Somehow, chatting on Skype with JM in Cambodia damaged my productivity and during two and a half hours of morning in the office, all I did was three pages (not even!) on the Lutheranian Reformation and the beginnings of the literary development with the Sorbs of Lusatia. Which is really interesting but it being in German doesn't help.
16 February 2006
13 February 2006
Things
AL thinks I should update, so here goes.
Lots of things have been happening, but then again, not really. Sounds paradoxical, but that’s how it feels. There’s disagreement over a complaint letter to EUSA about the ceilidh fiasco, we moved AF’s belongings up four flights of stairs in Tesco carrier bags (skip!), and the joint New Scotland and Dunedin team won the display at the Newcastle Festival. Probably because I was injured and couldn’t participate.
I had an ‘aargh!’ session at Language in Context on Wednesday, and it seems like they didn’t understand why I needed to go ‘aargh!’. I have my topic, I have my case studies, I have my hypotheses, I have my methodology, I have an idea of my sources – what was I complaining about... I guess I needed people to tell me what I needed not to focus on. Fair enough.
The Olympics have started and so far have been going relatively to my liking. Generally the nice people win, the not-so-nice people don’t. I got a wireless card for my laptop, not quite with the purpose of being able to watch the NOS’s live streams in the office, but it’s a nice extra. It has the nasty habit of kicking me off a couple of times during the day but I can deal with that.
In between all of that I’ve been trying to sort out this humongous feelings thing. The whole MG and TT thing may not have helped much in that department, there’s been a lot of theory input that I’m not sure about. MG’s theory about liking being a spontaneous feeling but loving being a conscious act may be supported by the θ-roles required by the Faroese verbs dáma and elska, but I’m not sure it is that simple. Then there’s the thing MG said to me a couple of weeks ago: I deserve someone who’s going to make me the centre of his universe. Yay! I would like to be the centre of someone’s universe. But doesn’t that implicate that I have to make that someone the centre of my universe? I don’t know that I have the attention span to do that. I guess that’s what MG means by loving being a conscious act. On the whole, I’m a bit worried about the whole idea of ‘Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country’. I’m not confident I will be able to do enough.
On a more abstract level, I just don’t know what all these things that I feel mean. (How MM’s quote that hangs over my desk as a reminder to not just take any explanation for given, gets additional meaning here...) But maybe I shouldn’t want meaning and should just go with what I feel. But will I ever get past dáma then?
WB left a copy of the novella Brokeback Mountain on his desk in the office, so I read that during ice prep breaks on Sunday. After the movie hype, I found it a bit disappointing. I guess if you expect a lot you let yourself no other option than to be disappointed. I think the biggest downpoint was that the whole thing again started with sex. Oh, it’s cold, well sod those sheep and come into my sleeping bag, they shag. I just don’t have that drive and constantly getting messages of physically initiated relationships makes me feel inadequate. I liked Willem Melchior’s De onhuwbaren so much better. Sure, there was this physical side there as well, but it was much more about the emotional and mental side. Of course it is also ten times as long as Brokeback Mountain so more space, my expectations weren’t as high, I gave it my full attention and was probably in a better mood when I read it. Gosh, it sounds like I hated Brokeback Mountain. I don’t... It just doesn’t portray my feelings. (The movie’s got Heath Ledger in, so possibly better than the book.)
I had a Skype chat with JM this morning. Don’t remember exactly what she said but it supported me a lot in what I was thinking. I need to figure out what I want to happen, and then try to make it happen. (JA told me something along those lines last year with the whole DJ thing, and it isn’t as easy as it sounds.)
Jag hoppas att du havt något att läsa... men nu måste du tillbaka till ditt arbete! :)
Lots of things have been happening, but then again, not really. Sounds paradoxical, but that’s how it feels. There’s disagreement over a complaint letter to EUSA about the ceilidh fiasco, we moved AF’s belongings up four flights of stairs in Tesco carrier bags (skip!), and the joint New Scotland and Dunedin team won the display at the Newcastle Festival. Probably because I was injured and couldn’t participate.
I had an ‘aargh!’ session at Language in Context on Wednesday, and it seems like they didn’t understand why I needed to go ‘aargh!’. I have my topic, I have my case studies, I have my hypotheses, I have my methodology, I have an idea of my sources – what was I complaining about... I guess I needed people to tell me what I needed not to focus on. Fair enough.
The Olympics have started and so far have been going relatively to my liking. Generally the nice people win, the not-so-nice people don’t. I got a wireless card for my laptop, not quite with the purpose of being able to watch the NOS’s live streams in the office, but it’s a nice extra. It has the nasty habit of kicking me off a couple of times during the day but I can deal with that.
In between all of that I’ve been trying to sort out this humongous feelings thing. The whole MG and TT thing may not have helped much in that department, there’s been a lot of theory input that I’m not sure about. MG’s theory about liking being a spontaneous feeling but loving being a conscious act may be supported by the θ-roles required by the Faroese verbs dáma and elska, but I’m not sure it is that simple. Then there’s the thing MG said to me a couple of weeks ago: I deserve someone who’s going to make me the centre of his universe. Yay! I would like to be the centre of someone’s universe. But doesn’t that implicate that I have to make that someone the centre of my universe? I don’t know that I have the attention span to do that. I guess that’s what MG means by loving being a conscious act. On the whole, I’m a bit worried about the whole idea of ‘Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country’. I’m not confident I will be able to do enough.
On a more abstract level, I just don’t know what all these things that I feel mean. (How MM’s quote that hangs over my desk as a reminder to not just take any explanation for given, gets additional meaning here...) But maybe I shouldn’t want meaning and should just go with what I feel. But will I ever get past dáma then?
WB left a copy of the novella Brokeback Mountain on his desk in the office, so I read that during ice prep breaks on Sunday. After the movie hype, I found it a bit disappointing. I guess if you expect a lot you let yourself no other option than to be disappointed. I think the biggest downpoint was that the whole thing again started with sex. Oh, it’s cold, well sod those sheep and come into my sleeping bag, they shag. I just don’t have that drive and constantly getting messages of physically initiated relationships makes me feel inadequate. I liked Willem Melchior’s De onhuwbaren so much better. Sure, there was this physical side there as well, but it was much more about the emotional and mental side. Of course it is also ten times as long as Brokeback Mountain so more space, my expectations weren’t as high, I gave it my full attention and was probably in a better mood when I read it. Gosh, it sounds like I hated Brokeback Mountain. I don’t... It just doesn’t portray my feelings. (The movie’s got Heath Ledger in, so possibly better than the book.)
I had a Skype chat with JM this morning. Don’t remember exactly what she said but it supported me a lot in what I was thinking. I need to figure out what I want to happen, and then try to make it happen. (JA told me something along those lines last year with the whole DJ thing, and it isn’t as easy as it sounds.)
Jag hoppas att du havt något att läsa... men nu måste du tillbaka till ditt arbete! :)
05 February 2006
Quotes
From Alexander McCall Smith’s The Sunday Philosophy Club, translation by Annemieke Oltheten — chapter 4, p. 49.
Het was misschien eenvoudiger, peinsde ze, om jezelf niet toe te staan verliefd op iemand te worden; om gewoon alleen te blijven, immuun voor pijn die jou door een ander wordt aangedaan. Er waren een heleboel van zulke mensen die tevreden leken met hun leven – of misschien toch niet? Ze vroeg zich af hoeveel van deze mensen vrijwillig alleen leefden, en hoeveel er alleen waren omdat er nooit iemand in hun leven was gekomen die hen van hun eenzaamheid af had geholpen. Er was een verschil tussen een berustende acceptatie van een eenzaam leven, en een bewuste keuze om alleen te blijven.
The (tacky 1980s) chorus from Freiheit’s Keeping the dream alive (1989).
The hopes we had were much too high,
Way out of reach but we had to try.
No need to hide, no need to run,
’Cause all the answers come one by one.
The game will never be over
Because we’re keeping the dream alive.
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