This week I read Gina Barreca's Babes in Boyland: A Personal History of Co-education in the Ivy League. The book is extremely self-indulgent and consists of too many isolated conversations that aren't really that clever, but Barreca thinks are just fabulous. (Are my terse conversation scripts like this? If so, my apologies).

As per usual, I will share some parts that spoke to me for some reason. They are mostly motivational, as I've admmittedly been in a funk and have been trying to pull myself out.

"Risking Dartmouth was, after all, worth the fear and anxiety. Risking loneliness, I found lasting companionship. Risking rejection, I found an odd sense of acceptance. Risking failure, I discovered native ability and honed it into skill. Risking unhappiness, I found at least measured and memorable joy. Risks are worth it."

"What remained totally out of my reach was the polished look that comes from being a kid from a family with a solid financial and social foundation... As hard as it is to define, it is nevertheless essential to understand: fancy people - not necessarily the irrefutably rich, mind you, but the socially and culturally privileged - have a distinct way of handling the world, as if they are simply overseeing what belongs to them. I didn't have this and I couldn't take it."

"I didn't have the 'the look,' and so literally couldn't look at things from the same perspective. I had good grades and the stuff it took to get good grades. I had a bravado that often got mistaken for strength and a big mouth that was sometimes interpreted as self-confidence."

"I became desperately fond of interlibrary loan and regarded it as my passport to libraries in, for example, other galaxies. The weight of books calmed me; the feel of the paper under my fingertips as I turned the page grabbed and held me. This pleasure was sharpened by the understanding that what I loved at that moment had been loaned to me. I could possess it fully but only temporarily - like life."

"I hated when anybody asked what I was going to 'do' with my major in English; they talked about my education the way you'd talk about a crazy old relative."