversation with Don Mitchell, the professor who taught that seminar, at Syracuse, too, but I was suffering too much from imposter syndrome. (By the way; I haven't even received an official job offer yet for the place I interviewed at and I have imposter syndrome already. That's me!)

I ended up feeling really down in a hole last night. That mood always turns into depression over any number of things and situations that make me unhappy these days. That and the heat made it hard to sleep. I went out into the living room, pointed a fan at the couch (Danae has trouble sleeping with moving air on her), got Piper out of her crate to snuggle with, and eventually managed to sleep decently.