Moving Day

 Well, it's my last night here.  I spent the entire day with Yohann, helping him move to his new place.  Jason joined us around 5pm and we moved my stuff to my interim place.  We went back to Yohann's and drank French champagne to celebrate.  Then we watched Wall-E.  :-D

Funny how quickly you can become attached to a place.  Even a room like this one which was never really ideal.  It's a good room, warm and spacious, so there's no need to complain.  But with only one window, albeit big, that faces onto the building itself and not the sky, well, it was often dark.  No direct sunlight, only one corner I could stand in and see the trees.  The building wasn't great either, and I often went a week or so without seeing another human being in the hallways or entrances.  A somewhat dark and lonely place.  And I am leaving it.  :-)

Again, I have nothing to complain about, but I do feel like I'm starting over here.  It helped, I think that it wasn't so cold today, and the sun was shining, and Yohann's apartment is big and open and awesome.  He has a huge patio, and there's a TRAP DOOR that leads to his bedroom!  A trap door, people!  Sigh.  I know I'll find a similarly awesome place, but man, trap door bedrooms are a dream...

After tonight I won't have internet at night.  There are various cafes around where I can do some day time surfing, but when things close at 5pm, I'm cut off.  My interim location has no internet.  This is not a comfortable thing, but I bet you I can survive unplugged!  ;-P

Maybe I'll update during the day, or maybe I never will.  Who knows.  So, until we meet agiain.

Almost There

Finding pictures online to put in my blog is too hard.  Takes forever to find what I'm looking for, and then it's always entirely too big.  Too much effort.  So I'll probably go back to boring pictures of myself.  Or nothing at all.

I had a pretty great dream that I went into a café in Leiden and found that my entire family was eating there AND Neil Gaiman was in the corner talking to his agent or publicist or something.  I played it cool, but soon my whole family was talking loudly and laughing and joking with everyone else in the tiny café, so Gaiman finally noticed us.  I managed to stick my elbow in my apple pie, and he gave me a $10 bill to buy a new piece.  I hugged him and thanked him for writing my favorite novel.  Haha, not much of a mysterious dream this time!  :-P

I woke up this morning early to get the key from Janos, who will be my interim flat mate.  I then spent the day, doing stuff.  I guess I got my stuff all packed and ready to go.  And I also almost got my paper finished.  I wrote about 500 words and was really struggling to write any more, so I thought, "I'll finish this sentence and then go to the library to write something fictional for a while."  And then I wrote 600 words, and just need to double check some footnotes and write a conclusion and I'm golden.  Funny how that works.

I sold my tv, and felt entirely too much pain at separating from it.  It's back to a tv-less existence for me.  It's funny how I survived for 5 years without watching more than a Discovery special on Egypt or a football game during the World Cup (ok, LOTS of football games) and suddenly I'm missing my Law and Order.  Oh well, I can write my own episodes if I need to!

So now, it's 9pm and I'm going to bed.  I'm going to read a little (The Graveyard Book, again), and I might just write a little bit.  I'm hoping to start up a re-telling of the story of Selene and Endymion from the perspective of an annoyed moon goddess who just wishes the stupid boy would wake up from his dreams of her and realize she was there.  :-P  (Ok, I admit that in most tellings of the story it was Selene who begged Zeus to bespell the kid so he wouldn't grow old.  But my version makes for more interesting emotion.)

The Lady of Milk and Honey

Neil Gaiman is my favorite author.  A friend of mine read a bit of my fiction and insisted I read everything Gaiman had ever or would ever write.  I listened, and read American Gods, which immediately became my favorite book.  (I've been attempting to Nook it for a while now, but I just never feel up to the task.)

Neil won the Newbery award this week for his newest piece The Graveyard Book.  This morning I listened to an interview on NPR and I was super charged with the NEED to write.  So I tossed on my coat and rushed to the library.  Discovered a new spot with sunlight and a beautiful view of the mini-Romanesque courtyard and the HUGE church.  And I wrote.  And I finished Milk and Honey.

It's 11 pages, and though I'm still in the polishing process, I'm pleased with it.  It's a somewhat dark story, though the telling covers up some of the darkness.  It's a strange thing to write, to know the things my character tries to hide, and to have their memories.  It's harder than I thought to get these thoughts on paper.  Not the effort of choosing the right words, it's the pain of these memories.  

I've been moving my stuff to my new interim location.  I'm homeless, but I have a warm place to sleep, so I'm happy.  I have amazingly good luck with apartments, and I'm sure I'll have an amazing place for pretty cheap before too long.  It's one of my super powers.  :-)

Jason stopped by for dinner and to get his stuff, and Janos is coming over soon to pick up his key.  My room is starting to look empty, and I like it.  I'm going to send home a bunch of my stuff.   I packed for two years, and will only be staying 4 more months.  I want to fit my life into one suitcase again.  :-)

Help Me, Jan!

This is a photo of Jan Assman, one of the most interesting Egyptologists around.  He wrote three or four of the books I'm using right now on my paper about mourning scenes, and will almost certainly be involved in whatever thesis I come to.  Mostly, he writes about death.

This paper is just not getting itself written.  Writer's block, big time.  Thanks to Herr Assman here I know what I want to say, but my thoughts aren't forming themselves into words.  It's like my words are rebelling and just want to party in some fiction somewhere.  Gah.

Oh well, the prof decided he didn't want to wag the papers to Egypt, so we have a little more time.

And speaking of time.  It looks like I'm going to be staying here another semester.  The department won't be able to tell me until March whether another year will be added to my program, and classes start next week.  So, I'm going to sit tight another semester, and if the program here is just one more year, I'll stick around.  If it's another two years, I'll head back to the states.  Then I have a lot of options.  I can't start a masters until the Fall anyway, regardless of what continent I'm on.  So, doesn't that feel better?

February 1st is when Mercury is direct again, and this wacky time of retrograde will be over.  If we can all hold out until Sunday, we'll be fine.

Everything is getting shaken up.  Things are changing big time.  I can feel it in the air, even.  Today it looked like early morning in spring, all day.  All day.  This is going to be quite an interesting spring.

Jubilee

I was looking for a song yesterday that shows off how beautiful Alison Krauss' voice is.  And the one I found is called Jubilee, and is breathtaking.  Here's a YouTube video that has the song as a background.  Ignore the video itself, because it's dumb.  Just listen. 

The sun came up on Monday morn

The world was all in flame

It's all a mortal man can do 

To make it right again

Swing and turn, Jubilee.

Live and learn, Jubilee.

The moon came up, I stood my ground

And swore to not give in

To never rest and do my best

To rid this world of sin

Swing and turn, Jubilee.

Live and learn, Jubilee.

The one who spoke cried tears of hope

That we might change in time

And when I looked into her eyes

The fear I saw was mine

Swing and turn, Jubilee.

Live and learn, Jubilee.

The time had come to travel on

I made my way alone

My soul will mend at journey's end

This road will take me home.

Swing and turn, Jubilee.

Live and learn, Jubilee.

Austin City Limits

So, no I don't have a decision made about where I'm going.  However, I've been doing a touch of research and it looks like Austin Texas has slipped onto my list of options.  

Here's the deal.  They have a dual language major in Germanic Studies.  This means I would take comparative linguistics, or literature, or pedagogy of German and another Germanic language, like, oh, say, Dutch!  

How perfect would that be?  And I've heard only good things about Austin!  Interesting things are happening!

I spent the evening over at Jennifer's and Sören's, enjoying homemade chai tea and some awesome conversation about the problem.  Opportunity.  :-)

I also chatted with Robert today about it, and I realized, I have some amazing options!  Can't complain too much!

The Pen and The Paper are Calling

I've been kidnapped, it would seem, by words.  I woke up late today (was out all night playing with Jan, Walter, Kia, Fike, Cindy, Dessy, and others) and I spent the day in the library reading.  John Connelly short stories (Nocturnes, is the book, I'll Nook it soon.) and a book Jan gave me as a present, Martha Peake.  I came home and read poetry.  By everyone, just poetry.  I'm starving for it.  I need it.  Happy, and sad, and nonsense, I just need it.  I wrote a little too, but mostly I've been riding this wave of words.  

Jan and I had coffee in the library, and we talked about music.  I now have A LOT of new bands to enjoy, and I'm really looking forward to them.  Most of Jan's music seems to have a narrative involved.  The albums tend to be based on stories, or on lost cities that were found, or old haunted houses, or something.  Truthfully, it sets me on fire to think about.  I'm not sure why, but more and more, stories are becoming a flame inside me.  

I've always been a writer, but it's come in flashes and bursts.  When I was a child, I would often have to beg a pen from my father and write words and phrases on whatever I could find around me; napkins, receipts, my own hands.  Sometimes a story would follow me for a while, and I would dash some notes down, but I finished little.  I wrote a lot of poetry, not all of it bad, but the stories weren't the important part. It was just the words, and they way they sounded and felt.

But now there's more.  The idea of a story takes me up and shakes me around.  Maybe I've just lived more life, more complex joys and darker pains, but it's about more than the words now.  And I want to read, ingest, learn learn learn.  I want to have a poem for every situation, I want to read the words of great men long dead.  I don't know why, but I hunger for this more now than I ever have.  And I have long been a lover of literature, of poetry, of paper and ink. 

You Can Fight the Sleep, But Not the Dream

This is Jimmy Buffett.  He is a musician, extremely popular in the States, all but unknown over here.  He sings songs about the beach, about the Caribbean, and about living the good life simply because it's much easier than being miserable.  He's long been a hero of mine, and one of my favorite artists.  I think he's trying to tell me something.  Or the Big U is talking though him, and various people around Leiden.

I was leaving the library and I was feeling really good.  I had been writing for almost three hours, and I had spent an hour with Jan, and I had spent a good amount of time reading scary short stories by an author I had never heard of.  I had also spent my day in the library riding a wave of fascinating research that was beginning to form into a great paper.  In short, I was high on my favorite drug: words.  

Today's weather was pretty wicked bad.  On the way to the library I wondered, as I oft have before, how people survive this place with the cold, and the wind that brings the rain straight at your face.  But I had come to the conclusion that you just live with it, and it stops bothering you.  And so, despite the wind that tried to throw me into the canal, and the rain that got in my eyes, I had a pretty good day.

So, when I stepped out of the public library, surfing on my word high, and the rain and wind were silent, I was feeling even better.  As I walked toward my apartment, I heard someone behind me singing.  I stopped.  I recognized the song, but from where?  He got on his bike and rode past me.  "Julius Caesar, and the Roman Empire, couldn't conquer the blue sky," he sang, and I knew.  "Jimmy Buffett!" I said out loud, and he laughed as he rounded the corner by the church.  But he never turned around.  When I turned the corner, he was gone, disappeared into the dark night.

Now, this would have been just another interesting happening in my life (like the bird house made out of a coconut shell I found in the trees today) except for the song.  It hit me as important, very important.  The lyrics are as follows, with the particularly meaningful lines in bold:

Walking round the room singing Stormy Weather

At 57 Mt. Pleasant Street

Now it's the same room but everything's different

You can fight the sleep, but not the dream

Things ain't cookin in my kitchen

Strange affliction wash over me

Julius Caesar and the Roman Empire

Couldn't conquer the blue sky

Now there's a small boat made of china

It's going nowhere on the mantlepiece

Do I lie like a loungeroom lizard

Or do I sing like a bird released?

Chorus:

Everywhere you go, you always take the weather with you.

So, I was made even happier by this "chance" encounter, and I was thinking about the song, contemplating the lyrics.  I walked by the shop on the corner, and just before I was going to cross the street, a man came out of the store and said to me in Dutch "Well, aren't you going to sing along?"  I turned to him, "What?" and he repeated, "Aren't you going to sing along?"  So I stared at him a second, lost, confused, and then I laughed and said, in Dutch "Yeah, ok I'll sing along."  And I did.

I love stuff like this!  

Last night I had a great dream that a group of people and I were on a journey, a quest.   We had to cross a river of deep greeny black water.  It was evil, somehow I knew there were horrible things in the river, just under the water.  We got to the other side, and the others were getting out of the boat, and I dropped a box, also green, into the water.  Fortunately, it was pretty shallow water, but I couldn't find the box when I dipped my hand in.  This box was vital, for some reason there was something intensely important in that box, and I had to risk a lot to get it back.  Someone with me despaired, but I calmed them. 

 I pulled a necklace from my pocket (one I own in waking life.)  It has green beads, and a golden lotus charm, and it came with a card that says the color "helps us transform ourselves" and the lotus is "a symbol of new beginnings."  When I held the necklace over the water, the lotus glowed a pale green, and the contents of the box also glowed.  I could see the pale green light coming through the water and I dove in to retrieve it.  Someone with me dove in too, and we looked around in the dark water to see if we could see anything else, but there was nothing.  We got out of the water quickly, before anything could find us.

So, perhaps I have my sign(s) at last.  What are they telling me?  Hm....

Inauguration 20.Jan.09

Picture of President Obama being sworn in on the Bible used at President Lincoln's Inauguration.  An interesting time for America.  An interesting time for the world.

Lincoln once said:

"My dream is of a place and a time where America will once again be seen as the last best hope of earth." 

"Our defense is in the preservation of the spirit which prizes liberty as a heritage of all men, in all lands, everywhere. Destroy this spirit and you have planted the seeds of despotism around your own doors." 

"The ballot is stronger than the bullet." 

"The best way to destroy an enemy is to make him a friend." 

"The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew and act anew."

"The people will save their government, if the government itself will allow them." 

"Be sure to put your feet in the right place, then stand firm."

"When I hear a man preach, I like to see him act as if he were fighting bees."  :-)

Jok Evol! (<--I Have No Clue What That Means, and I Should)

Coptic exam dun dun dun.  Aaaaand.... I think it went well.  I don't know what sort of grade I got, because I have no clue how he'll grade, but I'm certain I passed.  Which is good.

I came home, walking slowly in the cold, windy, rain, and I turned on a Zencast lecture and laid on my bed and watched the wind blow the trees and the seagulls around over the red roofs of the town for a while.

I wrote a bit more in my current story.  It's called Milk and Honey, and I still don't know the plot, though I have 8 pages.  This is the story that started writing itself one day, using my fingers.  I seriously got the first sentence in my head and just couldn't stop writing, even though I had no idea what was coming next.  It's still that way, and I'm loving it, though it's gotten slower.  It's like someone else is telling me the story, but where she started using words, she's now using memory, and I have to pluck her words from the memories themselves.  Awesome!

I did a little packing too, even though I have two weeks before the move.  But, hey, I won' wear all my clothes in two weeks, and I had some time.

Around 9 I met up with Yohann and went to the Church.  The Church is a pool hall across the street (sort of like calling a bar "The Library" I guess.)  We played a few rounds of pool (I won, in the end, because he didn't know I had ever played, and I made stupid shots at first (not on purpose) and then started sinking some really nice shots) and went to Olivier to have a beer.  It was a very good time, and I need to hang out with Yohann more often.  He is my oldest friend in Leiden, after all!  And certainly an interesting one!

Come on Back, Mercury

I don't have much to say, really.  NEPE is the preterite, MπPTP is the Jussive (negative), and TAP is the future conjunctive.  That has been my day.

I've discovered that Mercury is in retrograde.  This means that communications aren't working right, and life is basically a big jumble.  Big surprise.

I was up late last night, rather sick from my dinner.  The spices were just disgusting.  I just couldn't toss it out though, there was SO much food.  So, I washed the sauce off all the veggies and put in some good curry and some good (organic) coconut milk, and it was not only edible, but delicious.

I only left my room once today, which never puts me in a great mood.  Not that I'm in bad mood.  I'm just sort of bored.  Gah, too much Coptic. Oh well, it's over tomorrow.  :-)

Lolpod: (though truthfully, I wasn't in public) A commercial for a Dutch crime show.  It's in a kitchen in a Chinese restaurant.  There's a dead man on the floor with a knife wound in his chest, and a woman leaning over him crying loudly.  Four chefs stand nearby, all looking rather guilty.  The cops and ambulance workers are all standing around, and the detective enters.  Famous Dutch detective.  Think Columbo.   So, the Dutch Colombo surveys the scene, the dead man, the woman, the chefs, the bloody knife, two empty glasses of red wine.  Then behind him, the ambulance driver, a rather young, pale fellow, says, "Sir, um, she did it." The woman stops crying and runs away, and the detective looks at the man in surprise.  The announcer says "Holland is getting smarter."  :-)  Watch enough TV, and you'll solve the cases before Columbo!  :-P

If

If you can keep your head when all about you

Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

But make allowance for their doubting, too;

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,

Or, being hated, don't give way to hating,

And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;

If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;

If you can meet with triumph and disaster

And treat those two impostors just the same;

If you can bear to hear the truths you've spoken

Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,

And stoop and build 'em up with worn out tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings

And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,

And lose, and start again at your beginnings

And never breath a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

To serve your turn long after they are gone,

And so hold on when there is nothing in you

Except the Will which  says to them: "Hold on";

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,

Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch;

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;

If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

With sixty seconds' worth of distance run-

Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,

And -which is more- you'll be a Man my son!

--Rudyard Kipling

Going Up!

I didn't get to sleep until entirely too late.  I still managed to get up, somehow. 

At one I met with Janos at the market, and we sat in a warm café and drank some coffee.  It wasn't all that cold outside, just drizzly, and wet, and cloudy, and windy.  The air was warm, but the wind cut through you painfully. We met up with a few of Janos' Romanian friends, and walked around the market for a while.  Janos tried to get his friends to try herring, but they weren't into it.

I tickled the feet of seagulls walking on the awning above my head, and people looked at me like I was nuts.  A good market day.

Afterwards I went to Coffee Star for the same old story.  Irene and Coptic.  Then we went to the grocery.  I made some curried veggies, but it was sort of gross.  The curry sauce was too peppery.  I think I'll add some more coconut milk, that should help.

I had the best dream last night.  I walked from an office and went to find an elevator.  There were 20-3o little statues of the laughing Buddha standing waiting on the elevator.  They were about ankle height, and all colors, some stone, some plastic, some wood, all laughing.  When the elevator door opened, I looked away.  Statues don't move, so I thought they probably couldn't get on the elevator while I was watching.  When I turned around, they were all on the elevator, looking at me expectantly.  I laughed, and got on the elevator, and thanked them for letting me ride along.  They just laughed their silent Buddha laughs, and the doors closed.

Friday 16.January.2009

I got in late last night, and I didn't have internet, so I didn't update.  Now, I will.

I talked to my faculty in the morning.  They said they could shuffle my classes around a bit, but that it would add another year on.  I'm just not sure.

After working in Coffee Star with Irene all day (every now and then she'll whimper in despair, but I'm feeling much better about the exam) I went to Café 't Keizertje with my buds.  It was Walter's birthday, so we met with Jan, Kia, Cindy, Fika, Annalies, a friend of Walters, a friend of Fika's.  We stayed at Keizertje for a while, and then went on a quest for a bar showing a particular football game.  Another girl and I had walked, so we had to jump on the back of bikes.  I love riding on the back, holding on for dear life, watching the world fly by, hoping like heck when Jan falls he falls to the left, and not to the right (which would plunge me backwards into the icy canal!)  He didn't fall.

We spent the next few hours in a rather smoky sports bar.  The team we were cheering for, the Green Guys, I believe, lost.  We broke off into groups.  Kia says the girls always tend to hang together.  I was in the middle of telling him that, for some reason, I always ended up with the men in the group, but I was very much distracted by the ice hockey highlights on the screen behind his head.  He laughed at me.  

Jan and Walter and I got into a few deep conversations about Israel, and about the Pope.  It expanded to Kia, eventually, and it was a grand time.  Lots of views, Pro-Israel, Pro-Palestine, everyone Anti-War.  The conversation broke up when the girls left and the boys and I got a table.  I drank cinnamon tea and Jan burned Kia's cherry tea tea bags, and Walter played with the sugar packets.  Jan and I decided to leave at midnight, and at 2am we were taking pictures of ourselves beside a sign that read "Nobody's Ugly after 2am."  

Lolpods:  Three of them: (1) A little black duck chased another little black (lady?) duck across the canal.  She flew, but the pursuer decided it would be better to run, so he quacked and quacked and ran over the water.

(2) Walking to 't Keizertje, the streets were dark and empty, the air frozen.  In the orangey lamplight, the people looked unreal, distant, dark.  I turned to look behind me and saw a man standing on the bridge in the dusky light.  Suddenly, he began to whistle, the song echoing eerily along the frozen water, the silent building.  The theme from The Good, The Bad and the Ugly.  Complete with "Wa wa wa"'s.

(3) Waiting to cross the street, the car alarm of the car next to me suddenly went off.  (I was three feet away or so, but I must have shifted my weight toward the car.)  I sort of started, and a man walking by whispered to me, "Snel weglopen!" "Quick, run away!" I looked at him and he was smiling at me, a mischievous, goofy smile.

Wine and Swans

I had a great dream last night that I was at a theme/water park and George was there, and we danced, and I followed perfectly, and I finally understood what following means.  There was also a ride, which should have terrified me, or at least sent my heart to my throat, but mostly it just made me smile gently.  There was a man and his young son on the ride, and neither spoke anything like English, but the boy dropped his bear, and I gave it back, and he smiled, and the man did too.

Another day of Coptic with Irene.  I really enjoy her company; she's fun.  Who knows how the test will go.  Monday's the day.

After a day of working, I went to the grocery to get some food.  On the way out the guy who's always there selling the Straat magazine made a funny face at me, and I laughed.  I met up with Jennifer down at Einstein's for a glass of Glühwein and some conversation.  Mostly we talked about the joys and sorrows of being twenty-somethings always on the road.  And laughed, entirely too much.  That's the best part.

On the way home a swan flew over the canal in the darkness, white feathers reflecting off the quicksilver water.

Tomorrow I meet with the faculty.  I hope they either say "No problem, forget these classes, do whatever you want."  or "We've got to kick you out."  Just a concrete answer.  Ja oder nein.

Tired

Talking to Mike la Fille, and she sent me an mp3 of a song inspired by her, and it was like a gust of cool, clean air blowing over my hot, throbbing head.  I remember inspiring a few artists, a painter once, a poet or two.  But it's not really inspiring artists that I miss, it's the artists themselves, the life that flows through them.  Just life flowing around, I guess.  Light, life.  I've become too focused.

I spent the day in the sun spilling through the library windows.  I didn't get anything accomplished.  I went to Coffee Star and met with Irene, a masters student just back from Egypt, and we studied Coptic all day.

I meet with my faculty Friday.  I think I'll have a decision then.  For now, sleep.  I'm tired.  Just tired.

Lolpod:  I forgot to mention the lolpod from a few days ago.  Sure, I'm beset by stress, and dark winter on all sides, but I still laugh loudly and embarrass myself in public now and then!  Walking to the library I noticed a bike propped up on its kick stand.  This is Holland, that's not strange.  What I found hilarious was, this bike was smack dab in the middle of the canal!  The water is frozen solid, but you can't tell that just by looking.  It looks like water, only very very still, not like ice at all.  "That," I thought to myself, "Is Holland.  A bike in the middle of a frozen canal."  By the time I got back with my camera, the bike had fallen over.  I got a picture anyway.  

Today was pretty warm, and there was a vaguely bike-shaped hole in the ice.  Which also made me laugh out loud.  In public.  Of the day.

Actual quote from my mom:  "I think you deserve to call it a night if your converter stems are oozing out of your headache before the the expressed actions get a chance to catch up to the main verb."  Oh, mothers and Coptic.  :-D

Vanity, all is Vanity, and a Chasing After the Wind

Another day on the roller coaster life.  This morning I was certain I should stay.  By this afternoon I was certain I should go.  Now, at least, I'm certain that I'll figure it out.

These next few days might just be dull.  Papers and Coptic.  I have a week before the exam.  I just can't worry, I just have to work.

Jason and I went to Bagels and Beans.  I had strawberry juice, and read the Dutch papers.  Mostly the articles were about Israel and ice.  

Then I thought in my heart,

"The fate of the fool will overtake me also.

What then do I gain by being wise?"

I said in my heart,

"This too is meaningless."

--Ecclesiastes

Why Must the Gods Speak Always in Riddles?

I will never leave this house of light,
I will never leave this blessed town
for here I have found my love 
and here I will stay for the rest of my life.
If this world turns into a sea of trouble
I will brave the waves and steer my mind's ship
to the safe shore of love.

If you are a seeker looking for profit go on
and may God be with you,
but I am not willing to exchange my truth,
I have found the heart and will never leave
this house of light.

--Rumi

Pacing the Cage

Another day waiting for answers.  Everyone keeps telling me to relax and let it come.  So I'm doing just that.  I went to talk to my professor today about my exams.  To pass you need a 5.  I got a 2.3 and a 4.9.  4.9!!  I wish I could upper case numbers!  That means that in addition to the five classes I have next semester, I'll have to memorize the transliterations and the translations of all the texts we did in class.  For both classes.  

I had decided to hang it all up and go home.  But then I got an e-mail about an apartment.  And it's amazing!  22 m2.  Huge windows, lots of light, only 2 flat mates (who were both knitting when I came in), washer, dryer, dish washer, light, gas, water.  Half a block from the store.  Just a few blocks away from school.  Just down the street from where I live now (no crazy moving trip, close to my friends in the building).  All for only €390.  I just don't know.

I have to tell the girl by the end of the week.  She's leaving soon and is desperate.  That's a problem since I don't know that I'll have a decision by then!  Is this apartment a sign?  Gah.

All I can do is focus on wrapping up last semester.  I have a few papers to complete, and Coptic to learn.  I wish I could use Coptic as my yard stick; if I pass I stay, if I don't, I just go.  But the exam isn't until the 20th, which would leave me apartmentless if I stayed, with only a few days to get a new place.  Yargh.

Oh, Inflectional Paradigms of Sahidic Tense-Aspect-Mood Markers, how you vex me.

Sometimes the best map will not guide you

You can't see what's around the bend

Sometimes the road leads through dark places

Sometimes the darkness is your friend

--Pacing the Cage, Jimmy Buffett

Horoscope for Week of 8.Jan.09

"It takes a lot of time to be a genius," said author Gertrude Stein. "You have to sit around so much doing nothing, really doing nothing." I agree with her statement, which is why I have high hopes that you're going to tap into more of your dormant genius in the coming days. The cosmic rhythms are nudging you to enjoy a time of profound slack, and I think there's a good chance you'll agree to that. 

When gasoline prices soared last year, a Christian group called Pray at the Pump organized vigils at gas stations, where they prayed for God's intervention. No one knows if their efforts were the cause, but the cost of gas did begin to plummet soon afterward. Inspired by their work, I have asked my team of non-denominational Prayer Warriors to gather in your behalf. Every evening for the next ten days, they will be calling on their connections with the Divine Wow to help you Sagittarians come up with smart and practical long-term plans for your financial well-being. On your end, you can supercharge their efforts by doing the appropriate research and meditation. 

Changes in 2009

The Holidays are over.  The New Year has begun.  I'm still jet lagged from my trip.  Extremely jet lagged.  I arrived in Leiden on Friday, and by 4pm I was asleep.  I woke up again at 11am Saturday.  Last night was even worse.  I went to bed at midnight, and I woke up at 8pm.  Pm.  Eight at night.  I slept 22 hours, and I'm feeling a bit strange.  I think I'm getting sick.

The New Year has begun, and everything is changing.  I'm very seriously considering leaving the Netherlands.  This semester has been one of my worst ever, if not the worst.  I've worked harder than ever, and I have not done well.  I've tried and tried to love this place, and I have failed.  I have been trying to decide how much harder I should fight, and I've almost decided it's time for a little retreat.  To get ahead.

I'm still not entirely sure what my plan is.  If I do leave Leiden, it will be by the end of this month.  I will go home and I'll work (and play) and find another program for myself.  Somewhere.

I might go back to Berlin for Egyptology.  I might go to Austin, Texas for Egyptology.  I might go to Berkley, California for German.  I might go anywhere else in the world for just about anything else.  Egyptology, German, Journalism.  The answers will come.

The traveler in me is holding on furiously to Europe.  Part of me believes that the center of the world is here, and that anywhere else is just on the edge.   But the traveler in me says "Wait."  Since being here in Leiden I've been tied to my room, tied to the library, tied to the classroom.  I've been working too hard.  I'm not afraid of working hard, but I'm human, and I need time to myself, to relax.  I haven't had that here.  The time has come for something else.

I'm sad about the decision.  I hate giving up, even if it's the best for me.  I hate to leave my friends here.  They're all that has kept me together through this crazy time.  If it hadn't been for my friends, I would have run screaming from this place a long time ago.  The weather alone has been enough to send me reeling.  But, I have to do what's best.  So, I'm moving on.  Somewhere else.  But I don't know where I'm bound.

New Year Predictions

"God calls you to the place where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet," wrote Frederick Buechner. You're free to ignore that call, of course. You can pretend that you don't really know what brings you deep gladness, and you can act as if the world's deep hunger is of no concern to you. But if you hope to be proud of the life you have lived when, many years from now, you shed your mortal coil, I advise you to at least experiment with using Buechner's formula as a working hypothesis. The coming year will be en excellent time to do just that. 

"Dear Rob: I have followed my nose most of my life, weaving from pleasurable diversion to interesting crisis and back. I've honestly had a great time and wouldn't change a thing. But lately I've been getting strong hints from life that maybe the game is changing for me. More and more I'm feeling like the grasshopper in that old fable -- you know, with no resources stored up and winter coming on fast -- while all the steady, hard-working ants are sitting pretty. So here's my question: Do I really have to stop enjoying myself and get down to business, whatever that means? Are there any real jobs for grasshoppers? - Shaky Sagittarius." Dear Shaky: If there will ever in your life be a time when you could figure out how to be both a grasshopper and ant simultaneously, it will be in 2009. Start meditating on how to get the best of both worlds.