secretly

je passe une semaine merdique.

le yoga m'améliore.

good evening

I have had a lovely first day back.  I was well awake for my earliest class wherein I discovered that my exam is postponed for a few days.  Awesome!  and then I had french and it wasn't torture, it was actually really good, I found out that I got a really good grade on my latest composition.  Awesome!  Then I went to lunch and enjoyed a lovely sandwich and fabulous company of friends.  Aaaand then I went to my happiness class and discovered that our ten page paper has been postponed from wednesday to monday.  Awesome!  And then I went to defend the budget for the middle east club.  and they were rude.  Not awesome!  And then I went and cleaned out my sock drawer.  and that was exciting once it was over.  and then dinner and then I went to the studio and man I saw the coolest video of a performance from last years electronic music concert.  It was inspiring.  I started another song.  and then I went to the sauna and hung out with my friends there and that was really awesome until my earrings started to burn in my ears so then I came back and took a shower.  And then I went to my lovely friend Josh's room to talk about music and work on his radio show with him.  That was the best part of my day.  He's such a cool man.  And then I came back and started my homework.  and this blog.

welcome back to school, me. 

books books books, read more books

I'm back in the airport again and in spite of my prior declaration of airport affection, which I still stand by, it's a pretty boring place.  Especially this terminal.  So, I thought I would start my summer reading list:

Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier

Sailor Song by Ken Kesey

Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safron Foer

The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera

What is the What by Dave Eggers

100 Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

I think that will probably tide me over for the summer.

revelations

Today is my birthday. It's not felt really special, which is pretty nice. I don't like a lot of fuss. I've heard from almost all of my nearest and dearest, which is all I want, really.  My mum is baking a yummy cake and my grandparents and aunt and uncle and cousin and two best friends are all coming over for a feast.  Perfect.

I had breakfast this morning with my dear friend Beth.  (I know you read this, Beth, so on a more personal note, thank you for a beautiful morning).  It was delicious (Orange brioche french toast. Amazing.) and wonderful to see her.  

This morning I had a (small) revelation that in twelve months (from august to august of this school year) I will have lived in three different states, been in two separate countries, and flown fourteen times.  That's the widest sphere my life has ever occupied. 

No Carnival

Oh I love the airport.  I really do.  Where I'm sitting, I have a perfect view of the airplanes taking off 100 yards away, and beyond that, I can see the close horizon and the clouds settling on the edges of my view.  It's beautiful.  My flight isn't for another hour and a half and I've been here for two hours.  I came with my neighbor, Nathan, whose flight is departing right now... I could have come on a later bus, but I am so ready to be going home and I like airports, so I figured I might as well just have some chill time here instead of staying at school where I would just be restless.  

My roommate had these two fish that she brought to our room after winter break... Well, they both died this week.  It was pretty sad.  I've never seen anyone care about fish as much as she did.  She named them Finnigan and Gilligan, which are about the cutest fish names I have ever heard.  We called them Fin and Gill.  Hopefully there will be more fish in our future.  

Housing for next year is starting to come into everyone's radar.  I am going to live with Danielle, whom I adore, and we're going to try to get a room with our other really good friends, Lauren and Casey.  But there are so many pressures and options for where to live and how to do all of it... it's kind of a mess.  I think that what it brings up for me is the idea of how much will change, which reminds me how much I will lose and gain by whatever new situation I am in.  It's prenostalgia, you know?  I know I will feel nostalgic about this year, I have had so many important experiences.  

I'm seeing my last view of this city's beautiful rainscape before I leave for a week.  It's stunningly beautiful.  I'm hoping to land tonight in time for the sunset.  

I think I could have made it through this semester without going home, but I'm glad that I get to.  I know I couldn't have made it last semester.  This semester I just have so much of a better grip on things.  Myself, my life, my reactions, etc etc.  It's something I can really pride myself on.  I have been bringing so much more presence of mind to all of my actions and as such I've been able to really analyse my reactions to things that come my way.  I think it's not the same as internalising in such a way where negative reactions can very easily become self-directed, but it's internalising the reaction so as to allow it to dissipate.  It feels very mature, but maybe it's just how most people do things and I'm catching up.  

Earlier this week, I went to the Dean's list dessert, which was basically just the school offering us cake in congratulations for our success.  It was pretty sweet.  The cake was fine, but the dean was actually there and my friend Jared is really set on getting Arabic at the school, which is something I really believe in even though it won't directly benefit me.  Anyway, we asked to talk to him, expecting him to not really be all that interested, but he came and sat with us where we'd been sitting on the floor and ate cake with us and listened to us talk to him about why we think Arabic would seriously benefit the school and the students.  He really listened, too. He took out a little pocket notebook and took notes and took down all of our email addresses.  It was fantastic.  Every time I start to think that this school could be kind of average, something happens to remind me that it really isn't.  The kind of faculty and students that it attracts are quality, for sure.  

This was in the BBC this week: news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7951838.stm

In the style of Lauren, who did this in the style of High Fidelity, I made a list of the top five careers I would love to have.  So, in no particular order, here they are:

1.  An international lawyer, or judge.

2. I don't know what to call it, but working as linguist and international affairs or international law expert for an NGO 

3. Working in some capacity with the UN (if the UN gets their act together sometime soon)

4. Grant allocation specialist for an organization like the Gates Foundation

5. Revolutionary.

aces and eights

(check the allusion in the title)

I got 100% on an eleven page paper that I wrote for my Pursuit of Happiness class.  I suppose I should be thrilled, but honestly, I am a little disappointed.  There was no constructive criticism and no guidance about what could be better.  That's not helpful at all.  Anyway, the paper was on happiness in Sufism.  It's hard to concentrate a history like that into 11 pages.  I wonder if he knows how unqualified I am to write the essay.  Probably not.  There was a time when I would feel that I earned full credit on a composition, but that is not my experience now.  

ar-rahim

I am not really in the proper frame of mind to work on homework right now, so it's blog time... It's harder and harder for me to focus during the day and easier and easier to focus in the middle of the night.  This is a great discovery because now I know how to make myself productive, but it has a very serious negative aspect, which is that when I stay up till three thirty in the morning, I still have to get up at 8 the next morning.  My work is better when I do it in the middle of the night, but I am so sleepy during class that I wonder if it's really worth it.  

I have figured somethings out within the last few days that have been really helpful to know.  Some of them have to do with people in my life and some have to do with understanding patterns in my life and how some of them are patterns that I set in motion and some are patterns that I am just a part of, regardless of my choices...  And in the last few days, figuring out the trajectory that I want to set my life in has been an incredible journey.  I know it could change, and I may have to make this journey again countless times to other conclusions, but it is also possible that I am truly landing somewhere like home.  I don't know.  But I am going to trust myself to have found something good.  I'm still going to keep fighting the school to recognise the Arabic work I'm going to be doing, but I've also decided that maybe it doesn't matter as much what's on paper if I just decide to be okay with it.  I'm going to do do all the same work and if the school chooses to come round and recognise it, then that'll be ideal.  But if they don't, I think I can live with that.  

Really, I think that most of what's going on for me is just that I've developed a very solid sense of equanimity within the last three weeks or so.  It's been a lot time coming; I've been working on this for so long and I will have to keep working on it forever, but right now, I know what it feels like.  When I catch myself getting really caught up in thinking about what other people think of me and Oh, I wish things could be this way, it's not as much work to get back to an equilibrium.   I don't think I've ever felt so steady.  It's a particular kind of strength that comes from knowing that I am more in charge of me than I have ever been before.  I'm less off-kilter than ever before.  I wouldn't say I'm still, in fact I could hardly say that I would be steady if I was still.  I'm just grounded and good.  

I'm trying to eat better and exercise more.  The other day, I discovered a beautiful beautiful trail in a nearby park that I think is probably a few miles long.  It's just incredible terrain.  When I went the other day, the sun was shining through the trees and I had that feeling of being so tiny and wonderfully insignificant. 

Today feels like Sunday.  I don't like that.

machine gun mouth

I met with my academic advisor this morning about getting the school to count my future Arabic credits toward a second major in Foreign Languages.  The school seems less than thrilled about giving me credits toward a major if the credits aren't earned through our Foreign Languages department.  I am torn between understanding and frustration.  I get that they wouldn't really want to encourage people to accredit their specialisation outside the school, but I am still getting a complete major in International Affairs and taking more than full schedules every semester of school, so I'm not taking anything away from the school.   So, in any case, my advisor and I set up an appointment with the Associate Dean of Students to discuss the matter.  In regards to other aspects of my studies, my advisor was very encouraging about my general academic plan, which is great to hear, but I never know if I should take him seriously.  He can be excessively, deceptively positive about things, which is great for my morale, but sometimes I am confused about how reality-based his attitudes are.  However, as we were going over my four-year plan, I did get a very strong sense that the plans I've laid out are really, truly something I want to do.  I got an amazing feeling of resolve and calm.  I know that the plan I've laid out is ambitious and that it won't be easy.  I have to take 20 academic credits next semester, which won't be easy and probably won't be all that fun, but it must be done.  In the last few days, I've started to have a very serious sense of what it is that I want to do after I graduate. That is, I want to work with scientists, doctors, economists, sociologists and anthropologists to create self-sustaining communities like they did in Gaviotas, Columbia.  I hope that what I'm doing now will lead me into that.  

By the by, if you haven't heard of Gaviotas, please check it out.  They've done really amazing work in a very challenging environment.  It's very inspiring.   

Also, it turns out that even though I was apprehensive about wearing a rain coat (social suicide at home), it is not only totally acceptable here, but actually a rather pleasurable experience.  I stay dry, but I can be out in the rain!  Imagine that...  It's delightful.  

web comics

if you aren't following these webcomics, you should be.  

asofterworld.com

anderslovesmaria.reengstrom.com

xkcd.com

daisyowl.com

also, a quick shout-out to a friend of mine who doesn't to a regular webcom, but has some of his work posted on his facebook page:

facebook.com/profile.php?id=1398078158&ref=ts

Letdown

And now we break from our regularly-programmed Sunday evening essay writing to bring you the following message: 

The silent retreat this weekend was a letdown.  It wasn't even really silent, which was pretty disappointing.  I am glad that I got a scholarship; otherwise I would feel that it was money wasted.  The parts of the silent retreat that were silent meditation (which was about half the day) were great, but the other parts I could have really done without.  This morning, though, I woke up early by accident, so I went for a run to the nearby nature preserve, wandered of the path (shhhh, don't tell) and meditated in the woods for awhile.  It was very pleasant.  It started raining when I was walking back (I'm not in as good of shape as I'd like to be...), but it hasn't been very cold today, so I walked back very slowly and enjoyed feeling the rain and looking at the beautiful trees and the beautiful people that I came across.

I am really working on not getting attached and possessive.  That's my internal work right now.  It's hard.  We are so instinctively programmed to enjoy things and then try to claim them as our own, especially people.  So I'm letting that go.  It's hard work, but I am definitely improving.   A few months ago, it was much harder.  Right now, I have a great deal more capability to take care of myself, and I don't really need people to hold me up.  Obviously, big words for a college student being supported by her parents, but the emotional stuff is different and right now I have a very solid handle on that.