YAY! GO HUNGARY! GO OVERDOSE! GO LIFE! YAY!!!Read more here. It's a great story.
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Monday, April 20, 2009
I beg your pardon...
...I never promised you a rose garden! (these are lyrics from a Lynn Anderson song)
The sunrise is beautiful, and it's always a gift to see it. :)
So I've been up a good (or bad?) portion of the night. Long enough to be dyslexic with my typing, apparently. Anyway. I'm writing this paper. So that's good. That I'm actually writing it. Success in baby steps friends!
Along with the sunshine, there's gotta be a little rain sometime...
The sunrise is beautiful, and it's always a gift to see it. :)
So I've been up a good (or bad?) portion of the night. Long enough to be dyslexic with my typing, apparently. Anyway. I'm writing this paper. So that's good. That I'm actually writing it. Success in baby steps friends!
Along with the sunshine, there's gotta be a little rain sometime...
Sunday, April 19, 2009
Practice makes better
But it is so damn hard sometimes.
I've been feeling lonely. It's the sort of vague, unnamed feeling that seems to undergird my every day here on this lovely Hill. Sometimes I hate it, sometimes I rise above it, and most times I am tired enough to not do much about it.
But I decided last week to be more active in practicing positivity. Right. And since it is Easter, a specific sort of 'positivity' comes to mind, which I'll use these excerpts from Wendell Berry's The Mad Farmer Liberation Front to express:
So, friends, every day do something that won't compute.
Love the Lord. Love the world.
Work for nothing. Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it.
Expect the end of the world. Laugh.
Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful
though you have considered all the facts.
Go with your love to the fields.
Lie down in the shade. Rest your head
in her lap. Swear allegiance
to what is nighest your thoughts.
Be like the fox
who makes more tracks than necessary,
some in the wrong direction.
Practice resurrection.
Practice resurrection.
Anne Lamott says frequently in her book Grace Eventually that very often the bravest and best thing we can do is get out of bed each morning.
Practice resurrection.
So here's one thing that I'll miss about St. Olaf, about Northfield, about this chapter in my life as I move into the next one: I'll miss Holy Cross Dundas. I'll miss this tiny congregation that it's taken me four years to get to know and feel a part of...these people who have been so supportive and such a down-to-earth, flawed-in-all-the-human-ways community. I have rarely been at my best here. But I have always been welcomed and loved, even when I didn't let myself notice. It's like Jacob and his dream of a ladder..."Surely the LORD is in this place, and I did not know it!"
I've been feeling lonely. It's the sort of vague, unnamed feeling that seems to undergird my every day here on this lovely Hill. Sometimes I hate it, sometimes I rise above it, and most times I am tired enough to not do much about it.
But I decided last week to be more active in practicing positivity. Right. And since it is Easter, a specific sort of 'positivity' comes to mind, which I'll use these excerpts from Wendell Berry's The Mad Farmer Liberation Front to express:
So, friends, every day do something that won't compute.
Love the Lord. Love the world.
Work for nothing. Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it.
Expect the end of the world. Laugh.
Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful
though you have considered all the facts.
Go with your love to the fields.
Lie down in the shade. Rest your head
in her lap. Swear allegiance
to what is nighest your thoughts.
Be like the fox
who makes more tracks than necessary,
some in the wrong direction.
Practice resurrection.
Practice resurrection.
Anne Lamott says frequently in her book Grace Eventually that very often the bravest and best thing we can do is get out of bed each morning.
Practice resurrection.
So here's one thing that I'll miss about St. Olaf, about Northfield, about this chapter in my life as I move into the next one: I'll miss Holy Cross Dundas. I'll miss this tiny congregation that it's taken me four years to get to know and feel a part of...these people who have been so supportive and such a down-to-earth, flawed-in-all-the-human-ways community. I have rarely been at my best here. But I have always been welcomed and loved, even when I didn't let myself notice. It's like Jacob and his dream of a ladder..."Surely the LORD is in this place, and I did not know it!"
Monday, April 13, 2009
Gratitude and impending 'doom'
So. Here I are. In the homestretch, and for reals. Easter break this weekend was nice, though I sort of didn't get anything meaningfully done, except for a lot of church and a little good hang-out time.
I was inspired this week, sort of inexplicably I might add, to make a greater effort at being positive. It gets difficult when exhaustion hits, but that's okay - I've decided that a lot of the things I want to do/be in life are things you practice, even when you don't "feel" it. Like loving people. Like trying to be "up". Like doing homework (uck). So my goal over these last 4-5 weeks is to write down every day at least one thing about Olaf that I will miss, that I love, or something that I will be happy to be free of upon leaving. I probably won't post this very much on this site, so you'll just have to use your imagination.
For starters: I will miss...seeing people piled up in Fireside, lounging, doing homework, goofing off, doing crosswords...etc.
I was inspired this week, sort of inexplicably I might add, to make a greater effort at being positive. It gets difficult when exhaustion hits, but that's okay - I've decided that a lot of the things I want to do/be in life are things you practice, even when you don't "feel" it. Like loving people. Like trying to be "up". Like doing homework (uck). So my goal over these last 4-5 weeks is to write down every day at least one thing about Olaf that I will miss, that I love, or something that I will be happy to be free of upon leaving. I probably won't post this very much on this site, so you'll just have to use your imagination.
For starters: I will miss...seeing people piled up in Fireside, lounging, doing homework, goofing off, doing crosswords...etc.
Sunday, April 5, 2009
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
The Inclamation Point
Today my Bioinformatics professor related his latest insight to us during lab:
While we have punctuation that allows us to express enthusiasm or emphasis, such as the exclamation point, the recent rise in use of "emoticons" is a cop-out way to express emotions not available to us with the use of traditional punctuation.
We can just draw a little face instead of having a meaningful mark...and he thinks this is unsatisfactory. His answer to this problem: the inclamation point. When you'd rather express the opposite of excitement, use the inclamation point, which is denoted by an i (sort of looks like an upside down exclamation point, but not like Spanish uses). Also, since it's not an exciting punctuation mark, it should follow a period. Apparently.
For example:
My lab went an extra 2 hours long today.i
The added bonus: this can be pronounced "ih," which to my mind is a pretty indifferent sort of sound. :)
Just another fun from the Hill.
While we have punctuation that allows us to express enthusiasm or emphasis, such as the exclamation point, the recent rise in use of "emoticons" is a cop-out way to express emotions not available to us with the use of traditional punctuation.
We can just draw a little face instead of having a meaningful mark...and he thinks this is unsatisfactory. His answer to this problem: the inclamation point. When you'd rather express the opposite of excitement, use the inclamation point, which is denoted by an i (sort of looks like an upside down exclamation point, but not like Spanish uses). Also, since it's not an exciting punctuation mark, it should follow a period. Apparently.
For example:
My lab went an extra 2 hours long today.i
The added bonus: this can be pronounced "ih," which to my mind is a pretty indifferent sort of sound. :)
Just another fun from the Hill.
Monday, January 26, 2009
Olaf Olaf - whence springs the butterfly? from snow?
Hello folksies,
I'm back at Olaf now, what a treat, what a terror! Life is good. Since I am among the living again, I haven't been spending nearly as much time on teh internets, which is good for me and bad for this blog. I'm not sure if I will maintain this little binary corner of mine, but I suspect I shall, as another way to express and communicate the wild ride that will be my last semester of undergrad and the leap into the great beyond after that... And perhaps I will write in run-on sentences all the time. Just brainstorming here!
But I wanted to say one little comment that has occurred to me tonight as I read back over some of these posts - I can hardly remember writing them! Time moves and moves me and pushes old memories off the wagon in my brain! That's a good sign to me, a sign that I AM indeed "among the living" since I'm not stuck grinding the same gears I ground in Budapest. But it also means I am doubly grateful for having created this blog in the first place - not only as a place to vent, but a place to seal my memories for later consumption. Maybe a little like dandelion wine (ha! Ray Bradbury reference!).
At any rate, J-term has been a blast, both of fun, and of cold wind. GOOD GRACIOUS I FORGOT HOW FRAKKING COLD IT GETS IN THIS STATE. Holy mackerel. I have learned a lot re: history and humanity, and that is always good. I have also been exercising - exercising the core "forgive myself" muscles, and those "ask for help" latissimi dorsi (seriously, that's how you spell the plural). And I must say, I'm excited for the coming semester. I'm at a great point in my life when I've realized that I do need help with a lot of things I formerly thought I could handle by default, and now I have opportunity to reorganize and sort of mentally hit 'refresh' in terms of my academic focus. Of course when things heat up a bit and the stress comes out with guns a-blazin' it will be difficult, but I am learning to really deal in healthy ways and these are lessons that can only help me. Hooray! Go life!
Two other things to mention (for my later consumption, if nothing else...):
- Scholastic book orders!!! Today at lunch Claire brought up one of my most favorite things from all of elementary school. Did anyone else just LIVE for Scholastic book orders? And the BOOK FAIR! OH MY GOODNESS. Just thinking about it makes me a little high - with joy.
- My olde neighbor Budapesten Elara came to visit Olaf today. AWESOME. I miss her a lot. I miss ye olde roommate Fai a lot. I miss awesome Star Trek buddy Arolyn a lot. I miss Budapest a lot. Not enough to go back right now - I'm barely just getting reacquainted with life here! - but a lot.
Now, I must return to reading! A Holocaust survivor is visiting our class tomorrow and I want to be all kinds of prepared, at least as far as that is possible. We are SO fortunate that she is coming to speak with us.
Seriously, this class is Nagyon Nagyon Jo'.
Love,
Me
I'm back at Olaf now, what a treat, what a terror! Life is good. Since I am among the living again, I haven't been spending nearly as much time on teh internets, which is good for me and bad for this blog. I'm not sure if I will maintain this little binary corner of mine, but I suspect I shall, as another way to express and communicate the wild ride that will be my last semester of undergrad and the leap into the great beyond after that... And perhaps I will write in run-on sentences all the time. Just brainstorming here!
But I wanted to say one little comment that has occurred to me tonight as I read back over some of these posts - I can hardly remember writing them! Time moves and moves me and pushes old memories off the wagon in my brain! That's a good sign to me, a sign that I AM indeed "among the living" since I'm not stuck grinding the same gears I ground in Budapest. But it also means I am doubly grateful for having created this blog in the first place - not only as a place to vent, but a place to seal my memories for later consumption. Maybe a little like dandelion wine (ha! Ray Bradbury reference!).
At any rate, J-term has been a blast, both of fun, and of cold wind. GOOD GRACIOUS I FORGOT HOW FRAKKING COLD IT GETS IN THIS STATE. Holy mackerel. I have learned a lot re: history and humanity, and that is always good. I have also been exercising - exercising the core "forgive myself" muscles, and those "ask for help" latissimi dorsi (seriously, that's how you spell the plural). And I must say, I'm excited for the coming semester. I'm at a great point in my life when I've realized that I do need help with a lot of things I formerly thought I could handle by default, and now I have opportunity to reorganize and sort of mentally hit 'refresh' in terms of my academic focus. Of course when things heat up a bit and the stress comes out with guns a-blazin' it will be difficult, but I am learning to really deal in healthy ways and these are lessons that can only help me. Hooray! Go life!
Two other things to mention (for my later consumption, if nothing else...):
- Scholastic book orders!!! Today at lunch Claire brought up one of my most favorite things from all of elementary school. Did anyone else just LIVE for Scholastic book orders? And the BOOK FAIR! OH MY GOODNESS. Just thinking about it makes me a little high - with joy.
- My olde neighbor Budapesten Elara came to visit Olaf today. AWESOME. I miss her a lot. I miss ye olde roommate Fai a lot. I miss awesome Star Trek buddy Arolyn a lot. I miss Budapest a lot. Not enough to go back right now - I'm barely just getting reacquainted with life here! - but a lot.
Now, I must return to reading! A Holocaust survivor is visiting our class tomorrow and I want to be all kinds of prepared, at least as far as that is possible. We are SO fortunate that she is coming to speak with us.
Seriously, this class is Nagyon Nagyon Jo'.
Love,
Me
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)