still, I just
can’t sleep and its
20 to 2 in the morning. I’m
cold and curiously hungry
for sustenance and comfort not
food.

I wish it’d all end
like so many ravens
swooping a cliff

(o, and my head’s started bleeding. again. self pity is a dish best served prior to exam block and phone calls home.)

Wanderlust. Mmmm yeah. There are a couple of things looking up in my life; the travels (California, maybe NY in July, Europe smorsgasbord over summer), the friends (you know who you are), the house (can you say sofa? w00t! finally) and the car (sadly, the demise of Horus is greatly overshadowed by the advent of Lucky. wheeeee). and of course Pete. Need I say more bub?

On the downside, the recap of droll and otherwise bothersome things gets longer.

1) Health. My biggest bugabear to boot. Mutated gastrobug that’s doing a Titanic (going on and on and on). Insomnia that’s still so unproductive (try panicking about exams at 3.45 in the morning, after an 8 hour procrastination of trying to go to bed, so that exam prep can actually be done). Medicine that I keep losing as a result of trying to have a life. Flaky, cracking, weepings scars in the head that itch, and we all know how Sondha likes to itch. More surgery on the horizon (lalalala… leaving on a jet plane… lalalala i can’t hear you). Freaky talk of more radiation therapy. Exhaustion. Plain exhaustion.

2) Academics. The highs are high and the lows are low eh. I need a time turner or ten. And brains by the bucket. *cough*psycholingistics*cough*. Some subjects have psycho- as a prefix for a reason.

3) Dramas. oh the dramas. why dost thou embrace me at sleepless o’clock and envelope me in your velvet arms. Just leave well alone for a sec.

4) Health

5) Academics

6) Health

7) Health

I’ll stop blubbering now and go eat some chocolate. And try for the next 10 hours to stay awake, so that I can spend the 8 after that trying to fall asleep.

It’s been a long time in updating hasn’t it?

lessee… cedar lakes (awesome), skiing (even more awesome), work (lots and lots of) and uni (not enough). That’s in a nutshell what i’ve been up to.

The usual promises of photos and news could be forthwith, but to be honest, this is the first time i’ve had leisure to have deep and meaningful time with my laptop in over 4 weeks. And as much as I adore doing everything and being everywhere, i think i need to stop making promises that I can’t keep (or keep by the skin of my teeth).

Suffice to say that I’ve had a blast over the holidays, and I can’t wait to go back skiing only slightly less than I am excited about my end of year trip to the middle east. Which is excitement of gargantuan proportions, infused with red cordial and topped with blue MnMs. mmmm….

It’s weird, but at the same time I’ve also wanted to comment for awhile on the strange dichotomy of feeling older and young at the same time. I’ve been 23 for nearly 2 months now, and while a great many of my peers are studying/completing study/starting careers, a smaller but no less significant number are out there living and changing lives, exploring the world, conquering boundaries and essentially living larger than life. It’s quite mind blowing to think of two possible outcomes, at 23: doing the “right thing”, figuring out your career path, worrying about the myriad troubles of uni/work life and all that it brings, concentrating on building the foundations of social/financial/familial security. Some are engaged in the search for higher meaning, the search for self and individuality, and that in itself is a laudable endevour.

On the other hand, there are those who seek to let the world leave an imprint on their soul, who might be at work or in uni, might be engaging in all the activities that others are doing, just differently. Those who strive for a passion or goal or dream, and who touch lives in the process. Not an easy difference to put to words, just a quality of otherness, that over-arcing presence of being more than you are, or have told to be. They may not need to quest to find who they are, they just are. They don’t have to be Olympic athletes or Edmund Hillarys or Albert Einstiens. They just have a larger and grander scheme of things than most, and they let their souls dance to the music that they hear. From missionary work in Thailand to chasing photographs in lands quite different from small town America, these friends have dreams that are writ large in their destinies, and seem so much wiser than their years.

That is the real question; two twentysomethings, same set of opportunities and environments, but a world of difference in what they do with it. I’m not putting either path down, I just think that sometimes, don’t you want to know what’s on the other side of that door/fence/horizon? And I envy those who don’t let themselves get caught up the in the mundaneness of everyday living, and go and find out.

disclaimer: it’s quite a meandering blog post, and i don’t really know what i’m on about myself. I’m just a little wistful at the moment, and all the responses to certain events in my life have kinda crystallized  into a musing on life and what it means to live it, and age and what it means to feel/act it. I’m sorry if it offends/upsets anyone.

“Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of gas shells dropping softly behind.

Gas! GAS! Quick, boys!- An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling,
And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime . . .
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues, -
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.”

We have a snail in our kitchen. His name is Toby.

I am disturbed.

edit: he now has 2 friends.

I haven’t really ever found a place that I call home
I never stick around quite long enough to make it
I apologize that once again I’m not in love
But it’s not as if I mind
that your heart ain’t exactly breaking

It’s just a thought, only a thought

But if my life is for rent and I don’t learn to buy
Well I deserve nothing more than I get
Cos nothing I have is truly mine

I’ve always thought
that I would love to live by the sea
To travel the world alone
and live my life more simply
I have no idea what’s happened to that dream
Cos there’s really nothing left here to stop me

It’s just a thought, only a thought

But if my life is for rent and I don’t learn to buy
Well I deserve nothing more than I get
Cos nothing I have is truly mine

While my heart is a shield and I won’t let it down
While I am so afraid to fail so I won’t even try
Well how can I say I’m alive

If my life is for rent…

- Life for Rent, Dido

It’s funny how much difference one week can make.

see more crazy cat pics