The dark house is once again mine. It doesn't matter who's house I'm in, the darkness and the silence are the important parts. I am sitting in the computer room of my grandparent's house. It is late and the house has gone to bed. Except for me. The nighttime is my own. I am limited only by my imagination, bound only by the silence that I must not break. The silence is soothing, comforting. I am trying to figure things out (always a dangerous thing to do, especially late at night). I've been trying to figure things out all day. Nothing has come. The future is a strange thing, indefinite and inexorable. It will be, and yet it is whatever we make it to be. I have too much running through my head, all of which would make even less sense than what I've already put down does. I wish I had the ability to speak freely, to say whatever is on my mind, anytime and anywhere. It seems that it would be easier to learn to control what one says, than to learn to speak. The words are rarely there when I want to say them. Perhaps that is why poetry comes rather easily at times. What I cannot vocalize I scribble down on a pad of paper, halting and impassioned.

The best things in life are nearest: Breath in your nostrils, light in your eyes, flowers at your feet, duties at your hand, the path of right just before you.

 

 -Robert Louis Stevenson, novelist, essayist, and poet
(1850-1894)

Something to remember during these hectic days of family visits, and holiday merry-making...

My love and prayers to you all during this blessed season. I am looking forward to rejoing the computer world again...it is getting just a tad lonesome without you all.

 

It is amazing what one can miss while sleeping in the car. The California wine country is alluring (trying to expand my vocabulary) in its own way. Green rolling hills, and vineyard streaching away from the road and up the hills to the north and west. I have somehow managed to be asleep through that streach of the drive the last few times I've been up this way. I was reminded of the movie A Walk in the Clouds with Keanu Reeves. There is something rather appealing about vineyards. (I think I've watched too many movies)

I am looking at close to three weeks of internet deprivation, and I can think of nothing to write. Finals are over, and I don't really want to revisit them, even to complain. I am not really sure what to expect from the break, so I'm not going to go on about how wonderful it will all be. I plan to keep something of a scribble book so I'll have plenty to say after the fact. I am feeling strangly emotionally void and not very much inclined to ramble on about things.

However this will not prevent me from wishing you all a blessed Christmas and a happy New Year. Mayhap I will be on sooner than I expect and and in a more holiday mood.
Ciao...

All pau. done. finished. no more. And strangly enough, no feeling of relief, no sense of accomplishment, just a tired feeling of "I really could have done better."

I think I am going to wait until Sunday to post anything more, or I'll simply sound depressed.

Three down, three to go.

Now for some sleep.

FINALS!!!!!!!!

And that is all I have to say....for now.

(excerpt from letter written 9 Dec)

I stopped by the Career Center this morning after classes and talked to M. K. for a bit about grad schools. I told him that I was looking at environmental sciences, but I really don't know where to look for them. He said a web search would be a start and that he'd look into it as well. I know it's kinda early to start looking, but judging from how quickly this past semester went it certainly won't hurt. From the way the grad program requirements look, I will probably have to get a B.S. before being able to get an M.S. But who knows, perhaps a BS will be enough... I haven't looked very extensively, but it would be likely that I'd stay here in Cali (San Fran State University has an interesting Biology department, although I'm sure that it is extremely liberal...)
K. also said that they are planning to expand the summer internship program, so I might be able to get a job in the field I am looking at, which would be great. Not only would I be able to see if I would really like it, I'd also have something really good to add to my sparse resume.

It was so gorgeous yesterday afternoon. the fog had rolled in, thick and high covering the hills and creeping up the mountains 'til they were gone, getting caught in the trees and the hill crests. It looked as though the hills themselves were rising out of the mist - so surreal. I looked out and felt as though I didn't belong to the mortal world at all, the slight wind, the cool dampness, the colors beyond description. Perhaps those poor people who think they are actually elves have something to their claim... I wanted to step through whatever barrier it was that kept me tied to the ground and within this humdrum, prosaic little circle of things, and walk into the beauty I was seeing, become one with it... (just fancy that, plain brown me, part of the breathtaking aching beauty of nature. you know something, I think that is why I want to go into environmental science...so I can perhaps find a way to do just that...) I'm so ridiculous, but it hurts to remember how awe inspiring it all looked...

sigh, and now back to your regularly scheduled reality...

The rain is coming down soft and gentle. Outside the window of my computer haunt, the hills to the west are opaque through the mist that is rolling up the valley. I feel tired but relatively happy. There are no classes tomorrow, and seminar tonight was "postponed." I should feel disappointed that I won't get to discuss the end of Augustine's Confessions, and see how the book all ties together. But that would require cramming to finish it without falling asleep...as it is, I will finish it tomorrow, at my leisure.
Finals begin on Saturday. I don't know how I am going to do. We have not gotten any review guides, and I am feeling extremely undirected. I go back over the year in my mind, and think "We haven't done that much... No wait, we have - I just don't remember it all..."

*sigh*

However, the paper is over, seminar is canceled, and there are no classes tomorrow...
I don't have a care in the world...

*sigh*

Four months of work have been brought to fulfillment in a mere hour and a half. Why is it that things you work so hard for pass so quickly? Take a meal for instance. You can spend an entire week preparing and cooking, and the whole thing takes perhaps a couple of hours to eat (the conversation lasts, hopefully, much longer than that). Well, its the same way with a concert. You practice and practice, and just because you of course don't have anything better to do, you practice some more. You listen to the work on CD for extra re-enforcement. And then the big night, and suddenly you are up there in front of everyone and the music starts and you murmur a silent prayer that you can remember all of the entrances and don't hit any wrong notes (especially in that one number that has been giving you trouble...) You stand, watching and listening (trying not to let it show on your face that your feet are now ready to commit suicide in protest for putting them in those ridiculous shoes). Look out at all the people, seeing who is interested, who is just there. Glance at the clock, amazed that you are almost done, it is the last song, and you still feel like you just walked up onto the risers. Heart still beating hard, the last note held and cut, all in unison. And then the applause, heralding an odd, sad-ish feeling into the very bottom of the heart. Its all over, bow. Sing the encore. Bow, its all over.
There ought to be more to show for all that work...something I can hold and keep (other than a sore throat ;-)

Just for the record, I am planning to do something else with my time next semester... piano lessons perhaps, or judo...

I'm curious...

There was a rainbow on the table in class this afternoon. I'm not really sure where it came from, though I think it was lost. It looked so small and forlorn, and rather undernourished, come to think of it. Perhaps it lost its way on the journey south for the winter and was taking a rest in the warm sunlight, inside safe from the chill wind. I watched it for a while and gradually it seemed to brighten and pick up a bit more color. Once it felt better, I watched it wander back out the window and continue it's travels south.