So the keyword is nostalgia. I do not need to define it, when I am between leaving one home for another. But I have referred to it before as a vortex, and it can be that way, as long as you don’t poke beyond the event horizon. Of late, this has been 24 (the last two seasons!) and assorted samurai flicks, extending back to White Heaven and Hell. But I don’t dwell on the content of my nostalgia as much as its purpose.

Can nostalgia have a purpose?

Okay, that was a joke between me and a man named Rob. But really, now. I haven’t thought about this nearly long enough to feel adequately nostalgic, but I propose three purposes (non-exhaustive) for nostalgia: letting go, impressing oneself, and learning something new.

Now that I’m moving and trying to come well under the 20,000 pound allowance (leagues, under the sea, and other such numerical jokes), the best use I can think of for nostalgia is just a pang before you let go, as I am discarding many of my undergraduate files which I no longer needed, and no longer needed even as I graduated–but how was I to know. Nostalgia, then, is a momentary tribute to an irrelevant past.

Yet, I recognize: I recognize myself and even some of my jokes that’ve lasted when I reread my high school satires of high school. Ironically, I am currently living in a doctoral satire of high school. Or grim parody. Or post-tragic farce. But the best part about auto-nostalgia is being surprised that you are capable of such wit at such an age, or such energy or drive, or stubbornness, and then hopefully this teaches you to reach for that standard yet again in what you do. The undercurrent of self within change.

And that’s the real purpose of nostalgia. It lets you learn something new about what you thought you knew. Or were passed out for, in the case of most of seasons 7 and 8 of 24. Re-viewing, re-thinking, re-appreciating for the first time, at least in that way. And this is why I do re-visit the same texts over and over again, because I do believe that they have plenty to give, on each reading something different, so my nostalgia is not a longing, or a VH1 special about those moribund 90′s, but rather pointed, somehow, to the future.

So there are now multiple countdowns in effect, not the least of which is the end of NYC for now, and completion to the dissertation. My feelings are getting more mixed as these times end, but then again, you never know how great a place will be until year 3, and then around year 4 you wonder what you were thinking.

So I am drawn back into a vortex of 24 and drinking and late night shenanigans. Oh well.

So this was the week to end all weeks like this.

Monday I rose at 530, tried to tie up some COIs, and went to two lessons which failed on 2-(-1) and not really defining a permutation well. The quesadilla trailer was absent, but it was early, and then I went to the old school, and worked through a full day, including tutoring before scoring some antibiotics and some tasty beers with Rob and Laser and Laser’s fiancee. Unfortunately foodwise I ate everything: falafel, quesadilla (meh), PRpanada, and even an Artichoke slice.

Tuesday I woke at 530 again, and saw two lessons which were a rerun and ripped from the pages of internet and one that was nominally better and learned of a re-scheduling for the following day, and went to school and met with the dissertation group, participated in a focus group, and skipped kendo to try and finish up and mostly got far enough, though I skipped out on a lecture on critical pedagogy (yeah) and probably started that night on this downward spiral of 24: Season 7.

Wednesday I rose at 530 and rolled into work early, with a long overdue local tamal and then a meeting with my chair who set me straight before running off to wonder where my quesadilla folks were, and then I ran a workshop which I chose not to intervene but now I think otherwise, and drove home with the boss, and ended up on the F train to the GC where I had to listen to an adjunct “workshop” which more like a lecture, and then went to iai, emerging unscathed, going home and drinking too much instead of getting fully caught up.

Thursday I woke up drunk. Very drunk. Made it through breakfast, two hours in the office napping, some roof napping, and then staggered to do two observations, one good but not good enough, and then yet another game for which we don’t know the rules and even going to win, had a mediocre quesadilla de hongos at the replacement truck and then went home to change and get all hipstery and learn that the leakage which has knocked out my electricity will soonbe fixed at co-op’s expense and then meet to do 30 minutes’ work in an hour with a “colleague” and then skipped kendo to hang out with Tri and get some sweet sweet love and then stand up Rob (sorry), and then home to get a few more episodes in.

Friday I woke up at 530 and made some progress on the writing, but not enough (10 minutes missing) and saw a lesson that was half of what it should have been and then another probability lesson that probably should have made more sense and these two sandwiched a crappy cemita with not enough produce, and then to school and hung out until drinks and grazing with the dissertation sisters though standing up Rob and then coming home to drink and not work and look forward to a weekend of catching up and wearing straw hats and doing laundry and other upkeep.

But next week looks better.