The Emperor returns

The Roommate and I actually had lunch with the Emperor today; it was the first time all semester, and maybe the third or fourth time I've even seen her (walking down the sidewalk, mostly!). It was exceedingly awkward; she actually asked me what I did over the summer and what my major was. Oh yeah, and whether I was doing a thesis. (She generally has a very low opinion of me, I think—not in the sense that she thinks I'm stupid, it's more that she seems to think I've got a misguided approach to the world, and am that friend who had so much potential and never amounted to much. At least, that's the kind of attitude I think she has; it might just be me projecting, or some other such thing.)

At any rate, I'm a little insulted—she got into her post bacc program, and didn't even tell us. There was a time when she would have sent me her essays for editing, but no longer. She is also TAing Brain Damage and the Mind, which at least makes a little more sense than me TAing. Speaking of TAing, I should really be grading synopses right now ... :P

Well, it's kind of weird how much our lives have diverged since we were new students. She's remained on the pre-med path, on the music and psychology path, and on the path towards a Big Professional Career where she has to Make Important Decisions and Save Lives. Not that any of that is bad, but it's a far more structured and driven approach to life than I have. I am more than willing to experiment; she's afraid of doing anything that deviates from her chosen path. Hopefully she will be successful and all that, but I doubt we'll ever really understand each other. It's a little sad, but oh well. If she can't even remember what I'm majoring in, we've clearly not been on the same wavelength for a long, long time.

What really bothers me about her is her alleged "curiosity", or at least what she calls curiosity. (She generally has an attitude about what she thinks she "should" be like, but to my eyes, at least, what she is actually like is extremely different from what she thinks she's like.) She could not find any classes to take outside of music. She is literally taking two classes (Musical Youth Cultures and some other music class that I can't remember), doing chorus and orchestra (which both technically give a half credit), and her thesis (on music and psychology). Now, it's not that she really likes music that bothers me; it's that she claims that she's so curious, so engaged in the world, that she loves to learn, that she loves to experiment with new fields. ... And here she is, finding herself incapable of finding a third class out of the 1000 classes that are offered each term. Really, there isn't a single class? There isn't even a single psychology class that she's interested in? Nothing? No? I am admittedly finding myself a little less intrigued by courses outside my majors, such that next term I might be taking a lot of geo classes; but at least I could easily find a lot of classes to take, they just aren't as interesting to me as they used to be. Perhaps, she has also reached the point where she knows what is interesting to her and no longer feels the urge to take every class she possibly can that sounds even a little interesting, but ... she's taking two classes, she's not going to be working very hard on her thesis, and she couldn't even find a single psychology class to take? I've taken more than my fair share of environmental science classes, and I intend to take more, because I love it, not because it's a requirement.