洋随筆　Western Rambles

On not moving on...

Sun, 07 Feb 2010 20:57:55 GMT

I've been in the process of saying goodbye to a friend. Or, more accurately, a friendship.

I really, really don't want to. This is someone we'd met here, and for awhile, I had entertained thoughts of being able to be close to this person in a special way. The ways that a friend, not just a shallow-one-day-acquaintance friend, but the mutual empathy kind.

But, as the weeks have worn on from the time I started to detect, oh, I don't know what exactly, but a sort of lack of responsiveness. Okay, I know I've gone through my own rough patches, and non-communicative phases. But there was something not quite right, and never any chance to even explore what that might have been.

So, there this ending has sat, like a wodge of undigested food from an overly rich meal. A sort of emotional constipation has ensued, if you will, including the "ugh, I don't want this!" reaction.

Oh yeah, and all of the self-blaming "should have known" reproaches have been welling up from my heart. (Should have know what, for fuck's sake?!) I keep trying to tell myself, "This, too, shall pass." It has before, and it's even not the searing pain of previous times. However much I know I hurt, there is at least this realization of improvement, less pain than before.

There's still a reflex to keep trying, which I realize is the unwise attempt to not lose the "sunk cost" of all the emotion I'd invested already. But, painful as it is to realize it's time to stop, I am reminding myself it will be even more painful to pursue something that just isn't going to develop.

Hope still rears its somewhat unwelcome face: perhaps, it whispers, perhaps after a time of laying fallow, something might grow again, on a more sturdy basis. Well, I won't hold my breath for that. Life needs to continue to be lived in these parts. Mr Sweetie is there, a steadying presence, thank goodness, and I've been continuing all of the activities that - if not giving complete pleasure all the time - at least provide moments of distraction and a positive desire to focus someplace else for awhile. And I've even managed some accomplishments in my personal garden, which can only be for the good.

Perhaps, soon, I'll bake a lemon cake; it'll be real, and I can concentrate on both the making of it, and the eating (yum!) of it, to create a spell of banishment, a personally-coded placebo bulwark against the inner storms raging against inarguable realities of communication with others.

Hmmm, lemon cake; good.

The Lady and Her Bath, extended edition

Fri, 29 Jan 2010 19:53:10 GMT

In between classes and aikido and stuff, I've been returning to my old activity of aromatherapy. It's been helped by two things - one, that I am now more familiar with what essential oils I can get locally, and two, Mr Sweetie built a lovely shelf for me, on which I can put my entire essential oil collection. Being able to view them so easily, I can also use them a lot more easily, too.

I noticed that one big difference is that the local market doesn't seem to flinch at offering some of the more expensive essential oils that in Ireland might have been diluted - no, not diluted in a fraudulent way: oils like Rose or Neroli are offered in the Irish market diluted to 5% in a non-odoriferous carrier (rich ones, like jojoba oil). A couple of years ago I did luck out and find some rose absolute, and whoa, nellie! that was a scent to carry one off to the Platonic ideal of an eternally extending rose field.

And today, I decided I would finally spring for some pure neroli (orange blossom). I couldn't wait 'til getting home, so I sniffed it a wee bit while waiting for my train home. (Yes, the knowledge of what is available extends necessarily beyond Our Little Town.) And even after I'd recapped the 2 ml bottle (itself about the size of the end section of my pinkie finger), I could smell and smell and smell the scent. Not one to knock me over the head, but the stamina of the pure stuff, it is to be admired.

So, first, I wanted to mix a kind of tester, or additive, which I would use to further scent my oils...

in 5 ml of grape seed oil:

5 drops rosa centifolia (rose) absolute
5 drops citrus aurantium var. amari (neroli), pure
5 drops jasminum grandiflorum, itself already diluted to 5%
6 drops santalum australocalidonicum (sandalwood, but not the traditional one, santalum album; I'm not particularly happy with this variety, but not enough to chuck it away)
1 drop pogostemon patchouli (patchouli, just enough to give the end of the scent a bit of umph after all those flowers...)

***
several drops of this in my usual base of 15 ml sweet almond oil made a very nice bath indeed.

Looking Back - long view

Sun, 03 Jan 2010 16:57:13 GMT

In essence, one can look back ten years at any moment. (That's my sop to the crowd protesting that the decade isn't really over until next year.) (Hat tip to coth

Continuity:
over ten years? Well, living with the ever-wonderful Mr Sweetie would top the list. There's an essential "me-ness" that stays, recognizably, even when I feel like I've covered a lot of ground in other ways; bodywork, massage, aromatherapy, aikido, interest in languages, interest in writing, handcrafts rotating in and out of activity, interest in calligraphy/writing systems, being a fan of various science fiction shows.... It was probably about ten years ago that we'd encountered the musical group Anúna, and they've remained favorites by pushing themselves and thus not falling into a rut for their audience. I also have some aikido paperwork dating from around the late 1990's, but I think I can't call myself seriously practicing until I was able to attend training regularly, and that was more around 2003 or so.

New Things:
Living in Belgium, although we've been here for not quite half a decade - how time flies, eh? Beginning a serious (if somewhat slower than normal) study of Japanese (language and culturally related) at a real university has brought a huge change in my priorities - not so much reading fiction these days, which I do miss.

The internet still counts as "new" mostly because I benefit so much from it, these days - contacts with friends from former lives (I mean, the life I had back in the USA!) and ease in acquiring a variety of language materials counting among the largest bonuses of this tech. I've had to learn a new way of dealing with all that information - so I don't descend into that "Someone is *wrong* on the Internet" feeling. And certainly I've learned in the last ten years a new way of handling my own communication (as evinced from the link I've just posted - to find it, I used a search engine, and lo! a shared link for any passing reader! Boom-da-yada-boom!)

Lost, Stolen, Strayed, Discontinued or Very Much Reduced:
Some of my favorite pieces of jewelry went missing when we were burgled, still living in a hotel room in the days before we could occupy our current house. I still miss some of those items, including things given to me as going away presents. (Still, very grateful that the damage that could have been inflicted was not - given that we were still closing on the house, the loss of some of our documents would have been far, far more painful.)

Interesting changes:
Heh, shot my wad, didn't I? Up there with "new".

Hopes for the next decade:
Better times for my friends. More stability in the ways that will help them. More justice for suffering people, more compassion from those who suffer less.

The Lady and Her... Aromatherapy Diffuser?

Fri, 01 Jan 2010 20:51:33 GMT

Yeah, I guess! This blend might be called "the morning after the night before" - I picked the oils for their "cephalic" qualities (apart from the single drop of vetiver, which was mostly functioning as a fixative, and maybe a grounding after all the mental ones!)

1 drop vetivert
3 drops rosewood
3 drops cardamom
3 drops basil

set in a small dish of water over a tea light

This was a wonderfully focussing perfume in the grey, dull late mid-afternoon, after having stayed up too late (for the sake of my body, that is - but I could not miss the change to 2010!) for my energy to cope well in the semi-light of a winter's day. I could smell each individual scent (apart from the vetivert) at different moments while the diffuser tea light was lit. It made the task of staying awake at least through the mid-afternoon "dip" much, much easier.

Mini Progoff

Mon, 28 Dec 2009 20:09:23 GMT

(Using the catagories from Intensive Journaling, as a way of looking both backwards and forwards in the final days of this year 2009.)

Persons - Generally good, except where not. The charmed inner circle of myself and Mr Sweetie remains, well, charmed! Old friends in the US have stayed in contact, or I've managed to re-kindle a few of those contacts, which is a real treat given the distance at which I live from them. "New" friends in aikido in our little town, who I mostly know four years now, have given me more confidence in my own abilities to make and maintain meatspace friendships. There's even a couple of special friends, who I get to abuse with some of the most wild of insults, all in good fun. (Of course, they tease me right back. Sometimes "black widow" when I've been especially clumsy, but recently "stress-kiekje" or "stress-chicken", or when one of the senior students was demonstrating in the place of our sensei, he called me a "lioness"... as in "I have tamed the Lioness." That sure farbled me for a bit.) Old friends in Dublin remain mostly available when I make a trip to see them, and last summer was a fabulous party at M's place, and visits with friends from my previous dojo. Relationships with my teachers and fellow students is sort of on a low flame, mostly because we're all just busy trying to get through the semester and then all at once, never see each other.
The "not" parts would mostly be family (really, zero interest in ever seeing most of them again, and the ones that might interest me would be under strictly controlled conditions and very far away from here.) But a few old relationships that, having travelled some distance from them, I can console myself as to their previous toxicity and the superior situation of no longer being in touch with such people. For the most vexing who do manage to get inside my guard, and for whatever reason I'm not ready to totally break things off, I try to remind myself not to rise to whatever bait they put out, but only to respond when there is something positive or affirming I can communicate. After all, if I'm connecting only via the Internet, I have the luxury of not obliging myself to respond.

Works - This used to be a section I really dreaded. I was stuck with "I wannabe/am a writer." For the moment, I'm "setting it free" to see if the muse will return, and focussing on things that are probably as demanding, just differently so. Studying Japanese is the hardest thing I've ever taken on; moreso as I know that while my discipline has improved, my brains have definitely declined from their best days of my mid-20's. (However, I also don't miss the hideousness that was suffering from depression and not really able to get help, because of - well, everything from lack of own courage, to pushing through others' misunderstandings in order to get help. But I'm getting ahead of myself, unless I decide that "self work" is also a work with which to dialogue.) Apart from aikido, for which I just passed my 2nd kyu exam (Yatta!!), and maintaining happy relations with Mr Sweetie, everything else is taking a firm second place. And I have my peace with that.

Body - This is the year I had to grasp the nettle, and bring into a public sphere something I'd rather have kept private: I arranged with my university to take a very reduced course load, on the basis of a "functional difficulty", namely depression. Damn, damn, DAMN but I hate having to put that out in even the limited way of the university's structures for handling such things. (And, despite that, I'm still rather cagey about mentioning it in my direct environs - the aikido people know somewhat more than the university people, and that's partly due to the warning from a departing advisor at the uni to not be too open about depression with the department...)
On the other hand, the medical side of the treatment is working very well, and continues to do so. The "insulin for diabetics" analogy very much works for me, after all the years I fruitlessly spent trying to "bootstrap", find my moral fiber, whatever. Fuck that shit, it did not work.
And, as the mentions of aikido will imply, my physical health is something I'm very happy about, for the most part. Bits of dings and pains that need a bit of looking after, but I can move and learn, and at this age I'm very happy that I even still have a waist! Even if I am somewhat wide abeam and with a wee bit of a tummy even when I contract the abdominal muscles. But I try to think good things about how well my body generally behaves, especially as I head into perimenopause.

Events, Situations and Circumstances - This would be a whole entry just by itself. (That's not quite fair - all of these catagories are: I'm being very superficial in my review, but for some odd reason this catagory is trying to privilege itself in my mind. Justifying myself to some external judge, maybe?) Our own personal circumstances are comfortable, after some years of sometimes deep nervousness of whether things are going to work out. It's a relief, but I struggle with a sense of selfishness, now. I can tithe my oregano and cumin, but I'm still very slow to embrace the bigger gifts, both the material ones I could give (even lovingly give) and the more intangible ones of time, talent, self-development for the sake of dreams and hoped-for accomplishment. There is the dark side of the urge to accomplish in the face of current events, best encapsulated by the moment Samwise Gamgee takes The One Ring, calling out how he will turn Mordor into a giant garden - realizing at that moment the seductiveness of the power the Ring seems to have offered him.

Dreams - there are the nocturnal maunderings, and the dreams of the awakened heart. I suppose I'm on okay terms with the first, and regard the second with considerably more caution. It used to be, I wouldn't allow myself to settle on a dream at all, because it wouldn't come true anyway, so why make myself vulnerable and inevitably hurt? These days, I try to listen with a gentler attitude - trying on dreams the way one might try on dresses: you can look, you don't have to buy, not until you're really, REALLY ready. And sometimes, dreams have a way of arriving in reality without my having understood they had even started the journey: this past year, I went to a party, one of these student-artist things. Spoke English, Dutch, Italian, some German and even a bit of Japanese, as differing conversation partners seemed to require. After I started on my way back home, I suddenly remembered, when I was a very small child, hearing about a woman who - said my family - could speak 5 different languages. Then they had the challenge of trying to explain to a very small American girl what exactly was a "language", when she was still quite hazy on the notion of her own being called "English". Whatever they said, or more to the point were unable to express, must have really caught my imagination, because there was always a part of me afterward that wanted to be that woman. And, at that party, I discovered that I had become her.

Society - Society, you suck. Big time. Especially in your treatment of women. I hate being afraid, and it's largely the fault of the people in aggregate who think treating women badly is actually okay. There are a lot of things I could go on about, but that's the primary one, for me.
On the other hand,... sigh, friends, internet, aikido, language learning... the list can go on and on. On a microlevel, and sometimes even on a macrolevel, something will work. My only sadness is when it comes at the price of another's happiness. I'm not yet big enough to renounce those things.

I'm so blogging THIS!!

Sun, 13 Dec 2009 20:54:31 GMT

http://www.volkskrant.nl/opmerkelijk/article1326661.ece/Politie_krijgt_boete_voor_aangebrande_tostis

TIEL, The Netherlands - The police in Tiel have been fined 500 Euro because the fire services are fed up having to turn out when police agents forget to take their toasted sandwiches out of the toster oven before attending a call.

The fire services fined the police because they have had to turn out too often for false alarms, said the fire department commander Peter van Ommeren on Friday.

"Annually the police are allowed two false alarms and they're already at four. So that's four toasted sandwiches too many," said Van Ommeren.

Called to account: The police explain the false alarms as a sign of enthusiasm of their agents. "We make a toasted sandwich during lunch. But if the agents are then called away and must leave as quickly as possible, they'll sometimes forget that equipment," said a spokesperson. The agents are to be reminded that they should pull out the toaster oven plug more often.

Hat tip to Mr Sweetie, who shared this with me while we were both surfing the internet. He added, "Our best agents have accomplished this by shooting at the toaster oven from a distance."

From the Rooftops

Wed, 25 Nov 2009 06:24:48 GMT

From my morning news surfing, words to gladden my woman's heart, after the years -- nay, decades -- of always being told that the male of the species was dangerous, and that it was up to me to curtail my activities, appetites and very being if I was to have any hope of safety.

UN chief Ban Ki-moon has unveiled a Network of Men Leaders to act as male role models in a campaign opposing violence against women. It's short and to the point: men must make known to their fellows, that subjecting women to violence, committing acts of violence against women, is UNACCEPTABLE.

A good quote from Archbishop Desmond Tutu (who I hope my readers can respect, even if they don't like the United Nations affiliation of Ban Ki Moon), said: "You are a weak man if you use your physical superiority to assault and brutalise women.

And so say all of us.

PS editing this a couple of days to add (with a hat-tip to badgerbag) an article in The Guardian of the United Kingdom, Patrick Stewart talks about his personal encounter with domestic violence. It's a stunning read.

The Lady and Her Bath

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 21:11:25 GMT

4 drops laurel bay leaf
4 drops frankincense
1 drop vetiver
in 5 ml sweet almond oil

From the Workbook

Sun, 15 Nov 2009 18:55:13 GMT

Draw a picture of life.

Intro:
I'm not much of a drawing person: I am too attached to the idea that if I'm going to draw, it's going to be just perfect, if not in a technical way, then in a manner that perfectly expresses what I want to express. So, I put this off. Well, today I thought, "If you want to draw a picture, why not use a medium you're very comfortable with - that is actually part of the notion of exploring oneself, is being in a place where you do not struggle with the medium."

So...

The picture:
This would actually be a comics-style, story board kind of series of images. One: a plant, a small one. Tender, just starting out, sweetly green, two main leaves at the top, the remnants of the two "feeder leaves" with which it first emerges from its seed with. Two: small shift of perspective - the plant is still occupying a large part of the frame, but the viewer sees, way in the distance, a car. Three: car is closer, the frame shifting even more: the plant is growing in a crack in the pavement, between the curb and the main road. Four: WHAM!! the car has run over the plant, squashing it flat.

But, something in me rebels at such a sere picture, and so, in frame Five: a little while later, not far from the shriveled and dried remains, a new plant has started to lift its tender leaves up toward the sun.

I like the subversiveness of life. Although individuals get creamed, all the time, the processes? They're still there, churning out the next one.

Still, it's a damned hard view, I'm afraid. It's hard not to judge myself as somehow "wanting" in the department of how I view life. I can point at any number of times when I was confronted by someone important to me, saying "You don't mean that!" and actually believing that by that assertion alone they would bend me to their will. (Sad thing was, as a kid, that worked, because I was poleaxed by abandonment issues, big time. These days, someone tries that on me and they get cut out, cold. I will not be made to feel like that inadequate but still human child again.)

The Lady and her Bath

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 20:56:37 GMT

Four drops petitgrain
Three drops cypress
One drop vetivert
in approx. a teaspoon sweet almond oil - luckily, I remembered to store the bottle in the bathroom. I couldn't have faced a trek to the kitchen.

Words! Words!

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 19:44:46 GMT

how Yonmei sees me:

Beer, backrubs, books... Coffee; chocolate.

(Or, if the above is too pedestrian: kindness, Japanese, writing, Tarot, dreams.)

I allowed this meme she was participating in to give me a reminding sort of poke, to return here and write a bit. (Larger world: actually pretty okay, some distractions from combined guest visits and special events at school, which aren't distressing at all, just eating up my focus on longer term projects like this journal.)

beer - the irony is, I detested beer until well into my 20's. But my first beer drunk with enjoyment and intent was a Belgian one, consumed right here in Belgium, in fact. It was a really hot summer many years ago, what was then a very surprising thing. (These years, we all just seem to brace for a hot one, and heave a sigh of relief when it turns out to be more "normal".)
backrubs - this one is rather easy, from the standpoint of why yonmei would associate it with me: at the World Science Fiction convention in Scotland, the 1995 one that is, we were meeting for the first time, after already having been acquainted with one another in print (we were both in a womens' apa, which would count as regular correspondence, eh?) She mentioned something about her back hurting, and I'd just received a lovely standing massage from the publishing partner of Mr Sweetie, so I told her to turn around, and paid the massage forward, right in front of Mr Sweetie's book stall. Good times.
books - are such a commonplace in my life that it's a real culture shock to get to know anyone who is not a regular reader. (Some of the guys in aikido, however, are exactly that - non-readers, in any sense of reading for recreation, that is.) But I can remember a time from very early in my reading years, when it was the artifact itself that fascinated me: the covers with their linen fabric surfaces, the little bit of stripy cord at the top and bottom of the spine, and - especially - the revelation of how a book signature was printed, before being folded and cut. *sigh* I can still see it in mind's eye, even though the graphic came from nearly 40 years ago. It was in a kids' encyclopedia. A male printer (well, in those days, they would have been axiomatically male, but luckily, these days I have to actually qualify the gender...) held aloft a large piece of paper, nearly as long as he was tall. On it were numbers, but I could see they were not in sequence. Some of them were also printed upside down, and roughly half of the numbers were printed in a burnt-reddish color; the two groups were not the same, but overlapped about half-way. It took me quite a while to puzzle out, but puzzle it I did, thanks to the text. (My mother was not helpful: "It's the way they print it," without any further engagement on the topic. I suppose I can count myself lucky that she had some life-of-the-mind, as regards books regularly in the house, or I may not have been much of a reader.) Eventually, I understood that the up-side down numbers would be right-side-up when the sheet had been folded. Likewise, the numbers printed in red were the page numbers on the reverse side of the sheet. To test this out, and later just to marvel at the magic of this method, I went through a phase of folding a paper carefully, half, quarter, eighths, and - super hard because of the resulting thickness - 16ths, then unfolding, and carefully marking the resulting areas with their future page numbers, refolding and then - with a lot of effort and nearly never with a good scissors (handling the good scissors was judge too dangerous for a little girl, but no available adult was offering to help me neatly cut the edges of this proto-signature) I would hack through the edged, then cradle the resultant booklet in my hand, lovingly counting 1 to 32... if I got the numbers in the correct places, that is!
coffee -as with beer, I was not a born-coffee-drinker, but made one through an extreme circumstance. Which, on the whole was a good thing, since I very much like the taste, but have also remained a tea drinker (to the extent permitted by a somewhat uncooperative digestion, that is.)
chocolate - I always loved chocolate. I would refuse soft-serve ice cream if they only had vanilla and no chocolate. But I learned to adore the special chocolate my dad would bring from the airport after one of his many absences. Without quite meaning to, I think, he started me on the gateway of Toblerone, then quickly progressed to the continental European flavors and qualities, such that I was no longer really looking at a mere Hershey's, except when I was feeling a bit blue and there was truly nothing else available. Eventually, I learned which specialty shop in the mall imported those special chocolate sorts, and despite the clear difference in price, I was directing my pennies towards them, and no one could convince me that I was getting a bad bargain. (They tried, you know. They didn't understand I wasn't buying expensive chocolate for the sake of a "statement", I bloody well preferred the taste of it! Especially the dark stuff.) These years? Hmmm, Leonidas and 99% pure with either a glass of red wine or even a whiskey. It works, it really does! (If you're into those beverages, that is.)
kindness - me receiving it? Or giving it? It feels a bit odd that someone would associate this word with me, but perhaps not unprecedented. I remember once listenting to intelligentrix as she described me as "forthrightly diplomatic". Not quite "kindness" but I was pleased to see something I strive for coming back to me in that comment - I may want to tell truth, but if I don't have to be hurtful, I don't want to. There is a point when "nice" is what it was supposed to be - remembering the other person in front of you is a human being, too. I don't always do that, and I feel badly when I fail at it, but the point is at least trying. (The most likely provocation leading to failure? Someone failing to demonstrate at least a similar kind of consideration: like when your admired author says the only way to talk to liberals it so beat them up. Definitely a compassion-fail, right there.) Getting kindness, well, that's more or less the well from which I draw when I manage to pass some on to someone else. That's not very big of me at all, in the end.
Japanese - it wasn't supposed to be this way, taking the courses for a bachelors degree. Back when Japan won the Worldcon bid, all I wanted to do was to be able to read a bit - with the fond thought of attending the Worldcon in my mind, I took seriously the notion of being handicapped without at least some literacy at my command. After that, though, well,... it just growed. There was the rest of my life, and fitting an independent study in between the cracks, then an international move, and... by the time the dust settled, I started looking at alternatives and, well, the rest, as they say, is history. I sound like a very rude five year old with pretensions of politeness. But in the last year, despite my struggles, I can actually pick through a newspaper article, and (with the help of online supports) get the general idea, enough for me to decide if I want to read more deeply. And that is a development I find profoundly satisfying.
writing - ack! I've hardly done any lately; I feel like such a fake! I still want to, but I think at this moment I'm refilling a well that had emptied rather precipitously. I need to be in a good place to do the inner confrontation out of which the best writing, the stuff that's worth reading, can be produced.
Tarot - oh really? Not sure where this came from. Sometime just after moving here, I bought a new tarot deck, noting with amusement that the cards were given Dutch and not English names. I decided I wanted them around as a method of randomly generating events and character dilemmas, since they're less cut-and-dried than, say, picking slips of newspaper articles out of a hat. I might not want to write a murder (at least, not right away, but if I pull randomly a card with a man working on the inside of a church interior, talking to two other worthies - with the 3 pentacles cleverly creating the decorative gothic window, well, I can just kind of riff on that...) Mind, there is a story, a longer one about a time in my teens, when I'd given a reading to an entirely labile woman some years my senior; her utter lack of filter when receiving what I had to say in response to the moment of reading these cards prompted me to toss every deck I owned. I did not want that kind of power over another human being. I'm not sure if I'd told this story to Yonmei. (Did I?)
dreams - wheee, another can-of-worms word, eh? The dreams of our nights? Our woolgathering, "wouldn't-it-be-nice-if...?" daydreams? The "calling of my heart" dreams? I have some doozies of dreams, pre-anti-depressant days, which not only were nocturnal maunderings but managing to illuminate some of my "calling of the heart", although not in any "what's my job" kind of way. Dreams have changed and yet not since I went on this treatment - they seem like they record more pedestrian details, yet invest them with importance that I don't see in waking life. Which might just mean that, somewhere in all this, I must still be having to learn the lesson to pay attention to now.

Which might just be the moment for me to put some shoes on, and go for a walk, breathe some fresh air, admire the evening and our town. Good for you if you read this far - not so good when I don't write for so long and then regurgitate... well, if you want to pass along the joy, just put "words!" in my comments, and I'll do my best to give you some introspection prompts. Many thanks for Yonmei for giving me mine!

Bedding down in the new semester

Mon, 12 Oct 2009 13:47:56 GMT

Well, it's the beginning of week 4 of the new semester - which actually, being a third of the way (almost), probably means it's not so new anymore.

I have some hopes that this semester will be less traumatic than the previous year. However, the university admin being what it is, I still don't know if an application I've made to reduce my credit load is going to be accepted. It's going to be a shitty climb back if I have to return to the full load after week five. Or even later.

Then again, I "shouldn't" borrow trouble, I know.

I'm taking another history class this semester, this time of modern Japan, to compliment the modern history of China I did last year. There is the same mountain of unfamiliar names, although some of the names become familiar in their repetitions after getting stuck into the first chapter (actually, the middle chapter of a book designed to cover 2 courses, the first half covering, logically enough, the history of Japan from earliest times to the dawn of the modern era - which in the Japanese time-frame means the moment their country was forced open by Commodore Perry...).

It's just icing on the cake that I get to take this class with my friend M. from the previous years' languages classes. So we walk back after class to catch our transports home (the city has the train station and bus depot handily gathered in one area), chatting about the little frustrations of our student lives. (Or, in some cases, big frustrations, like dealing with the university's international office... talk about a private little fiefdom... sheesh!)

One more day

Fri, 11 Sep 2009 19:40:55 GMT

These past several weeks have been a process of putting one foot in front of the other.

There were exams. There were re-sits. There was waiting.

There was rediscovering reading a fiction book for sheer pleasure. There was plenty of self-doubt. There was a quick trip to Amsterdam - Mr Sweetie's editor activities, and this time I decided to tag along.

The event was an author's reading, a book launch, a first book launch. The author's wife (as he told us in the little speech) had thought carefully about the book her loving spouse had asked her to read, and suggested the perfect venue - so, about 50 of us gathered in a little group by the light of a few fluorescent lamps, 40 meters below the Nieuw Amsterdamse Peil (the "New Amsterdam Level", or what passes for sea-level in the lowlands...), listening to two fragments of the novel, itself set on a non-Earth location deep beneath the planetary surface.

It worked. It really did.

The day after, Mr Sweetie and I wandered around Amsterdam, just drinking in the sights of canals and rowhouses, without any schedule at all. It was heaven. At one point, Mr Sweetie said, "Oh, hey, we're near the apartment of S.!" A couple of text messages and one phone call later (over the relaxed course of an hour, in which we sit on at a corner café, on a specially-built bit of furniture, of wood, two lovely relaxing chairs attached to a table, with a sun-brolly over it), we meet with her at a local flea- and antiques market, and talk up a storm between the stalls of old jewelry, new "vintage" clothes and enameled signs hawking soft drinks in faded hues.

She's here before a visit with an osteopath, one more step in her journey to health (she's got more allergies than you can shake a stick at), and I get a slight headache from delaying my lunch (she can't eat much that's on offer in any restaurant, due to too many wayward glutens, citrus juices, and other things), while we drink tea (hers is fresh mint - a lovely fashion adopted in recent years around here).

It's the little things that remind me - every day is a gift. The evening spent with our host L., watching Kung Fu Panda, relaxing after an easy meal in a local Chinese restaurant, and then a DVD (love the new technologies!) of a German science fiction series from around the time of Star Trek Raumpatroille ("Space Patrol"). L pities me because my German isn't up to the needed level - I acknowledge his pity, but say, "Actually, I think it's brilliant - I actually don't get to try out my language skills with science fiction very often, because it's so often only in English...." and L nods thoughtfully, surprised by the notion that my luck in being born with a mother-tongue of English might have taken away some pleasure. Over breakfast on the day we leave, we tease one another in "baby-Deutsch", repeating choice lines from the evening's episode. (Vocabulary word: Zauerstof, or "oxygen".)

Somewhere, always present, a time from 8 years ago. The banal moments - my strained shoulder that day, the smell of exhaust and dust on the Rathmines Road in Dublin, the jumble of the bric-a-brack shop on Wexford Street, where I wandered, dazed, after Mr Sweetie and then my good friend Mags text-messaged me about That Event - forever set in memory. It takes no effort; in fact, the implication that one might forget, in the favored tactic of a few adrenaline junkies and right-wing manipulators? A dire and unforgivable insult.

Recover. Rebuild. Remember.

We haven't even begun to recover. If anything, a hole that was opened has been dug deeper into, by people who are those wolves in sheepskins we are warned about in sacred texts. Terrible, terrible things have been done, in our name. I hope, naively but still, I hope, that there will be a putting to rights. If we don't manage to do something worse to the world, and ourselves, in the meantime.

On the personal scale, life has still been kind. I have my exam results today. The language classes were about what I expected, and I'm anticipating the repeat of them, to learn even better what I'd only been able to scratch the surface of. The other class, the one I thought I did somewhat better on, turns out to have been a lot better. Which pretty much confirms my own approach, which remains somewhat counter to that of the Big Name Authorities in charge of the university - I need to be able to concentrate on only a very few classes at a time, and give myself over to their study without the distraction of an overloaded schedule. I'm not 20 any more. (Thank goodness. That was a tough age for me.) I hope the university will take notice, in a nice way.

Government Interference

Thu, 03 Sep 2009 15:23:58 GMT

I have this little story, brought on by reading a couple of things on the internet.

Back in the day, when we'd bought our wonderful house (because all houses you've just bought are wonderful, or so you think) in Dublin, we'd called a contractor in to perform some semi-remodeling kinds of tasks.

However, after their first walk-through, they ABSOLUTELY had to talk to us, like not one minute after we possibly could be free. "Please," they also said.

So, off we trundled to the conference with our contractors. It was then we learned, as they were required by Irish law to inform us, of the state of our electricity in our recently-purchased house. Long story short: the system installed by the previous owner not only lacked much conformity to the code, it was downright unsafe - there was an old fashioned fuse box, with absolutely no sense to the groupings, no grounding for anything save the group for the washer/dryer, and a clearly shock-ready arrangement for the power shower.

A few Anglo-Saxon expressions later (the builders nodded with great sympathy, and no surprise at all), we'd come to the decision that we'd have to put the money we thought we would be spending on redecoration into a complete re-wiring. Including "chasing" the electrical outlets so that a proper ground/earth conduit could be added.

Later on, one of the supervisors added, "By rights, the pre-sale survey should have caught this, but with the way the housing market keeps going up and up, the surveyors tend not to look too closely at the properties they're supposed to inspect. They're almost there more for the banks than the people paying for the house..." You can say that again - the item with which the surveyor could have discovered the problems with the electricity was a 10 Punt (Irish Pound) plug that would light up in succession to indicate the presence each of the needed wires. If we'd know to buy one, it would have been in our own househunting kit.

Ah well, 6 weeks later (and a double whammy of paying the rent in the previous place while also paying the first month's mortgage), we got into our "new" house, with a full moving truck of our possessions, and spent the next several hours overseeing the immediately necessary bits like getting perishables into the 'fridge and building our bed. Ah, yes, our bed... the one that had a kind of headboard lighting, two small 30 watt lamps, one on either side. We settled down for the night, after a long day of moving boxes and furniture (even if most of the carrying was being done for us, there was a lot of little detail to sort, and would remain so for a while to come). We were both a bit buzzy from all the new activity, the dislocation from our previous place, and both ready to read in bed a bit before we would sleep. We turned on the bedstead light and --

ZZZT! *click*

The house was plunged in darkness. Mr Sweetie made the first realization: "That click must have been the circuit breaker downstairs." Our spanking, new electrical system had already kicked in its first safety - the bedstead lamps had worked before without a bother, but something from the move must have jiggled loose a connection, and created a short circuit, which the new system caught just as it was supposed to.

It did occur to me to wonder, rather later on - what if we'd elected to ignore the legally mandated warnings from our contractor, and moved in with the house's electricity un-renovated. It didn't seem to bear much thinking about. I could be glad that, in the absence of being able to know everything about absolutely everything, including our electricity supply, there was a resource we could employ for our protection. One that was not dependent on the self-perceptions of a large multinational company with profit as its main motive. In the main, I'm much happier considering the reliance on my fellow humans through the social contract that says we have duly-elected representatives, who - with input from us - map out the rules of play for all our mutual benefit.

It's a pity that seems such a difficult concept for some people, these days.

Friends Stop Friends from Digging Deeper Holes

Fri, 14 Aug 2009 17:29:55 GMT

Well, some of you may have encountered the bru-ha-ha over Investors' Business Daily. That was where an editorial tried to use Stephen Hawking as an example of the sort of person who, supposedly, the UK-style National Health Service would have cut off because trying to treat his illness would have cost too much. (There is one of the many reactions to this here.)

Except for that pesky bit where, uhm... Stephen Hawking has lived in the UK most of his life? And has been treated for his condition through the NHS, with good results: I wouldn't be here today if it were not for the NHS,... I have received a large amount of high-quality treatment without which I would not have survived."

Now, I know admitting one has been wrong can be difficult. But...

Instead of just making a plain admission of an error, the IBD has apparently tried to salvage their initial thesis - by implying that Stephen Hawking only got the care he needed because he was famous. The quote (here if you want to give the IBD a click before they change that, too) is repeated in the second paragraph of a column from The Guardian of the UK, "Okay, we got it wrong but "not everyone suffering from a debilitating disease is Stephen Hawking, and we hope our critics would acknowledge that."

However, I'm sure it takes very little effort to go check the initial onset of Hawking's case and the first inklings of fame. He was born in 1942. (Saith the Wikipedia.) The disease manifested age 21. That, and his subsequent treatment, would appear to predate the main work for which an amateur crank like me would have heard of him - A Brief History of Time, from 1988.

I hope that someone acknowledges that not only is the NHS not in possession any time-travel tech or communications, but also that accusing anyone of that kind of standard of judgement for treatment seems to have a bit of an odor about it - the odor of the crooked innkeeper, to be exact.

(h/t to the-gardener)

Oh, and a link to a gratuitious HawkingLOL - http://lh3.ggpht.com/_3pqx_Cf9Pj0/SoTnODgqmFI/AAAAAAAAAlw/VuYyCEZfVho/s640/lolhawking.jpg

and not a LOL but a very sweet photo, I think: http://marydell.livejournal.com/92331.html Just look at that grin!!! (All right, will stop fan-girling, now. This was supposed to be serious.)

Wanting to know a bit of everything

Wed, 29 Jul 2009 19:13:17 GMT

Today was just one of those days - a good study day, to be sure, but also with things crossing my bow that OH! I WANT TO KNOW ABOUT THAT, TOO!!

Or, shorter and without the CAPS LOCK: "Shiney!"

Like a constructed script called Layaklan, with its origins in a work by author M. A. Foster. While I saw a very, teenie tiny image of a separate script, the article I've pointed to has only indications in Roman script.

Pooh, I say, pooh.

Someone also dropped a reference to a ~~middle~~ OLD-English poem called "The Wanderer", and after looking up a couple of things, I suddenly wondering what a siþ-motief is. Travel, journeying, but is that all?

God, I feel pig-ignorant sometimes. And with not enough time to correct that.

Pardon me, while I go poke my kid brother's email box - there's an article on the uses of Facebook (many thanks to the inimitable davidlevine who passed along the link). I think it'll amuse him. TTFN.

Oh, wait, just one more thing - I'm looking for a good expression in Dutch for "arranged marriage", but the answer I'm not looking for is "huwelijkspolitiek", I think. That has more to do with dynastic arrangements, but I'm trying to track down something for the more run-of-the-mill institution as practiced once upon a time in China, and still is in some other places. Mr Sweetie can't really come up with anything, and my guesses with the dictionaries aren't yielding much result, either.

Thanks for listening!

A Snapshot of My Life

Mon, 20 Jul 2009 11:17:41 GMT

At the moment, Mr Sweetie has a visit from a former colleague from our days of living in Ireland. They're off taking a day in Brussels, while I continue to study (or something resembling it).

A Very Large freight truck rumbles by in the street, and stops. I don't really take much notice until the doorbell rings, and then it's one of those, "Oh.... shit!" moments. This one is rooted in Mr Sweetie's hobby, which I fully endorse, of running a small press publishing house. Contact with an on-demand printer has meant the occasional delivery of books - a single full pallet, sometimes two.

But this is the first time I've taken delivery of one by my lonesome here. Ooops.

The first hurdle is relatively straightforward: explaining to the driver that, yes, they have exactly the correct address. Part of the problem at this initial moment is that they're looking for a warehouse; but what they find is a private residence on a not-quiet street, frequently backing up a bus or two while we sort out what needs doing. It's only because they have to deliver that they'll agree to our solution: leave the pallet on the sidewalk.

In the usual case, Mr Sweetie and I can clear one pallet in less than ten minutes, and with two of us (and the cats safely trapped behind two closed doors - they helpfully flee as soon as the doorbell goes, thank goodness for small favors!) we have a reasonably secure view of the goods before we get them safely indoors. No one's ever tried to help themselves to a box (it's impossible to see what's in them, and only a reasonably thoughtful person is going to realize they'll probably contain books) but even in a smallish place, there's always a first time.

Luckily, "first time" was NOT today. *Phew!* and other noises of relief. Only one pallet and that not too horribly loaded. (We've unloaded one pallet that was stacked five deep - not fun!) So, by my lonesome, that was not quite 20 minutes work, and that just before lunch, which definitely felt earned after all that.

Mr Sweetie had been so good with his timing - not just being away (he's already let me know via text message he's grateful for my help) but also having just finished a first phase of delivering excess stock to the recycling. On the other hand, he's going to be the one to fill up all that lovely freed space with the new books!

A moment of truth

Fri, 03 Jul 2009 12:34:01 GMT

My exam results are in.

I knew I had done pretty badly in the practical part of the Japanese language, so the utter fail there was no surprise. For the grammar (which is actually also bundled with reading), I didn't think I'd pass; and I was right about that. However, I am within an asses' bray of passing if I do some extra study during the rest of the summer, just like I did two years ago with the first year class.

It would be so nice if I only had to concentrate on one of these classes at a time, next year. Though, of course, that means some serious re-jigging of my study plan. I had been trying, not with great success, to prepare for a re-sit in modern history of China. On the other hand, after today's attempt to do some reading, before the heat of the day set in, I had something of a minor epiphany, which might lead to a more effective way of studying than simply attempting to redraft my reading notes in Dutch. So, I'll take some time today to do some sub-conscious munching on the situation (while it may only look like I'm having a beer on a terrace - that's my story and I'M STICKING TO IT, I am!) today, and recover from the shock of the grades, however ready I kept telling myself I was for the news; tomorrow and Sunday will be redrafting a new plan that will include a thorough review of the grammar materials, then I'll remount the study horse and see how far I get.

Oh, and... the Chinese calligraphy? *breathes on nails and buffs them on shirt* 17/20. YIPPEE HOORAY HOORAAAAY!! Whee, and here I was, thinking that because I'd not succeeded in finishing one short answer and got a couple of things incompletely, I could maybe reckon on only 14/20, and would be disappointed if it went below 12/20 (which would still have been a pass, so this was really one class I was confident enough about). Good news, and also a bit of a shock, but a hap-py hap-py one!!

So, commiserate, celebrate and rededicate... I will be a busy girl in the next wee while.

whimper melt

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 14:20:03 GMT

It's definitely Too Hot. And it's been this way since before we got back - in fact, our time in Dublin seemed to coincide perfectly, being about 5 degrees (Celsius) cooler than Belgium.

We're promised some kind of relief by the weekend, thank goodness. I am getting absolutely no studying done in this, *argh* and *jitterjitter* but I'm trying to not let that get too much on top of me, after 2 days of trying to push past 2 hours of study. I'm hoping the absolute rest I've taken today will knock something back into shape, because my study plan didn't have all that much extra room.

A Trip to Dublin

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 06:38:14 GMT

So, one of the reasons for the quiet from these pages has been we've been on a short break to Dublin.

We did things that were more social or atmospheric than touristic, although Mr Sweetie did find out that the Chester Beatty Library had put on a special display, in connection with the millennial birthday of Tale of Genji, of manuscripts of that work from its own collection. Droo-oo-oo-ool!

I also put a beautiful birthday present through its paces - a very recent model of a digital single lens reflex camera. (Alas, no pictures allowed of the exhibits at the Library, but there were many other things to photograph.) I am a bit shocked that I managed to just about half-way fill a 4 GB memory card. Mr Sweetie mentions that we might want to consider moving our entire photo archive, including the images I will be making, over to a dedicated hard disk.

The absolute best thing about the trip was getting to see our old neighbor and still dear friend, Mags. Changes in her life included the expansion of her family with a retired greyhound. This dog was a truly sweet-natured boy, and I was just floored, because I'm a confirmed, dyed-in-the-wool cat-person. He's provided Mags the opportunity to learn (and educate us) about the world of dogs, from the dynamics of the dog-racing industry to the challenges of introducing this new member of her house to the currently residing dog, a rather excitable German Shepherd mix. (A girl... sorry, I know "bitch" is the right word, but it's become so debased through its use as a term of abuse to women that I find it hard to use for its proper function.) Mags has also enjoyed a collateral benefit: through all the walking she does to keep her charges exercised and in good condition, she herself has trimmed down considerably. It truly did our hearts good to see her in such a happy place.

She also organized a party, what was called a "Person's Night In" (as contrasted with the "Girls' Night Out", that we used to do back during our time in Dublin); a nicely-sized party, not quite ten people, only a couple of "us" missing through work or prior commitments (although I did spend a moment to also recall a couple of our other friends who were no longer with us), and a wonderful evening of sitting in a circle, dogs nearby, telling stories and enjoying the company. It was simply wonderful.

I touched base with my old aikido buddies, primarily through a new dojo set up by a teacher who sometimes did substitute work for my main sensei. I was pleased to have a chance to learn from him again, too; a different style, a different "wavelength", but always educational. My main sensei, however, was Off The Mat: his partner had given birth the week before, and I got to pay a visit to the new one on my way to training.

Alas, I only got the one evening in, as I came down with a stinking cold a couple of days after. I was even wiped just taking the bus out to the suburban location of the dojo. *sigh* Well, they were fine with me taking photos, so it was another opportunity to put my new camera through its' paces, so it wasn't a total loss.

Luckily, the cold managed to resolve before we had to board the plane, thank goodness. The whole ear-popping pressurization changes thing was pretty rough as it was; I'd have hated to have gone through that with the sinuses stuffed with goo.

We also visited friends of Mr Sweetie's, lovely people who are the sort who become friends with everyone, not just the work-partner. We ended up seeing them twice, Mags in tow - once at a cook-out, the second time to view a new purchase (from an inheritance) of an honest-to-goodness yacht. "Only" 11 meters long, and we only sat with it still moored at the dock, but.... wow. Wow. Apart from the other-worldliness of being on a boat, there was the living space with its series of cleverly designed space-saving and efficient facilities. Mags was a confirmed land-lubber, but even she enjoyed the tour of the boat and appreciated how someone might want to live on it while using it to travel on waterways from point A to B. And, true to their good natures, our hosts made a cordial invitation to Mags to drop in sometime, with the dogs if she liked; "Great for the kids," they added.

So, not quite "what I did on my summer vacation", since this was only a week, although it is effectively my vacation - back to the study grind, as soon as we've settled all the post-vacation luggage bits and laundry. But, however pleasant our time in Dublin was, I still said, as I crossed our own threshold, "Oost, west; thuis, best." ("East, west; home is best", a/k/a "There's no place like home.") Even if Mags pretty much made her house into a home for us while we were there. A real treasure of a friend!

Liking our town

Fri, 19 Jun 2009 14:34:41 GMT

In the middle of a study break, I realize the sound I'm hearing - screeEE! screeEE! screeEE! screeEE! - is one of a falcon pair, resident in a near-by tower.

(This does have a down-side; we've had the occasional need to clean up a bird carcass left by their feeding... raptors, eh?)

The Purity of Study on One's Own

Thu, 18 Jun 2009 14:46:40 GMT

The previous two days, I had pretty much all to myself for study. Well, yesterday, at the request of Mr Sweetie, I also made a meal.

With some negotiation - he'd thawed a bit of lamb he got on special; but the day was shaping up to become very warm. So, a household negotiation moved "dinner" to "lunch", and I had one break in the middle of a study day. A bit of extra organization, but otherwise, okay.

But today, a friend came over for the morning. (She's entered a work-internship and has suddenly disappeared from the lives of me and our other friends, but today she was free.) And that was good, too - concentrate without guilt on the friend in the morning, back to the study after lunch.

And now.... a relaxing glass of a white wine from Sicily. A moment of calm to share. Dinner sometime in the near future. More study tomorrow. A feeling of gratefulness for the stability and peace around us.

State of the Me

Mon, 15 Jun 2009 09:09:49 GMT

Exams for myself are currently over - a number of my classmates who are taking a full load will be suffering one more week, as they go through the breadth requirement courses of the degree. (I'm saving those for later.)

Now I'm back to a concentrated study - this time for retaking an exam in September. I'll be doing at least the modern history of China one. I'll possibly also be doing one of the language classes' exams; I'm pretty sure I did not pass, and have mentioned before how I am reconciled with repeating that course. On the other hand, if my current result is a near-miss on the pass, I'll put some time into studying for a re-sit on that exam as well. But only if the miss is a near one; otherwise, I'll be happy to give all the language classes a repeat, and not just the practical course.

Service by Phone

Tue, 09 Jun 2009 13:02:04 GMT

Mr Sweetie: "Hello?"
Me: "Hello, Sweetie! This is a phone call to the Hero of the Republic!"
Mr Sweetie: "Oh, look - it's really raining hard outside!"
Me: "Yeah! Actually, that's what I was phoning about! Could you get an umbrella, and bring it to our local bus stop? I'm on a bus from the station, you see..."
Mr Sweetie: "Yes, actually that ought to be possible. But we'll have to get back to the house soon as we can - I'm checking that roof for leaks."

***

And, true to his word, Mr Sweetie was running up to the bus stop just as my bus had pulled in. The rain was still pelting down. But the glass skylight was showing no signs of the flooding that had visited us during the previous 10 liter/second downpours, so in all, we feel it's been a day of feeling relieved - the household analysis of the problem, that leaves had clogged the downspout to the point of letting the water back up and then over into the skylight, was both correct and pointed to a simple, cheap and effective fix. Namely, cleaning the entry to the downspout.

Extra points for my personal hero bringing the brolly, trotting up looking all breezy in a lime green polo shirt contrasting with a bright blue brolly. I was wearing a hand-woven poncho of burgundy and salmon. He handed me the blue brolly, then proceeded to pull out a smaller but bright red one for himself.

I hope we didn't give anyone shopping on the main street a headache from all that color clash.

Reverse psychology

Sun, 07 Jun 2009 14:25:16 GMT

Do folks reading this remember the song with the line "I'm not in love..."

Well, I'm doing this thing, called "I'm not studying." That's the only way I can keep the examination jitters to a reasonable level right now. I've loaded up an mp3 player with language files, and lay on the couch listening to them, open textbook to hand. But I'm not studying, oh no.

(I will be so glad when these damn exams are done with.)

洋随筆 Western Rambles