Sunday, October 29, 2006

Thursday, October 26, 2006

This silence is so loud.

To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket -- safe, dark, motionless, airless -- it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell.

C. S. Lewis, The Four Loves

Thursday, October 19, 2006

Maybe it's because it looks like Harry Potter could live there.


Words cannot describe how much I adore this house. From the outside, that is. I'm sure if I ever saw the inside, the whole thing would be demystified. It belongs to the university, and it's the Nash House, whatever that means. I have no idea. I almost plough over pedestrians every time I drive down 16th because I am so enchanted by this house and I fail to pay attention to my driving. But it's just so, mm, cottagey? I just think it's adorable. So today when I was taking a different route home from a meeting at Alexander Hall, I rummaged through my bag and found my camera so that I could take a picture. Maybe now pedestrians won't be in so much danger. But I doubt it.

Tuesday, October 17, 2006

Thank you for riding the Raven.

Twenty-three is the age that scares me. It is the threshold of oblivion. It is the age when the numbers start to blur. Or perhaps that was twenty-two. If twenty-two was the apex of the hill on the roller coaster, twenty-three is the initial descent. I know it sounds like I am describing turning forty and rolling over the hill. Maybe forty is that big drop with lots of air-time, but this twent-three that I am contending with now is that first teaser hill. The one that makes you realize there's no turning back.

I don't really like roller coasters that much.

And I never thought that age would bother me. Age ain't nothin' but a number, right? Maybe so, but if time passes without fail twenty-four hours each day, these numbers start to add up. How did all these "sands through hourglass" pile up so quickly, and who is shoveling them? Call me Hootie (or the Blowfish, if you prefer), but I don't want to believe in Time. Just thinking about it is enough to make me hold my breath -- an attempt to slow things down.

But as for the age of twenty-three itself, well, I don't know. It's less about feeling older and more about being more aware of time. But so far, I can't say it's wonderful. In the course of the few days since my birthday, I've suffered several minor set-backs involving everything from inexplicable numbness in my hand (they all say it'll pass) to a series of road detours that made me feel like I was in a maze with no exit.

Surely it will get better.

No I'm not colorblind
I know the world is black and white
I try to keep an open mind
But I just can't sleep on this tonight

Stop this train
I want to get off
And go home again
I can't take the speed it's moving in
I know I can't
But honestly, won't someone stop this train?

Don't know how else to say it
I don't want to see my parents go
One generation's length away
From fighting life out on my own

Stop this train
I want to get off
And go home again
I can't take the speed it's moving in
I know I can't
But honestly, won't someone stop this train?

So scared of getting older
I'm only good at being young
So I play the numbers game
To find a way to say that life has just begun

Had a talk with my old man
Said "help me understand"
He said "turn sixty-eight"
"You'll renegotiate"

"Don't stop this train
Don't for a minute change the place you're in
And don't think I couldn't ever understand
I tried my hand
John, honestly we'll never stop this train"

Once in a while, when it's good
It'll feel like it should
And they're all still around
And you're still safe and sound
And you don't miss a thing
Till you cry when you're driving away in the dark
Singing
Stop this train
I want to get off
And go home again
I can't take the speed it's moving in
I know I can't
Cause now I see I'll never stop this train

"Stop This Train," John Mayer

Wednesday, October 11, 2006

Calm between storms

Thank God midterms are over. I can't believe it's already time for the homestretch, though. Things aren't looking too terrible, though. For the first time ever in my life -- I think -- I got all As at midterm. I don't know whether to be proud or scared. Final grades are never the same as they are at midterm.

With all this new-found time in the wake of midterm, I'd like to welcome back The Loose Association.

Sunday, October 08, 2006

Thursday, October 05, 2006

Get ready


This camera -- or one similar -- with be mine come this weekend. It will be nice to have a good digital back in my hands. Oh, the places we will go.