out in the open

now that you've all been made aware of the existence of the secret blog, i'll tell you that my anemic blog participation has been largely due to the fact that everything that happens to me is too boring or inappropriate for public blogging. as such you've all been buffered from most of my grad-school related rants, as well the awkward, but ultimately un-interesting play-by-plays of my current round of internet dating. you can thank my good blogmate for that one - she's really taking one for the team.

that said, the harris school of puplic policy really does deserve to be mocked in a public forum. as our sociologist laureat recently put it, "while it's true that medical residency is, in many ways, like high school, harris actually is high school." lucky for me i already have friends and self-esteem (internet dating not withstanding) and as such was not as hurt as some of my classmates upon the discovery of the underground, by-invitation-only party scene... policy students gone wild, if you will. apparently there's a subset of our 120 student cohort that has taken to raucous kickball playing and drinking, but unless you're in the M.P.P 2009 group on facebook you're not actually invited to the "oh my god dude, i got so wasted" festivities held at jimmy's woodlawn tap and other fine hyde park establishments. unfortunately for the cool kids, facebook isn't nearly as anonymous as even the more public filterless blog, and as it turns out, these clandestine get-togethers aren't really much of a secret, as anyone who wants to can find out all about them and even pull up the pictures. don't let on that you know about it though, lest you get chided by the group's alpha girl (known previously to me only as the girl who actually interrupted econ class to ask "what's a widget?") - "oh, those were for our eyes only."

as it turns out, the internet has many functions beyond its use as a not-so-secret slam book and a torture weapon for single 30 year old women. i learned this last week, when a round of pre-blind-date non-sexual foreplay emails in which we dared each other to drink more honestly made me feel much less nervous about the whole thing.

score one for cyberspace.