My back is all knotty and my throat hurts and I think I might have a slight fever.
Body would like a break from stimulants, and some exercise, and no more sitting in chairs.
I've slept three nights so far this week. There's been much too much coffee and hardly any tea.
But:
Today I turned in the longest of the papers.
Last night was a lot more bearable because I and one of my research group members who also needed to work agreed to stay awake together.
On Monday (or was it Tuesday?) I saw dawn approaching through the rain, and it was so beautiful.
Saturday, April 30, 2011
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Happiness and gratitudes:
• Feeling near to faraway friends when I reread a book that we have shared.
• Walking tall; sitting tall; how good it feels to feel the full measure of one's height.
• Misty days and nights.
• Seeing sisters together.
• One very fresh blueberry bagel.
• How deeply the grass has greened already. All this rain.
• The other four senses.
• My culture theory classmates.
• Seeing my peers take care of one another.
• And keeping these words near the surface of my thoughts.
• Memories of Sydney.
• That my replacement ID cost only $10 instead of $20—because it didn't print perfectly—and that it has a good new picture commemorating a day when I was happy.
• Momentum.
Sunday, April 24, 2011
Week in photos (118-124)
118/365. Friend's.
119/365. Dining hall again.
120/365. Seams.
121/365. I don't know why people make things like this. But if I were tiny, I would enjoy swimming here.
122/365. "Midnight in a perfect world."
123/365.
124/365. Not-my bruise.
Friday, April 22, 2011
Ballet date
Guys, look how beautiful my city is...
These are from early March, when I was home for spring break. My mom and I had a nice lunch at a cafe in the Mission and then headed downtown for a modern program at the San Francisco Ballet.
On the train home, a man who had apparently also attended saw me looking at the program and asked me, "Boy, wasn't that last one hard to take?" I answered honestly that I had found it beautiful. (Artifact Suite. Oh, my. Watch a little at the link above, or here...) And that was the end of that exchange. Perhaps—oh, I'm mulling a really profound solution right now, wait for it—perhaps people who don't like modern ballet should, um, not attend modern ballets?
Read in February & March 2011
1. Rose Galbraith, by Grace Livingstone Hill
Silly 1940s Christian romance novel. Cringe-inducing dialogue. I was mildly disturbed by the extent to which propriety and manners controlled the heroine. But I felt like the world was small and simple while I was reading it, and that was nice.
2. Draußen vor der Tür, by Wolfgang Borchert (English title: The Man Outside)
Read for my German seminar. A play about a soldier returning from WWII and feeling totally alienated from everything. Easy, not subtle, still good.
3. Forget-Her-Nots, by Amy Brecount White
YA novel about a girl at a Southern boarding school who can make magic by making flower arrangements. Not terribly developed, but cute.
4. Fasting Girls: The History of Anorexia Nervosa, by Joan Jacobs Brumberg
An account of how—to paraphrase Brumberg—illness can be biologically caused but is nonetheless always socially expressed. Thought-provoking, and surprisingly quick to read.
5. An Atlas of the Difficult World: Poems, 1988-1991, by Adrienne Rich
Wonderful. That's all.
6. The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, by Max Weber
Read for Culture Theory; made me realize I'm a cultural Calvinist. I think business majors should beforced required to read this.
7. Baby Catcher: Chronicles of a Modern Midwife, by Peggy Vincent
Told mostly episodically, spanning a forty-year period from the fifties to the nineties. I like this book because:
Silly 1940s Christian romance novel. Cringe-inducing dialogue. I was mildly disturbed by the extent to which propriety and manners controlled the heroine. But I felt like the world was small and simple while I was reading it, and that was nice.
2. Draußen vor der Tür, by Wolfgang Borchert (English title: The Man Outside)
Read for my German seminar. A play about a soldier returning from WWII and feeling totally alienated from everything. Easy, not subtle, still good.
3. Forget-Her-Nots, by Amy Brecount White
YA novel about a girl at a Southern boarding school who can make magic by making flower arrangements. Not terribly developed, but cute.
4. Fasting Girls: The History of Anorexia Nervosa, by Joan Jacobs Brumberg
An account of how—to paraphrase Brumberg—illness can be biologically caused but is nonetheless always socially expressed. Thought-provoking, and surprisingly quick to read.
5. An Atlas of the Difficult World: Poems, 1988-1991, by Adrienne Rich
Wonderful. That's all.
6. The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, by Max Weber
Read for Culture Theory; made me realize I'm a cultural Calvinist. I think business majors should be
7. Baby Catcher: Chronicles of a Modern Midwife, by Peggy Vincent
Told mostly episodically, spanning a forty-year period from the fifties to the nineties. I like this book because:
- there are some awesome quirky characters among the clients
- it was interesting to see how Peggy's work and story—the questions of birth and pregnancy in general—fit into the wider women's rights struggle.
- I was pretty sure that this book was important in forming how my big sister thought about her pregnancy and labor. (Meg was and is a pretty inspiring mama, before and after labor.) It's changed some of my ideas about what birth is like, too.
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