my greatest problem now - is that there is no one i can go to - no one, by which i mean a mentor figure - a teacher - someone i can sit with and talk to - or just pour out my worries and concerns. there are counsellors in the office of the dean of students of course, but i would much prefer a mentor or advisor who is currently teaching faculty instead of administrative faculty, even if that might be a liability in some ways.

i swear my assigned advisor the most unapproachable and cold man in the whole of america. i never got a reply to my email from more than a week ago and i've tried to go by his widener office often and he's never there, and i was wondering if i should write another email andt he happened to walk into the cafe in the english department where i was sitting with another first year student so i quickly got up and cornered him. i introduced myself said i was his advisee and there was absolutely no reaction. no "oh hello so you're my advisee!" no smile no hand proffered. he just looked at me. and so i said i was sorry for chasing after him the other day i wrote him an email about it and still no smile, although i did get words out of him now, and they were "well yes i suppose we were all confused that day." another pause. so i said er perhaps there is sometime i could come and see him? and he said actually he has a class now write him an email and then he went off. i am not overreacting the other first year student with me was taken aback too at the cold reception. and speaking of receptions he didn't even show up for the first year welcome reception if you were a man with first year advisees wouldn't you go to such an event at least to meet them? perhaps he was just busy that particular day but all of it adds up to a most negative impression. no one i've asked has had as much trouble with their advisors they have at least been friendly to some extent or pretended to be. i mean what does the man think? i'm not asking him to be another nohrnberg! no one in anycase can be another nohrnberg. the time that nohrnberg gave me was exceptional and no one but he could or would have spent it. and everyone at harvard is busy and important - but at least some pretense of friendliness on first meeting? if he would at least SMILE perhaps and acknowledge he's got an advisee? we're all told that the advisor is there so that we have access to senior faculty from the start, and they're there "for you to hold intellectual conversations with" (quote, DGS) but i haven't been able to get hold of him or have a conversation, intellectual or otherwise.

i would like a new advisor but i am afraid to ask for one lest it offends the present with future repercussion, or if that would give me a reputation from the start for being a difficult advisee. and if i were the more independent sort of person like von i could deal with unfriendly advisors and not caring and going about my own way, but i am not! i care very much about having an advisor who would be on my side, and to whom i could be fiercely loyal. i care about having continual and meaningful support and guidance - and support and guidance does not equal mere problem solving, as it sometimes seems to be understood by the authorities here. and this is not the friendliest of institutions. i know that one day this will be my home and my school - i know that in time i will have close friends and lovers and teachers. but not yet! and the short run is a difficult place to be in.

i suppose what's hardest is that although i haven't found anyone for myself yet, nohrnberg already wants me to move on. it certainly is true that i am at a different school now, and should try to reduce my dependency on my old advisors, who are faraway and whose place it is not any longer to give me counsel - and it is equally true that i need to go out and find new people. and nohrnberg is right that i'm hoping peter nohrnberg would be a fallback at least for now - a sort of temporary mentor in this transition period - someone who has a foot in charlottesville as well as in cambridge - until i find the right people here, which i won't if i refuse to let go of crutches from a former era, admittedly. and on that account he has headed me off, warning me not to request his son should i try to change advisors. i know his advice is well-meant and i see the wisdom of it: i know this objectively, but i can't help feeling cast off. that he's said "well don't come to me anymore, and don't go to my son either." i suppose i feel rather indignant too, because it never crossed my mind to ask for peter nohrnberg in the first place, precisely because i didn't want to go to the son out of loyalty to the father. oh well. but that isn't the question. the question is, who *do* i have now? at uva i was surrounded by teachers whose offices i could simply drop in at to talk about my day. charles vandersee has passed away now, and nohrnberg wants me to move on, and charlottesville seems so faraway. i would go back this weekend and see if barbara nolan or herbert tucker could meet for a while, only there's work and work and work already and i wouldn't make it till the spring at the least. and even that - well - even if i could - "we're here, now, and those other times are elsewhere" i feel so sharply that i haven't got anyone to go to here and now that nothng can help.