walking even with the builder of the universe...

From Walden:


"beware of all enterprises that require new clothes, and not rather a new wearer of clothes."

* * * *

"...if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours. He will put some things behind, will pass an invisible boundary; new, universal, and more liberal laws will begin to establish themselves around and within him; or the old laws be expanded, and interpreted in his favor in a more liberal sense, and he will live with the license of a higher order of beings. In proportion as he simplifies his life, the laws of the universe will appear less complex, and solitude will not be solitude, nor poverty poverty, nor weakness weakness. If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them."

* * * *

"The cost of a thing is the amount of life that must be exchanged for it."

* * * *

"When I had caught and cleaned and cooked and eaten my fish, they seemed not to have fed me essentially. It was insignificant and unnecessary, and cost more than it came to..The repugnance to animal food is not the effect of experience, but is an instinct...I believe that every man who has ever been earnest to preserve his higher or poetic faculties in the best condition has been particularly inclined to abstain from animal food, and from much food of any kind... Whatever my own practice may be, i have no doubt that it is a part of the destiny of the human race, in its gradual improvement, to leave off eating animals."

* * * *

"If the day and the night are such that you greet them with joy, and life emits a fragrance like flowers and sweet-scented herbs, is more elastic, more starry, more immortal - that is your success. All nature is your contgratulation, and you have cause momentarily to bless yourself. The greatest gains and values are farthest from being appreciated. We easily come to doubt if they exist. We soon forget them. They are the highest reality. Perhaps the facts most astounding and most real are never communicated by man to man. The true harvest of my daily life is somewhat as intangible and indescribable as the tints of morning or evening. It is a little stardust caught, a segment of the rainbow which i have clutched."

* * * *

"Only that days dawns to which we are awake. There is more day to dawn. The sun is but a morning star."

Alone, alone, about a dreadful wood...

well, it seems that exam period turns me into a daily blogger, with or without an audience.

So, i am officially the queen of procrastination. three exams to go before thursday, and i have spent most of today reading the newspaper, baking goodies, daydreaming, watching the snowstorm ebb and flow outside, playing scrabble on the internet, looking up useless facts, checking my email, and occasionally reading over old ones. I found a gem of an email from this wonderful japanese guy i met in thailand, where, among other awesome things, he wrote:

"You have splendid sensitivity and good looks like a fairy"

how can a gal not be flattered by such compliments?

oh engrish.

oh asia...

“Our society is run by insane people for insane objectives. I think we're being run by maniacs for maniacal ends and I think I'm liable to be put away as insane for expressing that. That's what's insane about it.”

-John Lennon

bringin' back sweet memories...

so, i spent a good hour or two last night reading old emails from asia, up late and unable or unwilling to sleep. little bits of inspiration have come over me this week, probably because i finally have a bit of breathing room, what with classes over and my next exam not until monday. school simultaneously inspires and quashes inspiration; i am too busy for any thought-out-thoughts of my own, but also forced to devote myself to one topic for a length of time, which rarely happens when left to my own scattered and indecisive devices.

reading those emails brought a lot of things to the forefront. there was a lot of warm laughter, a lot of nostalgia, but also a lot of reality. distance makes the heart grow fonder, and often the sweetest memories are the ones i remember from traveling while i forget about the month of invalidity, of lying sweat-soaked on mysteriously stained sheets staring at dirty walls and dreading my next questionably sanitary meal, dreading my next violent bout of vomiting. and i forget those long days of loneliness when i would read book after book, write email after email, trying to fill the void where friends were lacking.

but the good memories are so very good. i feel like i don't have such good stories to tell here, because people - strange ones, boring ones, wild ones alike - simply don't reach out in the same way, and nor do i have the push to do so. i find it hard to reach out here, i find it hard to quickly match steps with someone, to relate. i also find myself turning a bit cold and hardened - perhaps it's all this snow. i was told that i recently seemed "bitter and not too friendly" towards a friend, and this has really made me think. this is not the person i want to be, and this is not how i was feeling at the time, despite outward appearances - in fact mostly i was feeling really happy to have a close friend around. but this is something i have recognised in myself lately: a sort of coldness directed towards the world, and a pendulum of emotions that come out as drastic ups and downs. i have been feeling something changed in me, some warmth is seeping out, perhaps because i don't have as many places to put it these days - only so much of your love can go to a single person, no matter how great that person is, and friendships are so important to me as a solid foundation for everything else.

i think what all this is pointing to is my need for a solid sense of groundedness. slowly but surely i am feeling more at home here, making small friendships here and there, but what is lacking is a commitment to this place. i think a lot lately about packing up my bags and flying off to some place or another again, to live that uncertain but ever-exciting life; and maybe i will, but i also feel the need for a change here, o an eventual return to my life in b.c., whether in vancouver or victoria, a return to that foundation of family and friends and those that are somewhere in between. or maybe just start trying harder to make that here, to get involved and be part of this place instead of feeling like a passer-through, a tumbleweed, a complete unknown with no direction home...

i wish i knew how to start that process in a meaningful way, and i wish i knew how to turn off this coldness that occasionally rears its head, but hey, life is for learning. i'm sure we all go through these phases of wondering where exactly our lives are at, where they are going, and what it all means anyway. oh life.

holidays are made for reading and remember things that are worth repeating...

so, i'm here in the thick of final exams, staring furiously at this computer screen, my prison. trying to write a take home exam about globalization, markets and states in africa, about the human development paradigm and the informal sector and gender inequalities and displaced people and so much more, all fit nicely into twelve pages. how can i possibly be expected to understand all of these complex issues (each of which we spent three one hour classes on) into twelve pages? it is not that it isn't interesting - it is - but just that it's such a vast topic and i am such a small little person.

well, ok, i'm also just tired of doing homework, but seriously. university is so crazy - we are given so much information that we must absorb in under four months, and then we move on to the next topic. obviously there are themes that run along like little mountain streams between classes, but still. Inequality and Development, in 3000 words or less. Society and Environment. Health and Development. Global Earth Systems. How can i even begin to understand anything, and why do we all try so hard to do so? we are not very humble animals, are we?

and all i can think about today is how i bought my ticket to vancouver for december 24th and how, now that i have done it, i am overwhelmed with how much i want to be in B.C., even just for a short while. as i mentioned before, i saw my parents and sister for a few days in november and was overwhelmed with how good it was to see them. there is nothing like parental love of the unconditional kind, and i missed it, despite the many idiosyncrasies of our little family unit. and B.C., oh B.C... i've been thinking a lot about the ocean and about the mountains. it's beautiful here, much more beautiful in an urban way, but it is no match for vancouver when it comes to scenery. and i love living here, i feel totally invigorated by its alive-ness and the thousands of young people who all seem so involved in their community. but i think i've been so busy and so overwhelmed that i haven't spent too much time thinking about home. and now that i get to have a visit i can't stop thinking about it. close friends! homecooked meals! reading (fiction!) in front of the fireplace! no fear of freezing to death on the way to the grocery store!

well, what can i say, the grass is always greener. probably when i land in vancouver i will miss the nightlife, the row houses, the french language, the cheap beer in every corner store. all the things that make this place sooo montreal.

also, i will miss my matt, whose entire family now thinks i am the most cold-hearted witch of a girlfriend, leaving their matthew out in the cold eastern winter to brave the holidays alone. which i guess i kind of am, but we all gotta look out for ourselves, right? isn't that part of the whole christmas spirit thing?

hm. well, maybe what i am most looking forward to is being done with these pesky exams. speaking of which...