Beer and Cheese recently pointed out to me that Hall of the Revels has been stagnant for quite some time. Indeed it has. I've been lucky enough to travel with my family this summer in Paris (internet available beside the winos in the park), the south of France (no internet), and the cabin in Colorado (zilch). I also did a mini visit so San Francisco, which you can read about elsewhere. More on that soon.
The point is, there haven't been updates since my musing on graduation, in part because I didn't know where to start. I got this blog running originally to update my family on matters of state (i.e. college desicions). It then turned into...what, exactly? Musings on my life, on events at college, book reviews, TV gushings, movie recommendations, the occasional essay, studious avoidance of angst, rhapsodizing about my friends and parents and the things that made me lucky.
Now (in a little over two weeks) I'm moving to Chicago and starting afresh at a new job. Why not wipe the slate clean of confusing pseudonyms and start a new blog? So I have.
This could be read as a sequel, or a continuation. Or just another beginning. Hall of the Revels was named after a scene in the fifth book of The Lymond Choronicles by Dorothy Dunnett. It was a place where everyone was smart and witty when things went wrong they only went wrong for the better. The name of this new blog, as you'll see, is taken from my favorite George Smiley quote in Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (to be found in the footer). In my new job, I might come off as rather foolish right off the bat. School doesn't prepare you for everything.
In Princeton, I learned above all how to be a BAMF instead of a rockstar. Now I'm embracing the gaps in my education at My Kind of Fool.

See you over at Part Two!
Nom de Plume
(now of http://mykindoffool.blogspot.com/)

I've kind of actively avoided blogging about graduation because what do you say? There's enormous accomplishment but there's also an entire swath of your life that's over. And if you had told my freshman year self that she would be feeling this way at the end of her four years she would have looked at you like you were crazy. She was just there to take classes and get it over with.
Somewhere along the line, things changed, and I think it began with painting nails and watching Whose Line Is It Anyway with Roommate J. Then there was painting nails and waiting for the all-clear to sound with HaHa. Or...not painting nails, actually, and going in an oddly color-coordinated foursome to buy ice cream with all my froomies.
I wrote my Junior Year fall independent work on Tales of the City, which is all about the families you choose. By senior year the froomies and I had fallen into (and laughingly constructed) a 50s nuclear family dynamic (complete with entertaining skeletons in the closet): I was the dad (bug-killing, with a British man named Julian on the side), CC was the mom (frequently absentee and baked-goods-providing), HaHa was the oldest daughter (aloof, patient, a woman of mystery), and Roommate J was the baby.
Another major theme of Tales of the City: "Mona used to say that she could get by just fine without a lover as long as she had five good friends."
Any way you slice it, I had family by my side at graduation, and they weren't just the two people snapping pictures, related to me. (Although while we're on that subject, I made it my personal mission to see how many times I could get the de Plume waterworks flowing over the course of the three-day extravaganza and I think I set a personal record.)
Other things that happened that made it difficult to leave Princeton: I had access to a car for a total of four semesters and with it I was able to feel more at home in the wider community than I had before; I saw the sun rising and setting over fields on Quaker Road that became my favorite Princeton view; I went to prison, and it changed my life; I wrote a triumphant thesis and did original work; I started to come up with my own, practical definition of the humanities (working manifesto title: The Universal in the Particular--and would you really want to live in a world without them?); I cried when Shirley Tilghman told my class to make service and education their mission since it might just be mine; I learned how to stop being a rockstar and how to become a BAMF instead; I won the first of several bets; I made playlists, organized trips, and became a road warrior; I developed a fashion sense; I started a Christmas card recipient list; I learned how to disagree; I began compiling a list of role models; I ate Olives cookies; I ogled hot grad students (although, hello, Chicago!); I attended free midnight movies; I got taken down a peg and raised up three; I discovered the addictive properties of being a small fish in a big pond for the first time in my life; I fell into the NYC honey trap; I had my teapot confiscated freshman year and I still want it back.
Were they the best four years of my life? How can I possibly answer that? Probably not, and that's as it should be. To continue my Tales of the City thread, I think I'll agree with Mrs. Madrigal and say that my favorite year hasn't happened yet. These were a great four years, though, and they exceeded almost every expectation I had. Thank you, CC. Thank you, HaHa. Thank YOU, Roommate J. And thank you, Princeton.

Never let it be said that I don't think on my feet.
Although coming to the realization that I would have allowed CC to be swept out to sea rather than risk my own life was quite a shock to this INFJ.
In other news, this Delaware adventure has been non-stop amazing. The froomies and I visited old haunts and new, saw dolphins, (and possibly Fabio), got attacked by waves (sore!), and ate, and ate, and ate. What a success.

Day 30 - Saddest character death
I tend to like good shows, and therefore I tend to like shows that aren't afraid to kill people off. That said, although I might complain about their death for a couple days, I usually don't burst into tears.
*UNQUALIFIED SPOILER ALERT*
I cried for an hour at the end of Homicide: The Movie, and it wasn't over the guy who died, but the guy whose fate was left pretty ambiguous at the film's conclusion. I'm counting it as a death since that was one of the options and it certainly made me sadder than anything I'd watched on TV before, or since.
Gutsier than just killing off a character (which the show has definitely done before), is the decision to end a beloved series with one of its two main characters facing a life (however long) of misery, and making no efforts to soften the blow. It was actually only at the end that my dad realized this show was about Bayliss. Go figure.
And with that, I am off with the froomies to enjoy four nights at Uncle and Aunt J's beach house. Then we return and it's reunions and graduation(!).

Day 29 - Current t.v show obsession
Last night I had a dream featuring Roger Ebert and Archie Panjabi. Let's see if we can guess.
Over the past week I've watched the entire first season of The Good Wife. It's incredibly well-acted, with Julianna Margulies and Archie Panjabi rocking my socks every single episode.
There are wildly intelligent female characters, plus Christine Baranski's giggle, that guy from Sports Night, Alan Cumming being awesome as a thinly disguised Rahm Emmanuel, and tons of guest stars from The Wire. Good stuff, and well-written.

Day 28 - First t.v show obsession
I mean, how far back should I go?

Back in freshman year, Roommate J and I made a bet. Whoever won the bet would have a palm reading purchased for the other at the end of classes senior year.
I won the bet, and today we went (with CC!) to get our palms read. She did the thing all psychics do of being very vague and, therefore, universally applicable, but I think her deductive skills were good enough that she successfully matched the right predicitons with the right people.
For instance, this was mine:
--I've had a long, healthy life.
--I will have one marriage, and no divorce.
--I will have 2-4 children. (I must have stiffened, because at this point she said, "How do you feel about that?" and I said something like, "...I like children..." Although afterwards, I concluded to Roommate J and CC that the way I'd get 2-4 children is if--as the case is with my parents--people start designating me caretaker of their kids in their wills left and right. I could see that.)
--I am a creative and artistic person. I frequently work with science (friends with scientists, does that count?).
--I won't work my whole life but I will accomplish what I set out to do.
--I should be a teacher.
--At the moment I'm at the crossroads of something, struggling with what to do.
--By August I will have made a major decision.
--"I see a young man. Do you know who it might be?" "Not off the top of my head?" "Are you dating?" "No." "Would you?" "Yes." "Well that's it." "Okay." "You build a wall around yourself. You need to shake off your past. Get over that. Love will find you, and you don't have to go looking for it."
--My family is supportive. They are important to me.
Then she pressed her thumb into my palm and wished me luck.