So here I am, on an obscenely lovely Sunday, stuck at the library yet again. I am trying to muster up the energy to care about work. I am surrounded by students typing with a ferocious intensity, although I am a bit concerned that the cookie-cutter blonde girl next to me is merely being ferocious in plagiarizing: she is copying and pasting texts from a Wikipedia article on to a Word Document, highlighting paragraphs with seeming abandon. In contrast, I am listlessly flipping through Partha Chatterjee’s book that assesses whether post-colonial nationalism is derivative of Western nationalist models, only half concentrating on what my man Partha has to say.
Dear readers, I am struck by a horrible, debilitating ennui, where anything but school and work and research is fascinating. Perfecting how to make pad thai? Yes. Deconstructing BBC News political coverage? Yes. Avidly following the American Elections? Yes. Comparative Politics? Nope. You see, over the last few weeks, the growing realization that I might be a PhD student for the rest of my twenties is leading to self-destructive behavior on my part. Of course, allow me to qualify this by saying that self-destructive behavior, according to my pathetic standards, need not mean debauchery of “Grad Students Gone Wild” proportions. I am not dancing on countertops, drinking body shots off washboard abs, and snorting coke. (I undertook all of these activities, with the exception of the latter, during the “Glory Years.” Times they are a-changing). What I mean is that rather than giving a shit, I am now on auto-pilot, merely doing the bare minimum without exerting much thought into the work I am producing. Thus, my life right now is characterized by intense periods of last-minute reading and writing, inevitably followed by uber-intense partying, which is THEN followed by the onset of a calm, Zen-like state where I see nothing more worthwhile than contemplating the fluff accumulating in my belly button while my work accumulates in the corner. I feel like I am on the path towards becoming an academic non-entity, though this in itself is not a dismal prospect, particularly since my heart still belongs to the non-profit human rights/development sector. Hence, my growing laziness and my inability to reconcile myself to my academic lifestyle, when combined, lead me to feel like an impostor. Sigh.
What do I need to do to get out of this academic rut? Why, traveling of course! The light at the end of my tunnel is the prospect of future trips ahead. To celebrate my transition from being a nubile youngster in her early to mid-twenties to being a not-so-young and not-so-nubile existential-crisis-plagued freak fast approaching her late twenties (by no stretch of the imagination can 26, or even, really, 25, be categorized as being in one’s early to mid-twenties), CB and I have decided to take off to Lisbon this December. Initially, I was pressing for Marrakesh because of dirt-cheap Ryan Air flights. Unfortunately, Marrakesh did not work out so off to Lisbon we go, indulging in the best that Portugal has to offer = port wine and cozido à portuguesa.
I, for one, have been in love with port wine ever since SJ and I – along with FI – got ridiculously inebriated in her Cambridge, MA dorm room chugging glass after glass. (As an aside, my existential crisis is exceeded only by SJ, who, like me, sees her PhD as a means to the end of exciting adventures). Port wine is sweeter, heavier, and contains far more alcoholic content in comparison to regular wine, therefore making it ten times more potent. In fact, why is there a rule among culinary circles that port has to be a dessert wine? I see nothing wrong with combining port wine with all parts of the meal. I know that port can overwhelm, say, a light appetizer of salad or bruschetta, but if we accept that port is the main star of the show, then we can easily justify the integration of port into all components of the meal. Besides, I am hardly the dessert girl. Yes, I like tiramisu, and apple pie, and light sweets. But the most important part of the meal for me is, obviously, the main course. Thus, why should I be forced to just have port during dessert when I would happily skip desert for, say, another serving of the main course?
And on that note, why not combine port with cozido à portuguesa, aka Portugese Stew? Cozido à portuguesa is a veritable cornucopia of different types of meat, and thus, different types of flavor and textures. The addition of smoked sausage, in particular, adds that little extra zing to an already hearty, heady mixture. Plus, the addition of cabbages, turnips, and carrots supplements the meats’ heavy tendencies. Meat, vegetables, and stew makes cozido à portuguesa a well-balanced meal.
With Port and Portugese stew in the horizon, the piles of papers and readings in front of me don’t seem too insurmountable. Wish me luck.
