03.24.06

The Second Coming

Posted in 03 everything at 03:59:23 || 457 || 1143194363 by katana

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all convictions, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming!
Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

William Butler Yeats

12.20.05

Posted in 03 everything at 23:46:26 || 282 || 1135143986 by katana

solid steel or coated glass, i can’t tell.

04.05.05

transitions

Posted in 03 everything at 01:41:50 || 320 || 1112683310 by katana

There’s really no spring here; one day you wake up and it’s blazing hot outside and the jeans-and-longsleeves outfits don’t work anymore. And then it’s a month full of 40o nights and 80o days, and jackets are overkill and shortsleeves aren’t enough, and tank tops in classrooms are just asking for frostbite. It’s a winter-summer transition (not that there’s ever really anything anyone else would ever consider close to winter here), and I guess the general feeling is I’m running out of time. Again.

Is there a term for the condition where one is pathologically unable to finish things?

I’ve recently linked into another group of friends, which is great except that kiyo was hanging out with them first and I’m not sure how much of my identity in the group is tied up with the fact that I’m her sister and roommate - we almost always end up going to gatherings together. I’ve got to stop using “we” so much.

“the boys of summer” is a lovely phrase, though I don’t have a context for it yet.

03.10.05

average molecular motion

Posted in 03 everything at 16:03:55 || 961 || 1110492235 by katana

Florida is going through another bizarre change of seasons. It was gray and drippy all day and several people were seen wearing parkas - it did feel a bit chilly, but then I’m always cold.

03.06.05

thought

Posted in 03 everything at 10:29:09 || 728 || 1110126549 by katana

If a blog contains “random” in its description, it’s best to bet it will be a vapid navelgazing daylog of bleh. Bet double if it’s a Livejournal.

Avocados are good.

02.19.05

i want answers:

Posted in 03 everything at 20:34:33 || 148 || 1108866873 by katana

If I’m the least possibly qualified person to dispense relationship advice, why have I been asked for it so often?

01.24.05

ave, caesar; morituri te salutant

Posted in 03 everything at 20:23:48 || 141 || 1106619828 by katana

Snow is magic. Until people start stepping all over it and it becomes packed gray dirty ice, or even just until you start thinking about having to get through the slush.

As predicted, the arctic-wear was everywhere today. Also reconfirmed last year’s theory that if I don’t take off my jacket in the classroom I’m almost guaranteed to fall asleep.

I finally asked a question in class the other day about some technical point, and now it’s gotten me into a grad-level tutoring appointment. Am doomed.

I’m reading Borges’ Ficciones right now, and they’re lovely, but I can’t shake the feeling that I’d much rather be reading in Spanish. With translations you don’t get the original rhythm of the language, and I think it might be because my instantaneous perception is mostly auditory, while my memory tends to be visual, or I could just be talking out of my ass, but the point I’m trying to make here is that I’m aware as I’m reading that it’s not the original cadence of the words (though the copy I have is translated pretty well) and all the author can directly pass on to me are characters, plot, and larger-scale concepts, and it wrecks the experience ever so slightly.

Maybe short stories, because of their form, depend much more on the exact language the author uses. This didn’t happen with the Arabian Nights or The House of the Spirits.

01.17.05

Posted in 03 everything at 19:33:04 || 106 || 1106011984 by katana

composite photos from Titan - bizarre, alien, beautiful.

01.15.05

listen dammit (the past two weeks)

Posted in 03 everything at 05:40:58 || 528 || 1105789258 by katana

Observed: once I’ve slept through the alarm I will do so every morning until I change the CD, everything is a control volume, CAD is more of a pain than I remember, popular opinion is ridiculously biased against nuclear-powered spacecraft, Florida weather is aggravating even without hurricanes, bookbinding is dead, Rachmaninoff’s 2nd sounds much more Russian when played slowly, Don José’s mother was definitely Jewish, too much of my money and time will be spent on concerts this term.

I finished reading The Baroque Cycle yesterday.

And yay for Huygens.

01.01.05

2005

Posted in 01 life at 02:42:53 || 404 || 1104568973 by katana

so here we are. this year i will be less angsty, more social, less worried about what people think, more inclined to speak the hell up, less good at putting things off, more obsessed about getting money however i can.

HAHAHAHA.

also, i aim to fall 40% less the next time i get on a snowboard.

12.20.04

take the world and make it yours again

Posted in 01 life at 18:41:02 || 070 || 1103589662 by katana

I’ve been here too long, in the same routine too long, dealing with the same people too long. I spend four months in classes and then it’s back home and vacation is either bumming at home or hauled around with the parents. Which isn’t bad either, but I need a change, to get out and see places and meet people on my own without the constant scrutiny staring down my back and without the family ties - they really do bind, and in my case chain. I act completely different when there’s family involved, and I don’t like that I have to.

So, so, so leaving this damn state for grad school.

12.15.04

ouroboros

Posted in 03 everything at 18:35:11 || 066 || 1103157311 by katana

a glorious waste of time

12.04.04

social dynamics

Posted in 03 everything at 07:42:18 || 612 || 1102167738 by katana

There’s people who have self-contained groups of mutual friends, but I seem to randomly associate with a few here, a few there, and they’ve all got their own groups they regularly hang out with, so I drop in from time to time and I’m always missing something. I don’t know if this is conducive at all to maintaining contact.

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