In case I'm not "generating" enough "content" for you around here, I have updated my links list recently, so that you might peruse the blogs of my friends, and also to include a link to my Google Reader shared items page. 'Cause I'm really into Google Reader now, and sometimes I see entertaining or interesting things on the internet, and I like to make my friends and acquaintances familiar with them, but I am too lazy to write a whole blog post about it. No more! Now you can see what news stories and blog posts I find most interesting, and take one more step into my psyche. (I promise you are not that deep into my psyche, and that it is still quite safe.)
Oh yea, and I'm about to move back to Hampshire, and resume normal-year-life, as opposed to Summer Life. This should be fun!
Sunday, August 31, 2008
Monday, August 25, 2008
Too Long for Twitter
I was just reading Political Affairs (my favorite Marxist blog), and this Goethe quote jumped out at me, and I needed to put it somewhere:
"The moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decisions, raising in one's favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance which no man could have dreamed would have come his way. Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. Begin it now."
Mostly because I've been having a series of life-planning moments (visions?) over the summer, and I'm working on making up my mind and trying to set things in motion, most of which simply requires that I set the right things in motion, as I have nearly reached the point of no return (for the next two years at least). So Goethe inspires me, unexpectedly, and captures a good deal of my experience-based life philosophy. (I am still no Goethe fan.)
"The moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decisions, raising in one's favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance which no man could have dreamed would have come his way. Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. Begin it now."
Mostly because I've been having a series of life-planning moments (visions?) over the summer, and I'm working on making up my mind and trying to set things in motion, most of which simply requires that I set the right things in motion, as I have nearly reached the point of no return (for the next two years at least). So Goethe inspires me, unexpectedly, and captures a good deal of my experience-based life philosophy. (I am still no Goethe fan.)
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Squalor Victoria
Wow, once-a-month updates. Hi. To my credit, Clara-the-laptop was out of commission for the past two weeks, and I'm boring and generally disconnected from the world in the best of times. No really. My body interprets summer as "time to hibernate." I spend a lot of time huddling in blankets these days, trying to decide if it's worth the waste of body heat to get up and feed myself. I live in a house without air conditioning in the northern hemisphere, but it's mind-over-matter and I've been reading an awful lot of books about people getting stranded in the snow.
I only feel the heat when I'm bicycling (Gala is now my best friend in the entire world, no offense previous best friends, but you don't provide me with mood-lifting exercise while also getting me where I need to be. Also you can talk and have your own problems and whatever.) but, after shoving my head under a cold shower, it's back to shivering and wondering why the landlord thinks all the windows need to be open and all the fans on at all times.
Discussing my body temperature wasn't my original goal. Let me remember.
Oh right. I have friends who are blogging more regularly now and I feel somewhat obligated to do the same, rather than just comment incessantly on their posts. For those of you who are here for life updates, it's been an interesting few weeks, mostly spent in forced minimalism. I'm a materialist and a pack rat, and I am not ashamed of this fact. I learned long ago that packing light is completely incompatible with who I am, and got over it, as we live in a world where moving large quantities of objects is actually relatively easy, if sometimes expensive. So, when I spent the past few weeks slowly losing most of the objects in my house (the loss of people was welcome, if anything, which sounds misanthropic and maybe is), I spent some rather unpleasant evenings eating four-course meals in the middle of an empty floor, spending hours sorting my piles of books in every possible iteration until I found the most satisfactory, and then a few moving the clock-radio around until I discovered that my scanner-printer makes a great antenna booster (which was about the only thing it was good for, my computer being in the shop). I even purchased and began a paint-by-number of incredibly garish tropical birds.
Now, the end is in sight, but I've managed to turn into an incredibly crotchety hermit, squatting on my piles of found objects and hissing at anyone who tries to move them, having long since reverted to a pidgin of my own construction, based mostly in inscrutable metaphors drawn from my adolescent reading list. I'd feel sorry for the people who get to live with me next, but a recent luncheon with them confirmed that they apparently find my new mental state far wittier than I am when more regularly socialized.
This was a rambling and poorly organized post, and I should have spent the time used to write this making myself dinner. I will do that now instead, and you are welcome to pretend you didn't read this. Come September, we'll be back to pictures of crazy costume parties (heterohopheterohopheterohop) and whining about homework. I really do not look forward to homework.
I only feel the heat when I'm bicycling (Gala is now my best friend in the entire world, no offense previous best friends, but you don't provide me with mood-lifting exercise while also getting me where I need to be. Also you can talk and have your own problems and whatever.) but, after shoving my head under a cold shower, it's back to shivering and wondering why the landlord thinks all the windows need to be open and all the fans on at all times.
Discussing my body temperature wasn't my original goal. Let me remember.
Oh right. I have friends who are blogging more regularly now and I feel somewhat obligated to do the same, rather than just comment incessantly on their posts. For those of you who are here for life updates, it's been an interesting few weeks, mostly spent in forced minimalism. I'm a materialist and a pack rat, and I am not ashamed of this fact. I learned long ago that packing light is completely incompatible with who I am, and got over it, as we live in a world where moving large quantities of objects is actually relatively easy, if sometimes expensive. So, when I spent the past few weeks slowly losing most of the objects in my house (the loss of people was welcome, if anything, which sounds misanthropic and maybe is), I spent some rather unpleasant evenings eating four-course meals in the middle of an empty floor, spending hours sorting my piles of books in every possible iteration until I found the most satisfactory, and then a few moving the clock-radio around until I discovered that my scanner-printer makes a great antenna booster (which was about the only thing it was good for, my computer being in the shop). I even purchased and began a paint-by-number of incredibly garish tropical birds.
Now, the end is in sight, but I've managed to turn into an incredibly crotchety hermit, squatting on my piles of found objects and hissing at anyone who tries to move them, having long since reverted to a pidgin of my own construction, based mostly in inscrutable metaphors drawn from my adolescent reading list. I'd feel sorry for the people who get to live with me next, but a recent luncheon with them confirmed that they apparently find my new mental state far wittier than I am when more regularly socialized.
This was a rambling and poorly organized post, and I should have spent the time used to write this making myself dinner. I will do that now instead, and you are welcome to pretend you didn't read this. Come September, we'll be back to pictures of crazy costume parties (heterohopheterohopheterohop) and whining about homework. I really do not look forward to homework.
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