el estado y la nacion

i finished my paper on the bolivian constitution, imagined communities and the racial state today. it was pretty decent i think, but not anything revolutionary. now i'm just down to the discourse paper, which is the scarriest, but the leap seems to like my analysis. and he basically wrote my conclusion for me. now i just need to figure out how to turn 8 pages into 20-25. sigh.

i've been thinking a lot about how much i learned this semester. i think a lot more than last semester, though the fall did give me a much better handle on gramsci & althusser. but i think contemporary theory was really good this spring, and i feel conversant in things an anthropologist should be conversant in. plus, i feel like i actually know what's going on in bolivia these days (thanks google alerts!). and sunday's the big referendum. it will be interesting to see what happens.

i think i've also learned a lot about myself this semester. what i want, who i am. what i'll put up with and what i won't. basically, this year has been the happiest one since college, at least on a personal level. i have a lot of people i miss, and not many people i see on a regular basis that i really care about. but i guess they always say you have to love yourself before you can love anyone else (or something like that). i guess i'm getting there.

so in a mere 5 days i will be finished, and i can't f'ing wait. i see lots of yoga, painting, and (unfortunately) grading undergrad exams in store for next week. but oh, the freedom looks so good from this side.

on another happy note, b dub wants me to ta for her next semester, which i'm excited about. The Anthropology of American Life. Its funny that i'm the only non-North Americanist (aside from rodo & the partridge family) in my cohort, and i'm the one taing that class, but it sounds like fun. and she said she wouldn't make me do much work (always a good sign). i think this is mostly because we've bonded over our dwight-love. its hard not to. and i think in a way we're both still trying to channel him. i think i always will be. and its a comfort to have him sitting in the back of my mind. wwdd? be savvy.

so, that's a semester wrap up, i guess. perhaps premature, but i'm sticking with it. i'm not sure what the summer has in store. some nj shore, some chicago, maybe some guatemala. we shall see...