All of my people move to an island together. All of us in one place. And you might make the point that if my people get to bring their people and their people get to bring their people and insert infinite regress argument here that it is going to have to be a pretty big island. But that's OK. This isn't about being practical this is about missing people, this is about wanting continuity.
I hate transitions. But I seem to like new stuff enough to put myself through them. Or something.
domingo, 4 de mayo de 2008
miércoles, 9 de abril de 2008
Why we write
Premises:
1) I like school a lot and miss it and want it again.
2) a) I like to study lots of different things and most of all I like to make connections between things.
b) The little details bog me down; I am scared of the specificity of graduate study.
3) I want to be able to make a living doing something that I enjoy.
Therefore:
I should go to library school.
Counter-argument:
What if it is boring and "not like real graduate school," being too easy/technique focused? (AKA what if it is not just all about studying lots of different and semi-arcane things and then gleefully uniting them?)
Solution:
Keep reading lots of stuff and writing about it (preferably using it indirectly, stealing its sounds and rhythms). It is OK to only have the attention span of a New Yorker article, it is OK to have wide ranging discussions that jump from physics to linguistics to cognitive science and it is OK to try to explain everything, as a way of showing how and why everything cannot be explained.
I want to funnel information through me and have it come out different and mixed up and beautiful. I want things to mean something. I just really do.
1) I like school a lot and miss it and want it again.
2) a) I like to study lots of different things and most of all I like to make connections between things.
b) The little details bog me down; I am scared of the specificity of graduate study.
3) I want to be able to make a living doing something that I enjoy.
Therefore:
I should go to library school.
Counter-argument:
What if it is boring and "not like real graduate school," being too easy/technique focused? (AKA what if it is not just all about studying lots of different and semi-arcane things and then gleefully uniting them?)
Solution:
Keep reading lots of stuff and writing about it (preferably using it indirectly, stealing its sounds and rhythms). It is OK to only have the attention span of a New Yorker article, it is OK to have wide ranging discussions that jump from physics to linguistics to cognitive science and it is OK to try to explain everything, as a way of showing how and why everything cannot be explained.
I want to funnel information through me and have it come out different and mixed up and beautiful. I want things to mean something. I just really do.
jueves, 27 de marzo de 2008
Which is better:
-Squirming around in bed while thinking things along the lines of "OK, if you go to sleep right now you can still get 6 hours of sleep...so, OK, right now....go to sleep....OK..."
or
-Browsing the internet, illuminated only by the light of your computer screen, accomplishing nothing?
See mostly this blog has been all abstract and about ideas and stuff. Well, you know, kind of. But now this is serious, this is real, this is particular and mildly embarrassing. I can't fall asleep because my brain is too busy trying to figure out where I should go to graduate school. I've already planned out prospective schedules at the two top contenders and I've already looked at craigslist postings for jobs....jobs for this summer and jobs for next year. It is too early to be doing any of these things and it is too late to still be awake. And yet.
I'll probably ask you for advice about this. I probably already know what I'm going to do. It'll probably be fine either way. But as with all decisions, knowing that all your options are good ones doesn't help.
Oh and I went to Germany and Austria last week. Berlin: a great city, a city to live in, a city of street art, cafes and history. It was punky. It was comfortable. Vienna: a city of ballets, fancy cakes and tiny pots of jam. It was like a fairytale, complete with those funny Austrian hats. You know the green ones? Sometimes they have feathers. Yeah. I had songs from Cabaret and The Sound of Music stuck in my head for the ENTIRE trip.
The only bad thing was not being able to speak German. Living in Spain has me completely spoiled. Everyone knows that I am not a native Spanish speaker, but by God, they can understand me and I them...with a few exceptions. I can get around without feeling the guilty weight of my English, without feeling like quite such an obvious tourist. And oh it is a glory this level of competent proficiency.
There are limits of course: in Barcelona, forgetting the word for "band aids" and for "cut/scratch" I had to ask if they had "something for small wounds." Luckily, they did.
or
-Browsing the internet, illuminated only by the light of your computer screen, accomplishing nothing?
See mostly this blog has been all abstract and about ideas and stuff. Well, you know, kind of. But now this is serious, this is real, this is particular and mildly embarrassing. I can't fall asleep because my brain is too busy trying to figure out where I should go to graduate school. I've already planned out prospective schedules at the two top contenders and I've already looked at craigslist postings for jobs....jobs for this summer and jobs for next year. It is too early to be doing any of these things and it is too late to still be awake. And yet.
I'll probably ask you for advice about this. I probably already know what I'm going to do. It'll probably be fine either way. But as with all decisions, knowing that all your options are good ones doesn't help.
Oh and I went to Germany and Austria last week. Berlin: a great city, a city to live in, a city of street art, cafes and history. It was punky. It was comfortable. Vienna: a city of ballets, fancy cakes and tiny pots of jam. It was like a fairytale, complete with those funny Austrian hats. You know the green ones? Sometimes they have feathers. Yeah. I had songs from Cabaret and The Sound of Music stuck in my head for the ENTIRE trip.
The only bad thing was not being able to speak German. Living in Spain has me completely spoiled. Everyone knows that I am not a native Spanish speaker, but by God, they can understand me and I them...with a few exceptions. I can get around without feeling the guilty weight of my English, without feeling like quite such an obvious tourist. And oh it is a glory this level of competent proficiency.
There are limits of course: in Barcelona, forgetting the word for "band aids" and for "cut/scratch" I had to ask if they had "something for small wounds." Luckily, they did.
jueves, 28 de febrero de 2008
Lists
Things that I cannot find:
-Stamps (I have four international stamps in my possession....but where? Clearly, I refuse to buy new stamps until these stamps are located and used.)
-Big white sunglasses (We've had some sunny days but alas, I must squint through them.)
-Plaid Macalester boxer shorts (A very important part of my wardrobe.)
Things that have happened lately that I think should end up in poems:
-People falling asleep on the train. Especially strangers sitting next to each other.
-Helping old people weigh their bulk products at the grocery store. (See this number here? You just put your bag on the scale and then press that number? Do you want me to do it, here, really, it's fine, just like this.)
-In a dream I had: I held a dead bird in my hand and moved it's wings up and down, clumsily simulating flight. Then all of a sudden it moved its neck, it turned its head; it was alive.
Categories that I've recently realized all of the stories I tell can be reduced into:
-Once my friends all thought that I was wrong about something, but then it turned out I was right!
-Man, other people are crazy and hard to understand!
-One time something really funny happened. Isn't that funny?
-I read this article on a seemingly arcane subject but really it explains a lot about human nature.
Long Latin palindromes that I've learned:
-In girum imus nocte et consumimur igni. ("We move in a circle in the night and are consumed by fire" or something like that)
-Stamps (I have four international stamps in my possession....but where? Clearly, I refuse to buy new stamps until these stamps are located and used.)
-Big white sunglasses (We've had some sunny days but alas, I must squint through them.)
-Plaid Macalester boxer shorts (A very important part of my wardrobe.)
Things that have happened lately that I think should end up in poems:
-People falling asleep on the train. Especially strangers sitting next to each other.
-Helping old people weigh their bulk products at the grocery store. (See this number here? You just put your bag on the scale and then press that number? Do you want me to do it, here, really, it's fine, just like this.)
-In a dream I had: I held a dead bird in my hand and moved it's wings up and down, clumsily simulating flight. Then all of a sudden it moved its neck, it turned its head; it was alive.
Categories that I've recently realized all of the stories I tell can be reduced into:
-Once my friends all thought that I was wrong about something, but then it turned out I was right!
-Man, other people are crazy and hard to understand!
-One time something really funny happened. Isn't that funny?
-I read this article on a seemingly arcane subject but really it explains a lot about human nature.
Long Latin palindromes that I've learned:
-In girum imus nocte et consumimur igni. ("We move in a circle in the night and are consumed by fire" or something like that)
miércoles, 20 de febrero de 2008
Cuando estoy en vena puedo ser bastante sarcástico
I am reading "The Catcher in the Rye" in Spanish. It is kind of AMAZING.
In other news, I've been admitted to two graduate schools and now I'm spending lots of time planning possible futures. Mostly I'm just exploring the cities in question through craigslist:How much would it cost to live here? What neighborhoods are near the University? Can you buy cool bikes here?
So, yeah, I love planning and I love sarcasm. What else is new?
In other news, I've been admitted to two graduate schools and now I'm spending lots of time planning possible futures. Mostly I'm just exploring the cities in question through craigslist:How much would it cost to live here? What neighborhoods are near the University? Can you buy cool bikes here?
So, yeah, I love planning and I love sarcasm. What else is new?
domingo, 17 de febrero de 2008
Hello, you are my very special one
It's been a while of no blogging for me. And mostly that while has been enjoyable and enjoyably filled with things like: nice weather, visits (I have happily been both visitor and visited and I hope to continue in this pattern), increased comprehension in Spanish, trying to get my students pen pals from my high school, enchiladas (visitors brought me food supplies), ridiculous clubs full of young Basques, novels, magazines, plans for the future, gossip about the past, a sidreria (that's a traditional Basque cider house, kids), discussions of issues of deep importance (independence, inter-personal relationships, the relationship of the mental to the physical, etc, etc), curry, laundry, a hair cut, not writing much poetry, cleaning the bathroom (but just once), walking on the beach, valentines, Spanish reality television, checking facts on the interent, new shoes and embracing my love of lists, even if it does not always lead to increased clarity and order.
In short I'm not really sure what to say. I'm in between. I live in Spain, I'm mostly happy, but sometimes I am not. I think that next year I am actually going to graduate school and that almost seems real to me. Most things almost seem real to me.
When you don't know what to say you must turn to the words of others so here is a poem by Les Murray that I read in The New Yorker a while back, which I like for it's simplicity, it's rapid line breaks and it's turn at the end. Also, that's just really how I feel sometimes, you know?
Science Fiction
I can travel
faster than light
so can you
the speed of thought
the only trouble
is at destinations
our thought balloons
are coated invisible
no one there sees us
and we can't get out
to be real or present
phone and videophone
are almost worse
we don't see a journey
but stay in our space
just talking and joking
with those we reach
but can never touch
the nothing that can hurt us
how lovely and terrible
and lonely is this
In short I'm not really sure what to say. I'm in between. I live in Spain, I'm mostly happy, but sometimes I am not. I think that next year I am actually going to graduate school and that almost seems real to me. Most things almost seem real to me.
When you don't know what to say you must turn to the words of others so here is a poem by Les Murray that I read in The New Yorker a while back, which I like for it's simplicity, it's rapid line breaks and it's turn at the end. Also, that's just really how I feel sometimes, you know?
Science Fiction
I can travel
faster than light
so can you
the speed of thought
the only trouble
is at destinations
our thought balloons
are coated invisible
no one there sees us
and we can't get out
to be real or present
phone and videophone
are almost worse
we don't see a journey
but stay in our space
just talking and joking
with those we reach
but can never touch
the nothing that can hurt us
how lovely and terrible
and lonely is this
jueves, 17 de enero de 2008
The rain in spain falls mostly on...
me!
Yeah, we've had some serious weather lately. Sometimes it feels good in a "Wooooo, I'm going to let the wind carry me where it will! I am going to fly!" way. But, other times it's more like "Why am I so wet? Why is my umbrella so useless and inside out? Where is my cozy bed?!"
When not under climatic siege (or even in the midst of it), I've been thinking about language competency a lot lately. We use language to do so many different things, which for me, is a thrilling fact, on the one hand, but on the other, it is difficult to master all of these uses in a foreign tongue. I can get my point across in Spanish. This can be a concrete point, an abstract point, possibly even a sarcastic or metaphorical point. I can understand almost all of what is said to me, especially if it is said directly to me and if it is set in a contextual net, which provides me with clues about meaning. I can even eavesdrop with increasing (and exciting) skill. But, then, sometimes I open my mouth and come out with a hugely, obviously, incorrect grammatical construction. And at no point would anyone over the age of say, three, mistake me for a native speaker. My small talk powers (though expanding) are nowhere near my English abilities (in English I can pretty much just keep going and going, spurred on by my fierce fear of awkward silences). Maybe, it is good for me to learn to enjoy silences with acquaintances...to conceive of these as "companionable" instead of alarming. But, I feel like in Spanish my attempts at space filling can come of as jarring non-sequitors, I'm missing some fabric of connection that allows me to move from topic to topic.
I guess, the thing that is most disappointing for me in my use of Spanish is my inability to engage with the language on an aesthetic level in any satisfying way. My Spanish smacks of utility and often I can't stop to appreciate the beauty of other people's language (written or spoken), so desperate am I to understand what the hell they could possibly be saying. I've been reading in English a lot lately (novels that came to me in glorious christmas packages) and I am in a big writing down quotations phase. I pretty much refuse to read without a pen in hand. The things I am underlining, they are not necessarily summations of how life is, they are not pearls of wisdom, or jewels of truth, but they sound so good. That's what I want...their sounds. These phrases, sometimes trivial on a semantic level, they have a compactness, a concise easy rhythm that I want.
I've been thinking that maybe after I get back from Spain, I'll try to learn a different language for a bit. I mean, if achieving the quality that I wnat is this hard, maybe I should just go for quantity. Also, I'm just super jealous of all these European polyglots. Psh.
Yeah, we've had some serious weather lately. Sometimes it feels good in a "Wooooo, I'm going to let the wind carry me where it will! I am going to fly!" way. But, other times it's more like "Why am I so wet? Why is my umbrella so useless and inside out? Where is my cozy bed?!"
When not under climatic siege (or even in the midst of it), I've been thinking about language competency a lot lately. We use language to do so many different things, which for me, is a thrilling fact, on the one hand, but on the other, it is difficult to master all of these uses in a foreign tongue. I can get my point across in Spanish. This can be a concrete point, an abstract point, possibly even a sarcastic or metaphorical point. I can understand almost all of what is said to me, especially if it is said directly to me and if it is set in a contextual net, which provides me with clues about meaning. I can even eavesdrop with increasing (and exciting) skill. But, then, sometimes I open my mouth and come out with a hugely, obviously, incorrect grammatical construction. And at no point would anyone over the age of say, three, mistake me for a native speaker. My small talk powers (though expanding) are nowhere near my English abilities (in English I can pretty much just keep going and going, spurred on by my fierce fear of awkward silences). Maybe, it is good for me to learn to enjoy silences with acquaintances...to conceive of these as "companionable" instead of alarming. But, I feel like in Spanish my attempts at space filling can come of as jarring non-sequitors, I'm missing some fabric of connection that allows me to move from topic to topic.
I guess, the thing that is most disappointing for me in my use of Spanish is my inability to engage with the language on an aesthetic level in any satisfying way. My Spanish smacks of utility and often I can't stop to appreciate the beauty of other people's language (written or spoken), so desperate am I to understand what the hell they could possibly be saying. I've been reading in English a lot lately (novels that came to me in glorious christmas packages) and I am in a big writing down quotations phase. I pretty much refuse to read without a pen in hand. The things I am underlining, they are not necessarily summations of how life is, they are not pearls of wisdom, or jewels of truth, but they sound so good. That's what I want...their sounds. These phrases, sometimes trivial on a semantic level, they have a compactness, a concise easy rhythm that I want.
I've been thinking that maybe after I get back from Spain, I'll try to learn a different language for a bit. I mean, if achieving the quality that I wnat is this hard, maybe I should just go for quantity. Also, I'm just super jealous of all these European polyglots. Psh.
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