May 01, 2005
Well, that audio blogger thing hasn't quite worked out like I thought it would. Finally got the numbers straightened out on it, but nothing's shown up here, and I have tried to get an audio posting done. Did a good long one when I was driving home from work the other day. Oh well, I have an internet connection again, so will just do it the old fashioned way - by typing it in.
So my life thus far. Just getting used to civilian life again. Strange not having classes and assignments all the time. Miss it a bit, actually. Living in an atmosphere of learning is a blessing that is not often seen as such until after it is left. Trying to stay in that atmosphere as much as possible on my own though. Made myself a reading list that I'm trying to work through - close to 60 books on it now. Only managed to get through one so far (Tobias Wolff's "Old School), but I'm about halfway through a second (Foster's "Celebration of Discipline") and maybe a quarter of the way through a third (Modern French Poetry). I usually have more than one book at a time that I'm reading. That way whatever I feel like in a particular moment of time in which I am going to read, I can read that. Been hoarding up a bunch of modern poetry (Kunitz, Neruda, Kinnell, Merwin, and Milosz [pronounced "Mi-whoash]), but the majority of my list is classics from the modern and classical periods (Donne, Machiavelli, Voltaire, Sophocles, Joyce, Dante, Shelley, Faulkner, Marlowe, Virgil, Gleick, Tolstoy, etc.). It's going to take me a while to get through them all, but I feel like a big chunk of classical education is missing from my life, so I'm trying to rectify that. I want to start collecting major works of the Christian canon as well (Kempis, Ugolino, Trueblood, Calvin, Fox, Bonhoeffer, Wesley, de Sales, Woolman, Augustine, etc.), but I don't have but one or two of these so far. I do have most of Lewis, which I'd like to reread, but my thrust right now (for the next few years) is more of forging into new territory. Basically I'm just trying to sponge up as much of life as I can, which I will then try to squeeze out of and through myself, into my own writing. Sounds like a plan - maybe it isn't in reality much of one, but it sounds like it anyway (bada-boom). Ha, my weak attempt at a joke. You know, it's kind of hard to do jokes in blogs. At least, the sound effects are more difficult. You get the drift though, both on the joke and the serious levels.
As for the rest of life - well, I wish I had my own place, but I don't mind having to move back home, as long as it is only for a short while. Life with the fam is never easy, but it is doable. Work is working out alright - commute down to campus once a week, do a lot of stuff from home - it'll pay the bills until I get a regular job. I really like my work actually. If there was some way to parlay it into a full time gig, I would love to, at least for a while. What I'm doing isn't that important to me right now, since what my real focus on is growing as a writer. Work right now is just for money, but if I enjoy it, hey, so much the better. I mean, if I had a job that was related to writing, great, but other than that, I just need to make some money. Health insurance is the only other real reason I would take a job. Hmmm - if that's my theoretical model, I need to live like that more, and take my reading more seriously. Food for though.
I am still trying to keep in touch with some profs though. Actually, meeting with Rovee this week to talk about my last paper, in which I explored the relationship between ekphrasis and Keats' negative capability. I actually need to review the paper again before I go to see him, since I wrote it, what - five or six weeks ago. I don;t know that the first two thirds of it was getting my ideas across, since I'm not sure what they were myself at that point, but I feel like in the last third of the paper I really nailed it down and said what I wanted to say.
Anyway, I spent a couple hours today kind of just in silence and reflection before God. Wanted to try to recenter and refocus my life. Went down to Clayton Park, out to the picnic table way out on the end, and just prayed and read and listened. Didn't really have any big revelations, but I just wanted to make myself available to God, to stop and listen for His voice. Did see some interesting nature though. Right after I got there and settled into my seat a ground squirrel popped up from beneath the cement and stared at me a long time, sizing me up. Usually they scurry away so quick, but I was still so he eventually (almost) ignored me. Finally he shuffled of to another area. A little later I saw a mosquito that for some reason tried to land on the cement by me, bit didn't quite make it right, and ended up rolling over on to its back. Quick as a flash, from like three feet away, a lizard scurried over and snabbled him down. It was rather interesting, actually. The lizard then took his turn giving me the eye, but eventually he too accepted my presence there and turned to sunbathing on the warm cement. After a bit it started to get cold though, and that point is almost always breezy started to get kind of windy. Towards the end of my time there I watched some sort of small hawk as it hunted, sweeping long and wide over the hillside and then stopping and hovering in one spot with just little flaps of its wings. One thing I noted was the smaller and lesser the bird (songbids, for example), the more they work to move. As your move up the scale though, the less they work and simply soar. Way up high I saw some sort of other bird of prey that wasn't flapping at all, but gliding in great arcs just riding the wind currents. I think there is some kind of lesson in that for me, but I haven't quite figured out how to verbalize it yet.
After that I went and got a bunch of dirt (16 feet) for the yard, and came back and hacked a tree out of the ground that mom wants replaced. It had some pretty good roots on it, so it took a while. Moved the big empty rabbit cage around to the side of the house, and shortly after that I got strangely tired and came in to rest for a moment, and fell asleep until just a short while ago. Going to try to go back to sleep after I write this and read the next chapter in the Foster book. Church in the morning and all, and I might try to trim my hair before I take my shower. That's right, I do my own hair - have been for...close to eleven years now I think. It works for me, as well as saving a good bit of money. Usually do it about every 4-6 weeks - shorter in the summer, longer in the winter. I'm actually thinking of doing it pretty short (1-2 inches), but mom wants me to wait till after Mother's Day for that - something about grad pictures possible being taken. No worries. I guess I'll have to shave then. Haven't shaved for a week, felt like going another week to see what it would look like. I like a fuzzy face, though I don;t know that it looks good on me. I don't have a woman on the line though, so it doesn't really matter what I look like. I'm chuckling as I think this, but I actually felt like I looked a little van Gough-ish today out at the park - scrubby chin and a straw hat, non-descript expression - I'll have to download and post the pic I took of myself.
Anyway, I think this post has gotten long enough. more another time. What I'd like to do is regular (dare I say daily?) posts that are short, but I guess this long one is making up for my lack of recent posts. Till next time, arrivederci
Ciao
So my life thus far. Just getting used to civilian life again. Strange not having classes and assignments all the time. Miss it a bit, actually. Living in an atmosphere of learning is a blessing that is not often seen as such until after it is left. Trying to stay in that atmosphere as much as possible on my own though. Made myself a reading list that I'm trying to work through - close to 60 books on it now. Only managed to get through one so far (Tobias Wolff's "Old School), but I'm about halfway through a second (Foster's "Celebration of Discipline") and maybe a quarter of the way through a third (Modern French Poetry). I usually have more than one book at a time that I'm reading. That way whatever I feel like in a particular moment of time in which I am going to read, I can read that. Been hoarding up a bunch of modern poetry (Kunitz, Neruda, Kinnell, Merwin, and Milosz [pronounced "Mi-whoash]), but the majority of my list is classics from the modern and classical periods (Donne, Machiavelli, Voltaire, Sophocles, Joyce, Dante, Shelley, Faulkner, Marlowe, Virgil, Gleick, Tolstoy, etc.). It's going to take me a while to get through them all, but I feel like a big chunk of classical education is missing from my life, so I'm trying to rectify that. I want to start collecting major works of the Christian canon as well (Kempis, Ugolino, Trueblood, Calvin, Fox, Bonhoeffer, Wesley, de Sales, Woolman, Augustine, etc.), but I don't have but one or two of these so far. I do have most of Lewis, which I'd like to reread, but my thrust right now (for the next few years) is more of forging into new territory. Basically I'm just trying to sponge up as much of life as I can, which I will then try to squeeze out of and through myself, into my own writing. Sounds like a plan - maybe it isn't in reality much of one, but it sounds like it anyway (bada-boom). Ha, my weak attempt at a joke. You know, it's kind of hard to do jokes in blogs. At least, the sound effects are more difficult. You get the drift though, both on the joke and the serious levels.
As for the rest of life - well, I wish I had my own place, but I don't mind having to move back home, as long as it is only for a short while. Life with the fam is never easy, but it is doable. Work is working out alright - commute down to campus once a week, do a lot of stuff from home - it'll pay the bills until I get a regular job. I really like my work actually. If there was some way to parlay it into a full time gig, I would love to, at least for a while. What I'm doing isn't that important to me right now, since what my real focus on is growing as a writer. Work right now is just for money, but if I enjoy it, hey, so much the better. I mean, if I had a job that was related to writing, great, but other than that, I just need to make some money. Health insurance is the only other real reason I would take a job. Hmmm - if that's my theoretical model, I need to live like that more, and take my reading more seriously. Food for though.
I am still trying to keep in touch with some profs though. Actually, meeting with Rovee this week to talk about my last paper, in which I explored the relationship between ekphrasis and Keats' negative capability. I actually need to review the paper again before I go to see him, since I wrote it, what - five or six weeks ago. I don;t know that the first two thirds of it was getting my ideas across, since I'm not sure what they were myself at that point, but I feel like in the last third of the paper I really nailed it down and said what I wanted to say.
Anyway, I spent a couple hours today kind of just in silence and reflection before God. Wanted to try to recenter and refocus my life. Went down to Clayton Park, out to the picnic table way out on the end, and just prayed and read and listened. Didn't really have any big revelations, but I just wanted to make myself available to God, to stop and listen for His voice. Did see some interesting nature though. Right after I got there and settled into my seat a ground squirrel popped up from beneath the cement and stared at me a long time, sizing me up. Usually they scurry away so quick, but I was still so he eventually (almost) ignored me. Finally he shuffled of to another area. A little later I saw a mosquito that for some reason tried to land on the cement by me, bit didn't quite make it right, and ended up rolling over on to its back. Quick as a flash, from like three feet away, a lizard scurried over and snabbled him down. It was rather interesting, actually. The lizard then took his turn giving me the eye, but eventually he too accepted my presence there and turned to sunbathing on the warm cement. After a bit it started to get cold though, and that point is almost always breezy started to get kind of windy. Towards the end of my time there I watched some sort of small hawk as it hunted, sweeping long and wide over the hillside and then stopping and hovering in one spot with just little flaps of its wings. One thing I noted was the smaller and lesser the bird (songbids, for example), the more they work to move. As your move up the scale though, the less they work and simply soar. Way up high I saw some sort of other bird of prey that wasn't flapping at all, but gliding in great arcs just riding the wind currents. I think there is some kind of lesson in that for me, but I haven't quite figured out how to verbalize it yet.
After that I went and got a bunch of dirt (16 feet) for the yard, and came back and hacked a tree out of the ground that mom wants replaced. It had some pretty good roots on it, so it took a while. Moved the big empty rabbit cage around to the side of the house, and shortly after that I got strangely tired and came in to rest for a moment, and fell asleep until just a short while ago. Going to try to go back to sleep after I write this and read the next chapter in the Foster book. Church in the morning and all, and I might try to trim my hair before I take my shower. That's right, I do my own hair - have been for...close to eleven years now I think. It works for me, as well as saving a good bit of money. Usually do it about every 4-6 weeks - shorter in the summer, longer in the winter. I'm actually thinking of doing it pretty short (1-2 inches), but mom wants me to wait till after Mother's Day for that - something about grad pictures possible being taken. No worries. I guess I'll have to shave then. Haven't shaved for a week, felt like going another week to see what it would look like. I like a fuzzy face, though I don;t know that it looks good on me. I don't have a woman on the line though, so it doesn't really matter what I look like. I'm chuckling as I think this, but I actually felt like I looked a little van Gough-ish today out at the park - scrubby chin and a straw hat, non-descript expression - I'll have to download and post the pic I took of myself.
Anyway, I think this post has gotten long enough. more another time. What I'd like to do is regular (dare I say daily?) posts that are short, but I guess this long one is making up for my lack of recent posts. Till next time, arrivederci
Ciao
