October Study Days

Sometimes, the best thing about living so close to New York City, is having an excuse that keeps you away from the city for a little while longer. This is what October study days does for me. October study days is my school’s response to not giving us a full fall break. It is two whole days of no classes and a week with no conferences. My plan was to spend them catching up on my reading, catching up on my sleep, and drinking tea alone in my room.

This time, I actually stayed true to my promise by hunkering down and hitting my books.

The readings that I had to do for various classes, is, as follows:

Grace Paley short story collection

Isaac Babel short story collection

Virginia Woolf

Sally Rooney

Freud

Story that Brian wants me to read

Other Virginia Woolf

Other short story that Brian wants me to read

That sounds like a nice, well-rounded education. It also sounds like a stereotypical pretentious smart person education with all of the Freud and Woolf. The only thing I am missing is being schooled in eastern philosophy and gender studies, so that I can learn to be a pacifist who blames men for all of my problems.

I decided to be on the grind at “Slave to the Grind,” where I got a solid hour of work done while Lana Del Rey played in the background.

*Photographic evidence of me studying out in public*

I did more than just spend the whole time studying. There were also times where I caught myself watching old episodes of “Sex and the City” and realizing how I’d gotten behind on my schoolwork in the first place.

I was also going through my James Bond phase having just seen “No Time to Die” and listening to old Bond songs like “From Russia with Love” whenever I walked around. This was how I ended up using Nancy Sinatra’s Bond song to explain Freudian theory in my psychology class, because, as we all know, Nancy Sinatra is essential to the teachings of Freud, whose name started to look like “Fred” after I read it for so long, late at night.

I woke up late every morning, drank some tea, and read the works of Isaac Babel. The only thing that was missing was the gentle sound of rain hitting my window pane.

Anahat and I said goodbye to our October study days (cough, cough, fall break) with dinner at “Haiku,” a Japanese restaurant in Bronxville that neither of us had tried before. The night ended like many of our other dinners out, with us getting ice cream after I ate way too much wasabi and felt like my nose had been violated.

I completed everything that was pressing and due within the week and made progress on everything else. It’s not exciting. There should be more songs about getting a good night’s sleep and saving your money, but that probably wouldn’t sell very many records.