I don’t know lots of things but I know this: next year when spring flows over the starting point I’ll think I’m going to drown in the shimmering miles of it and then one or two birds will fly me over the threshold.
-Mary Oliver
-Kavod-
Instead of whining, I'll just post this:
-Kavod-
February
February is undoubtedly the worst month of the year. I've been saying so for years, and it just keeps proving me right. But can we really reasonably expect more than 11 months out of the year to be good? 11 swell months should be perfectly satisfactory, especially when the only bad one is shorter than all the others.
Maybe I'm speaking too soon, but if the rest of the month continues as these first two days have, February 2011 might be the one exception to this rule.
1 February: lazy day which did eventually include a successful grocery shopping trip, some significant (if a little dull) reading done, and a delightful evening of football
2 February: a morning with children (only briefly before class, but still... children make life nicer), an inspiring (if a little terrifying) lecture, the best ever chicken caesar wrap (at StrEat in Union Square), nonstressful shopping (the best kind, though rare), more reading
3 February also looks to be promising with a chilled morning of unrushed reading (probably accompanied by hot chocolate), class on Romanticism in the afternoon, and ... perhaps a quiet evening at home meditating on possible dissertation topics?
4 February: Inverness with a photo scavenger hunt adventure created for us by a friend
With such a beginning, the month can't be too bad, right? Such an anomaly must be documented: it may never occur again.
PS: Am I the only one who usually hates February?
-Kavod-
Maybe I'm speaking too soon, but if the rest of the month continues as these first two days have, February 2011 might be the one exception to this rule.
1 February: lazy day which did eventually include a successful grocery shopping trip, some significant (if a little dull) reading done, and a delightful evening of football
2 February: a morning with children (only briefly before class, but still... children make life nicer), an inspiring (if a little terrifying) lecture, the best ever chicken caesar wrap (at StrEat in Union Square), nonstressful shopping (the best kind, though rare), more reading
3 February also looks to be promising with a chilled morning of unrushed reading (probably accompanied by hot chocolate), class on Romanticism in the afternoon, and ... perhaps a quiet evening at home meditating on possible dissertation topics?
4 February: Inverness with a photo scavenger hunt adventure created for us by a friend
With such a beginning, the month can't be too bad, right? Such an anomaly must be documented: it may never occur again.
PS: Am I the only one who usually hates February?
-Kavod-
Tennessee
Yesterday I drove kinda fast down that winding Highway 30 past fields and barns and Baptist churches, breathed in that unmistakable, sulfury scent of skunk, and would have blasted that country music if the radio in my little, rusty car wasn't broken. Oh, Tennessee, I love you too.
-Kavod-
-Kavod-
Mulling
Since coming to Scotland, I've been in a state of perpetual wonder.
Okay, not completely perpetual, but perpetual enough that I can say that the overwhelming sensation of the last two months has been wonder. For example:
St. Anthony's chapel in Edinburgh
Dunnotar Castle in Stonehaven
It just keeps getting better. If it weren't that all my family and most of my friends are in a different country, I would never ever want to leave this place. I think I would be content visiting home every so often and living here for the rest of my life. But I've only been here two months so that desire may change, and I really hope it does because I can't stay here.
When I write on this blog, I usually write something that has only just happened, so though the event is fresh in my memory, it's laden with my feeling in the moment and untempered by hindsight, and thus often misrepresents reality.
So, to correct previous statements or implications...
The graveyard is far from being the only grassy place in Aberdeen for a little rabbit to live. There are numerous parks, both children's play areas and walking or sports parks, houses with gardens, random areas on the side of the roads, and there are many, many graveyards.
Furthermore, postcards are all over the place here. I just wasn't looking in the right spots earlier.
I have to read for longer than three hours a day, but I kind of saw that coming, and you probably did too. Still, I generally don't work on Sunday, and can take another day off once in a while.
The food I cooked that one day (the chicken and leek pie and the cookies) was awesome! I don't know what was wrong with me that night, but I thoroughly enjoyed those for the rest of the week!
Time will tell what other nonsense I've said.
Like a good pot roast, I need time to stew. (Sorry for the silly simile; I couldn't resist.) Not just over my daily adventures, but over ideas . Trying to process huge portions of important literature and the huge ideas they contain overwhelms me and, though I enjoy it and would not choose to be doing anything else with my life right now, I feel like I'm barely tasting the crust of all I could be learning. Next term, I'm going to try to write my way through everything I read, because that's how I really learn, but it's too late to start that this term.
Today and yesterday were spent deciding on topics for essays and presentations. I came up with two which, thankfully, were approved tonight. If I'd been given topics, I could have finished both projects in the time it took me to pick the focus! Okay, I'm exaggerating. But, it was a very stressful process, and I still have to establish another topic for another class tomorrow. At least I have an idea for it that's been simmering for a while.
Busy weekend ahead; tomorrow's a ceilidh.
So many words, but I haven't said what I really wanted to say... and that is... mmm.... nope. It's not coming out tonight.
Don't worry, it's not a big secret, and I'm not in love. I know that's what some of you were thinking. It's just about faith and the deep pain of division in Christ's body. That's what's really simmering, and what I can't seem to get out or get past. But... maybe another night.
-Kavod-
Okay, not completely perpetual, but perpetual enough that I can say that the overwhelming sensation of the last two months has been wonder. For example:
St. Anthony's chapel in Edinburgh
It just keeps getting better. If it weren't that all my family and most of my friends are in a different country, I would never ever want to leave this place. I think I would be content visiting home every so often and living here for the rest of my life. But I've only been here two months so that desire may change, and I really hope it does because I can't stay here.
When I write on this blog, I usually write something that has only just happened, so though the event is fresh in my memory, it's laden with my feeling in the moment and untempered by hindsight, and thus often misrepresents reality.
So, to correct previous statements or implications...
The graveyard is far from being the only grassy place in Aberdeen for a little rabbit to live. There are numerous parks, both children's play areas and walking or sports parks, houses with gardens, random areas on the side of the roads, and there are many, many graveyards.
Furthermore, postcards are all over the place here. I just wasn't looking in the right spots earlier.
I have to read for longer than three hours a day, but I kind of saw that coming, and you probably did too. Still, I generally don't work on Sunday, and can take another day off once in a while.
The food I cooked that one day (the chicken and leek pie and the cookies) was awesome! I don't know what was wrong with me that night, but I thoroughly enjoyed those for the rest of the week!
Time will tell what other nonsense I've said.
Like a good pot roast, I need time to stew. (Sorry for the silly simile; I couldn't resist.) Not just over my daily adventures, but over ideas . Trying to process huge portions of important literature and the huge ideas they contain overwhelms me and, though I enjoy it and would not choose to be doing anything else with my life right now, I feel like I'm barely tasting the crust of all I could be learning. Next term, I'm going to try to write my way through everything I read, because that's how I really learn, but it's too late to start that this term.
Today and yesterday were spent deciding on topics for essays and presentations. I came up with two which, thankfully, were approved tonight. If I'd been given topics, I could have finished both projects in the time it took me to pick the focus! Okay, I'm exaggerating. But, it was a very stressful process, and I still have to establish another topic for another class tomorrow. At least I have an idea for it that's been simmering for a while.
Busy weekend ahead; tomorrow's a ceilidh.
So many words, but I haven't said what I really wanted to say... and that is... mmm.... nope. It's not coming out tonight.
Don't worry, it's not a big secret, and I'm not in love. I know that's what some of you were thinking. It's just about faith and the deep pain of division in Christ's body. That's what's really simmering, and what I can't seem to get out or get past. But... maybe another night.
-Kavod-
Culinary Endeavors...
I can't cook like my mom can. But I try sometimes.
Today I spent the whole afternoon baking and cooking. I made... well... first I made a tomato and cheese grilled sandwich for lunch. This is one of Mom's latest obsessions. While eating this delectable item, I gathered the ingredients for cookies. (It was sanitary, I assure you.) I made cookies with my American semi-sweet chocolate chips, but I used a British recipe. They're way sweeter than I desired, but were really-really-ridiculously-good-tasting right out of the oven.
I then made chicken and leek pie, following a Marks & Spencer recipe. (M&S is a store here.) This smelled way better than it tasted, but it isn't so bad. I'm not so in love with leeks that I want that many in one dish. So I didn't do a horrible job, I'm just not particularly fond of it. I made enough to eat four times, so I hope it will remain "not so bad" by the end of the week.
My one culinary disaster (since coming here, anyway) was an attempt at a pic pac type sauce like Carrabba's has. Eh.... much too much garlic because I used these garlic flake things I had never used before and apparently didn't know how to use. I couldn't use olive oil because it was a fast day, and I put in onions which was a bad idea. I had to throw it out because I couldn't choke it down. I ate plain pasta that night because I didn't have anything else without meat or dairy... or olive oil. I'm never again experimenting on a fast day without a good backup plan.
One of these days I'll cook like my mom. I'll have to move back home if don't learn because I'm not okay with eating subpar food for the rest of my life.
In other slightly related news, I did eat haggis and I did enjoy it to my great surprise. I just didn't think about what was in it.
-Kavod-
Today I spent the whole afternoon baking and cooking. I made... well... first I made a tomato and cheese grilled sandwich for lunch. This is one of Mom's latest obsessions. While eating this delectable item, I gathered the ingredients for cookies. (It was sanitary, I assure you.) I made cookies with my American semi-sweet chocolate chips, but I used a British recipe. They're way sweeter than I desired, but were really-really-ridiculously-good-tasting right out of the oven.
I then made chicken and leek pie, following a Marks & Spencer recipe. (M&S is a store here.) This smelled way better than it tasted, but it isn't so bad. I'm not so in love with leeks that I want that many in one dish. So I didn't do a horrible job, I'm just not particularly fond of it. I made enough to eat four times, so I hope it will remain "not so bad" by the end of the week.
My one culinary disaster (since coming here, anyway) was an attempt at a pic pac type sauce like Carrabba's has. Eh.... much too much garlic because I used these garlic flake things I had never used before and apparently didn't know how to use. I couldn't use olive oil because it was a fast day, and I put in onions which was a bad idea. I had to throw it out because I couldn't choke it down. I ate plain pasta that night because I didn't have anything else without meat or dairy... or olive oil. I'm never again experimenting on a fast day without a good backup plan.
One of these days I'll cook like my mom. I'll have to move back home if don't learn because I'm not okay with eating subpar food for the rest of my life.
In other slightly related news, I did eat haggis and I did enjoy it to my great surprise. I just didn't think about what was in it.
-Kavod-
The Hill of Storms
In my Irish and Scottish Romanticism class, we've discussed the effect of MacPherson's "Fragments of Ancient Poetry" on the world's view of Scotland. These "fragments" show Scotland to be the wild, empty, romantic country of hills and sea and wind that draws us foreigners to it. But is that really Scotland, or did MacPherson's purportedly gathered fragments cause people to project that image onto the land? That's the question the professor put to us.
A few weeks later, this professor asked me, "Have you found the romantic Scotland you came to see?" I answered with no hesitation.
Really, when the wind blows as it does here, and you're walking on a hill completely vulnerable to it, with the wild waves crashing below you, and the land rolling green in front of you, how can you help feeling you're in the land of Ossian, of Fingal... of the North Wind?
-Kavod-
A few weeks later, this professor asked me, "Have you found the romantic Scotland you came to see?" I answered with no hesitation.
Really, when the wind blows as it does here, and you're walking on a hill completely vulnerable to it, with the wild waves crashing below you, and the land rolling green in front of you, how can you help feeling you're in the land of Ossian, of Fingal... of the North Wind?
"It is night; and I am alone, forlorn on the hill of storms. The wind is heard in the mountain. The torrent shrieks down the rock. No hut receives me from the rain; forlorn on the hill of winds."
-Kavod-
Finally caught up...
I gave a great presentation today, and now I'm quite optimistic that the rest of the term will be smooth sailing. I've just made a reading plan that, if followed, will result in only 3 hours of reading per day, six days a week, leaving Sunday to rest. (Of course, one of my professors has a tendency to throw in a bunch of secondary reading which might slow things a bit, but a couple more hours of work in the day won't kill me.) And this plan will allow me to get so far ahead that I'll have plenty of time to work on essays and my other two presentations in the second half of the term. Furthermore, if I want to double up one day and take a day trip somewhere the next, I will have freedom to do so. My life is so good.
Also, I saw a golden sunrise today. Mornings are the best... as long as no one talks to me in them.
-Kavod-
Also, I saw a golden sunrise today. Mornings are the best... as long as no one talks to me in them.
-Kavod-
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)