Day 5

Okay, this is the day you've been waiting for -- the one with all the touristy photos! During the Thursday morning sessions back on St. Giles' Street, we were eager to discuss what we'd picked up from the conference the day before, get difficult points clarified, and generally put in our two cents to an audience that would actually listen to us. Namely, ...us. Still, we were surprisingly restless. At our 10:30 coffee break, we cornered Dr. Giordano and asked him how he envisioned the layout for the rest of the day.

"Oh, well, I was thinking we should talk some more about the conference and see what other questions you all have, but it occurred to me that it would be good to give the students some time to actually enjoy the town---"

"Oh yes!! ...er, I mean -- sure, that sounds good." (This is a direct quote. I was not very subtle.)

That day, we went crazy. Possibly the sustained brilliance of an eight-hour Oxfordian symposium had temporarily cured us of our need for brainiac stuff. At any rate, I was certainly ready to lower my brow considerably. Dr. Giordano had scarcely closed the last morning session when I announced to everyone that I was organizing a small group to go on a walking tour of the colleges and everyone was welcome. "After that," I said, "we're going to split up for a bit of souvenir shopping, then we'll head back to St. Hilda's around 5pm and go punting!"

"Do what?" asked Dr. Scruton, a little taken aback.

"Punting!" I announced confidently. (We'd planned this out amongst ourselves over breakfast. At any rate, I knew I would be sitting comfortably in the boat with someone else doing the work.)

"And who do you have lined up to punt for you?" We all looked at Jim Donahue, one of the IPS students, and smiled proudly. Jim looked concerned. "Ever punted before, son?"

"Uh, no..."

"Right. Let me give you a few tips." And Dr. Scruton launched into a long, detailed description of proper Oxford punting form, all of which sounded a bit obscure to me and difficult to translate from theory into action. Dr. Scruton's quiet, ironic smile throughout his explanation was a pretty fair sign he expected to hear all about Jim's dunking come Friday morning.

To my surprise, Jim began looking more confident. "Oh, that's all right. That sounds a lot like trolling a boat for crayfish. My brothers and I do that down in Louisiana every summer." Heh. Two points to Jim. We were going to be fine.

After wolfing down our lunches, we sprinted down Broad Street, still munching grapes and cheese, in time to catch the 1pm 'Official Oxford Walking Tour' ("See beautiful, ancient buildings, places inaccessible to the public! Less than a half-mile of walking!"), umbrellas stashed in our packs just in case. The tour took us through the chapels, refectories, quads, and cloisters of several different colleges; we saw the schools of Chesterton, William Morris, and Lawrence of Arabia (whose portrait in the refectory hall looked amazingly like Peter O'Toole. Go figure.) We saw where they filmed various scenes from the Harry Potter films; (they shot the infirmary scenes in the Bodleian library, the cads.) Sadly, my camera battery gave out half-way through, but you get the idea:

(The girls I went on the tour with. That's Melanie Baker and SuLi Lee in the front in blue, both from IPS, and Neha in the white sweater -- one of the senior scholar/med students.)

(The "Oxford Bridge of Sighs." We asked the tour guide about its significance: "Just a nifty way to join two buildings.")

This is a very old, very narrow alleyway, called "St. Helen's Passage." (I'm not sure if you get the idea of just how narrow this is from the photo; two people walking side-by-side would scrape the walls with their shoulders.) At the end is one of the oldest pubs in Oxford, which, sadly, we didn't have a chance to visit...

Entering through the front gate of the first college. They had smaller people back then. (Melanie and SuLi are both about 5'2".) As the guide pointed out, the oldest colleges were built like castles and with the same kind of fortress-like protection -- the reason for the original "quad" -- because when the colleges were first established in the town of Oxford, the townsfolk rioted and killed 63 students. It's not clear to me why; they just didn't like living in a college town, I guess...

Through the low front gate, out into the courtyard --er, quad-- and voila! This, I think, is University College, one of the three oldest colleges in Oxford, built in the mid 1200's. Like all the others, it belonged to a particular religious order, since it was only priests and male religious who were this educated back then. It really does feel like a cross between a castle and a monastery.

Looking out from the hall into the second, smaller quad-like area, called the cloister. This was an area to meditate, pray, and study in.

See that huge, ancient oak there, in the center of the cloister? Here's a closer look:

Should look familiar to Harry Potter fans. Apparently, something happens to Voldemort under that tree... I'm kinda vague. Any ideas, Karen?

Back outside the college walls and on our way to another. I'll upload the remaining photos to a web album and post it here soon; it's sort of more of the same. :)

Well, this post is already huge, and there's still stories of punting and an outdoor Shakespeare play in the evening that went horribly awry. Stay tuned for Part II!

Postlude?

My interlude has luded long enough. But it's late tonight and I procrastinated, so I'll finish my Oxford saga tomorrow, when I can use that to procrastinate from my dissertation reading. (When do I do my diss reading? When I have a report to write, of course! As some wiseacre said, you know you're a grad student when you procrastinate on one project by working on another.)

Meanwhile, something good I found over at dotCommonweal today, thanks to the IC link. (*waves* Hi, Margaret!)

"This Sunday’s Gospel, continuing the consecutive reading of the sixth chapter of St. John’s Gospel, contains the statement of Christ in response to the grumbling crowd: “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draw him.” (I note in passing that the politically correct “I Am the Bread of Life” has transmogrified this into “unless the Father beckon”, apparently in order to avoid the masculine personal pronoun.)

In their commentaries on this statement, Augustine and Aquinas explored at some length how to reconcile the fact that faith must be free and the statement that no one can come to Christ (which means believe in him) unless drawn dragged, pulled by the Father. Both of the saints point out that the verb implies some degree of violence. If one has to be dragged to Christ, how can faith be free?

By pure coincidence, while thinking about my homily for this Gospel, I read an article in the London Tablet by Fr. Daniel O’Leary which ends with his quoting some lines from Denise Levertov’s poem “The Thread.” I was delighted to see how Christ’s metaphor informs the whole of what I take to be her description of her poetical and religious journey:

Something is very gently,
invisibly, silently,
pulling at me-a thread
or net of threads
finer than cobweb and as
elastic. I haven’t tried
the strength of it. No barbed hook
pierced and tore me. Was it
not long ago this thread
began to draw me? Or
way back? Was I
born with its knot about my
neck, a bridle? Not fear
but a stirring
of wonder makes me
catch my breath when I feel
the tug of it when I thought
it had loosened itself and gone."

Interlude

Sorry, no new updates today. Torrential downpours and whatever kind of crazy front activity is responsible for tornado warnings in the next county have rendered my joints unusuable. Back tomorrow!

(And tomorrow is the day with all the photos. heh heh)

Day 4

This was the day of the conference. (These posts are getting absurdly long, so I'll try to rein in a bit!)

After a hasty breakfast, we all made the long walk to the conference center in our business suits and high heels. (I carried mine in a bag and tried to slip into them unobtrusively at the conference.) It's a good thing that in my old age (heh), I've gotten past the point of wanting my surroundings to match my romantic expectations; though everything we did this week was technically "in Oxford", we did nothing in beautiful old buildings. Our daily classes were held in an upper room of a little row house. The conference was held at a brand-spanking-new, glass-fronted hall which had been built into the space between Black Friar's and some other equally ancient and beautiful building. I have no idea why builders think this is a valuable contribution to the town.

The conference was divided into four sections, each on a particular theme and consisting of two lectures which approached the theme from different angles. Loosely speaking, you could describe the themes as "Philosophy vs. Neuroscience on: Mind, Aesthetics, Spirituality, and Psychology." They were all fascinating, and I was happy to find I could follow a good portion of them. My back couldn't tolerate the uncomfortable plastic chairs, so the porter kindly brought in a more padded chair for me at a coffee break.

I made it through lunch and into the third section when I decided I'd had enough for a while and went to lie down in a friend's hotel room at the Randolf. (That was fun, by the way: this is a gorgeous, old, expensive hotel in the heart of Oxford. I tried to walk in with an air of someone who belonged there, but it was tough not to stare at everything around me. Want a picture? :)


Now THAT is a hotel! It sits at the corner of St. Giles and Beaumont Street -- the Centre for Philosophical Psychology is just down the street to the right.)

During the wine-and-chat session after the conference was over, we met a girl from the States who'd been studying at Oxford for several years; she joined our crew and recommended a great restaurant for dinner, where they were famous for their English sausages. I had venison, juniper, and gin sausages on a bed of mashed potatoes -- "bangers and mash." Yum. (Not so many vegetables at these places, incidentally. Regina tried to order a salad and they looked at her like she had two heads.)

Afterwards, we all trouped back to St. Hilda's with the leftover bottles of wine Professor Scruton had insisted we take away with us. The men of the group disappeared off to their own devices, while the women crowded together in one of the dorm rooms, drank wine out of plastic cups, and talked for hours. Two of the senior scholars -- Rachel and Neha -- were med students; when I complained of the pain and tightness in my shoulders, Rachel immediately set out to give me a massage, while Neha analyzed the structure of my neck and talked about "lateral dislocation of the C7 vertebra". This launched a diagnostic procedure that involved poking my hands and arms with pins in various places and a heated debate between the two of them over whether it was C7 or C5, as Rachel maintained. It was great fun. I asked them afterwards if they wanted to read my palms.

Day 3

This post, for a switch, will be much shorter. Morning classes were much like the first day, though a little less packed information-wise. We began to discuss the different issues that would be coming up in the conference, scheduled for the following day.

I should mention that there were about 10 people in the class: five "junior scholars" from IPS (meaning we were only doing one academic credit-worth of work) and five "senior scholars" -- not from IPS -- who were taking the course in conjunction with a major research project or thesis. These were primarily students of Dr. Giordano (who, in addition to teaching at IPS, teaches at Georgetown and is involved in editing countless academic journals and running various international forums. You know -- in his spare time). The senior scholars stayed for individual tutoring sessions with the professors in the afternoon to work on their papers, in the true Oxford style, while the rest of us hob-nobbed around the town. The two groups kept mostly to themselves for the first part of the week, and we were pretty fairly divided between the philosophical (us) and the scientific (them). Happily, we began joining one another's tables for breakfast in the mornings and walking to classes together, and we were fairly well bonded by the end. Great people, all of them.

This was the worst day for my back, sadly. All the travelling and suitcase-maneuvering and sleeping on a poor mattress before sitting for hours in class was getting to me. Around lunchtime, my back seized up so badly it looked like I could be spending the rest of the week flat on my back in the dorm. Obviously, this could not happen. After lunch, I made my way down High Street and found an aromatherapy shop that offered massages. A sweet elderly lady with dyed blonde hair and a gentle, lilting voice assured me that she had been a registered nurse for 50 years and she'd find a way to work me in. Ten minutes later I was on my stomach getting a really first-class massage. With my face pressed down into the paper towel covering the headrest, I listened to her prattle on about the lovely things there were to do in Oxford -- sadly, I didn't know the whereabouts of any of the places she mentioned, but I tried to keep a mental list to look them up later: botanical gardens, organ concerts in chapels, outdoor Shakespeare plays, baroque concerts by candlelight, and on and on.

I left feeling still amazingly sore, but much more limber -- that is, I could actually swing my arms as I walked. I sat through evening classes then took a taxi back to St. Hilda's and called it a night. I vowed it would be the last night I would spend "in College" lying around the dorm!

Day 2

...I'm afraid my details get a little sketchy here -- the first few days are running together a bit in my mind, but I'll do my best!

This was our first real day in Oxford -- our first day as Visiting Scholars, mind you, not tourists. This is an important distinction, since the town was inexplicably packed with high school students from every country imaginable. We gathered that the colleges were hosting summer events to draw prospective students, but we grumbled at the unexpected Spring-Break feel they gave to the place. Fortunately, they seemed to stick primarily to the main shopping areas of the town; unfortunately, those were exactly the parts of town we walked through every day. Eventually, the other students and I managed to find a detour to our building on Beaumont Street -- one which took us along the ancient walls of the city, past 17th-century row houses and tiny alleyways, until the road suddenly widened and dumped us out in front of the Bodleian Library and the Sheldonian Theater on Broad Street. We liked this route. :)

Now, as a Visiting Scholar, you must appreciate that I had a reputation to maintain -- that of the not-tourist. As such, I didn't take any photos at all until we broke down on Thursday and indulged in as many touristy things as we could cram into one afternoon. But that comes later.

However, for your viewing pleasure, here are pictures from that morning commute, taken later in the week:




Better? Okay.

One of the neatest things about Oxford is just how much people rely on bicycles to get around -- they made up about 40% of the traffic, and shared the road equally with the cars. Several streets in the heart of the town are closed to most motor vehicles, so bicycles are especially in abundance there. Our morning route took us through one of those streets. My favorite sight was a small pack of 7 or 8 people on bikes, all dressed for work or a class, stopped at a red light waiting for a lorry to squeeze through in the opposite direction -- each bike and rider leaning to starboard at exactly the same angle, right foot planted on the ground as they waited. The light changed to green and they were off in a flapping of academic gowns before I managed to get out my camera, curse them.

That first day of classes was the most intense in terms of factual information being passed along. As I said, this was primarily a preparation for getting involved in a discussion which, as yet, has no answers, but we needed some basic groundwork to get us up to speed on exactly what the questions were. Dr. Scruton lectured for an hour and a half on the philosophical approach to the question of what the human person is and what this mysterious property is that makes him different from all other animals -- call it mind, call it soul, whatever. Dr. Giordano then gave us an hour-and-a-half lecture on the development of the neuropsychological approach to the same question.

Listening to Dr. Giordano is like drinking from a fire hose: you open the valve, stand expectantly in front, then find yourself pinned against the opposite wall by the explosion. We took notes madly, realizing with dismay that we had completely forgotten the second half of an important sentence after the words, "Scientists then made the obvious and crucial realization that..." before he was off onto something else equally important and mystifyingly dense. He routinely used long, complex words to say ordinary things, like "interdigitate" and "obfuscating." A tentative question posed by a student for clarification resulted in a ten-minute response, more dense than the original explanation, and involving an anecdote which no one could understand or relate to the original topic. He is definitely brilliant, but certainly aware of the fact. He is also a born performer -- he speaks confidently and rapidly in a rich baritone, throws off jokes with ease, and ever-so-gently patronizes his audience. In another life, he probably would have made a fortune selling hair tonic and snake oil from a suitcase. You would have no idea what the concoctions were supposed to do, but by golly, you'd be convinced they'd do it!

We had most of the afternoon off, so we went off in search of a grocery store to buy lunch stuff for the week to save money. We then strolled through the main part of town, investigated a few interesting-looking shops, before returning for an afternoon discussion period. That evening, a few of the students and I headed to the White Horse pub, literally tucked inside Blackwell's bookshop, which had gradually grown around the old establishment. We knew it would be good at the sight of two elderly men, clothed in tweed caps, sitting contentedly on a wooden bench out front, drinking their pints. I opened the door, walked four steps down into the semi-darkness, and whacked my head on a low-hung beam with the helpful instructions "Mind Your Head" painted on it. Looking around, I was surprised at how small it was: a long bar ran most of the length of the pub on the left, and about six tables on the right made up the rest. The tables were primarily full of locals, a few of whom were chatting in a friendly way with a middle-aged American couple. Several men were lined up at the bar waiting to place their orders, and we had a deal of a time pushing our way through to the last empty table in the back corner. Once established, we enjoyed some fairly decent fish and chips and some flat, warm, nutty beer.

You know -- it's all about getting the full experience!

****

Update: here's a photo of Blackwell's and the White Horse Pub I took back in 2006. (The scaffolding is no longer there, of course.) There's another entrance to Blackwell's on the far left of the pub. Weird.

Day 1

(Actually, more like Day 1 1/2. Crossing time zones makes the definition of "day" tricky!)

My housemate, SuLi, and I traveled together -- a huge blessing for me, since she helped me with my luggage the whole way. The flight was long, but we had plenty of legroom and our own personal DVD players mounted in the back of the seats ahead of us. The food was good, the British stewardesses friendly, and the screaming babies kept their contributions to a discreet minimum. We were on a redeye flight headed east, which meant we chased the sunrise the whole way. The plane hardly ever got dark, and we never managed to get tired. I watched three movies and half of a documentary about two men who bought a lion cub at Harrod's department store, and there we were in London.

We went through immigration and customs, found our luggage, and headed to the bus station where we were supposed to meet up with the Dean of IPS for the bus ride to Oxford. Now I began to realize I was tired. ...no, exhausted. The Dean was late, and I had fallen asleep on my luggage before I got tapped on the shoulder. From there on out, I was like a zombie -- I actually felt pale. I mutely followed the others around the station and onto a bus, where I promptly fell asleep again. I woke up to see the lovely stone buildings of High Street, the main thoroughfare in the town of Oxford. "Lovely," I thought, and stumbled off the bus. As I trudged along down the street towards the gothic chapel of Magdalen College* and over the bridge towards St. Hilda's on the edge of town, I remember thinking something like, "Huh. Oxford. ...yep." If it's enthusiasm and an appreciation of centuries-old architecture you want, I would kindly request 8 hours of sleep and a good meal first.

Once we were established in our (very modern and fairly ugly) rooms at St. Hilda's, the Dean decided that I, at least, looked like death not-terribly-warmed-over, so she very kindly gave both SuLi and I $20 (US) and told us to go find ourselves a really good meal, STAT. Which we did. We found a little cafe down the street, technically outside the borders of the university, where a bunch of locals were enjoying a late brunch. After gratefully sucking down about three cups of very good hot tea, we both ordered the Full English Breakfast. (This, by the way, is apparently the name for the meal, not just a description. I kid you not -- go look it up.) I gather that the British think this is the last word in breakfast fare. The half tomato is crucial. As is the black pudding**.

Afterwards, we each took a brief nap, showered, and then walked across town to the little building on Beaumont Street where the Centre for Philosophical Psychology, the sister program to the IPS, is located. We were promised a wine and cheese "Welcome to Oxford" soiree at 4:30, but instead found ourselves sheepishly slipping in to a pseudo-class which was already in progress. The professors greeted us, told us what to expect, talked a bit about their intents for the class, then turned us loose. We walked around the corner to Blackfriar's Hall for Sunday evening Mass, then went in search of dinner.

Sadly, Oxford shuts down almost entirely on Sunday evenings. Restaurant after restauarant was closed for the night. After much debating and frustrated remonstrating, we finally agreed to eat at the only place that catered to hungy wayfarers after the late, late hour of 6pm -- McDonald's. We then walked the long trek back to our dorms and went to bed.

Happily, things got better after this.

*I have no idea what event that crowd was there for, but the road they're all on is High Street, the route we took to and from classes every morning. Sadly, given that we were there in the height of the tourist season, it often felt just about this crowded.

** I recommend that you taste this before asking your companion what exactly black pudding is made of.

Intro

I'm back! In more ways than one. This blog has been shamefully neglected, I know. I shall now make up for it by posting all about my recent trip to England. Photos! Stories! Thrills and chills! ...well, not so much, maybe.

SO, to begin. I was offered the chance to earn one elective credit by participating in a week-long course centered around an international conference on the ways in which philosophy and neuroscience can inform one another about the nature of the human mind, as separate from the physical brain. Fascinating stuff! And it's in Oxford. And we don't have to do any actual work above showing up, listening, and arguing (all of which I can do very well). No tests, no research, no papers. ...and it's in Oxford. Got that last bit? Right.

My internal dialogue went something like: "Hmm, let me think abou--" *booked ticket*

Overall, the trip was great. My back did give me trouble at times, (especially during the conference, which consisted of eight back-to-back, hour-long lectures in a conference room with uncomfortable plastic chairs.) Some of the students felt that we should have been given more information about neuroscience in general in the days leading up to the conference; some felt that there were too many questions raised and not enough answers. Personally, I found it to be exactly what I expected. This wasn't a class so much as an opportunity to be exposed to a major debate, discussed by some of the most brilliant minds in several different fields, and to realize that we were almost ready to be part of that debate ourselves. I was thrilled.

All right: stay tuned for day-by-day replays and photos, coming soon!

My 'hood

It's been a month since I posted last, and all I've got to give you is this! (But it's good...)



(This section of Arlington is slightly to the west of me, about 10 minutes away. That bit about the parking tickets is true wherever you are in Arlington, though. And the Green line -- ha!! So true. So sketchy.)

Music for summer thunderstorms

I was distracting myself this afternoon from a paper I had to write (ahem). I felt restless and peevish and was looking for some good, strong, intense classical music to play to get some of my jitters out.

As I was looking around, I thought I'd see if I could find a piece I'd heard a friend play at his piano recital years and years ago. All I remembered was the name of the composer, but I had been utterly blown away by the piece at the time and I'd never heard it again after that. Sure enough, I found it.

Before you listen, here's the story behind this piece: apparently, Scriabin wrote this while on his honeymoon, watching a huge thunderstorm sweep up across the Black Sea. Knowing that, you can close your eyes and picture the intensity of this storm. You can also tell he was loving every single minute of it!



Is anyone else familiar with Scriabin's music? I think his work is often coupled with Chopin's, but I don't know much more than that.

Jack Kemp, RIP

I saw this article in the New York Times this evening, and I had to post the link.

I don't have many memories of his campaign with Bob Dole for the White House in 1996 (probably because I was in college at the time and therefore completely cut off from any and all current events). I'm not into football and I wasn't even alive when he played. My eyes glaze over at the mere mention of the word "economics" (whoa -- sorry. *rapid head shake*) so I am completely ignorant of (and mostly uninterested in) the details of the Kemp-Roth legislation that Reagan used to cut taxes in the early 80's.

So why do I care that Mr. Kemp has passed away? Well, while I didn't know him, I've spoken with several of his friends and colleagues, often at somewhat inconvenient hours, and I feel a vague sense of connection to the man.

Jack Kemp and I had the same cellphone number.

Well, yes -- more accurately, Jack Kemp had the number, changed his number, and the old number was given to me when I moved out to DC four years ago. Details, details. The important bit is that it was a detail which was evidently not passed along to everyone in Mr. Kemp's phone book.

The phone-number changeover must have happened fairly quickly, since it was only for my first year in DC that I fielded these calls for him. Of course, it took me a long time to figure out whom I was fielding calls for. Usually, the conversations ran like,

"Hello, is Jack there?"

"I'm sorry, you have the wrong number."

"So sorry." *click*

After a few months of this, I started informing people that, evidently, this used to be "Jack's" phone number (whoever he was), but it was mine now, and perhaps they could inform other people of that fact. This went on until one morning when I received a call for "Jack" at the gorgeous hour of 7am. I was polite but firm; the fellow on the other end of the line was oddly cheerful and talkative -- especially for early morning -- and thought the circumstances required commenting on.

"Wow. So this isn't his number any more. They must have reassigned it to you!"

"Yes, I suppose so." (What a blindingly brilliant observation, I thought. Please go away.)

"Well, this is hilarious." (Not really.) "Do you know whose phone number you have?"

"Some guy named 'Jack', evidently." (Why is this guy still talking?)

"Right. Jack Kemp."

Here, my brain finally woke up and clicked into high gear; I sat up straighter, a look of alert intelligence came into my expression, and I said,

"Jack who?"

There was an audible *snort* on the other end of the line. (This man just snorted at me! It's 7am! He woke me up, and he's snorting at me!)

"Jack KEMP. You know, football star? Vice Presidential nominee in '96?"

"Oh, yes! Of course! Jack Kemp..."

Well, I was mildly impressed. Anyway, it made for a fun conversation with my roommates over breakfast and almost made up for being wakened by a garrulous stranger. So, now that he's gone, I feel mildly sorry.

At any rate, sorry enough to say a prayer for his soul. Requiescat in pace.

Photo for the day

I often forget to follow some of my own "favorite links", so a lot of posts flow under the bridge before I think to drop by. I did a little browsing this morning, though, and found this shot from Today's Photo.

I was definitely an Andrew Wyeth fan before, but this guy's photos of the house where Wyeth produced so many paintings are starting to rank pretty highly for me, too! Beautiful.

Thanks

I wanted to pass along something I came across this morning reading C.S. Lewis's The Problem of Pain:

I must add, too, that the only purpose of this book is to solve the intellectual problem raised by suffering; for the far higher task of teaching patience and fortitude I was never fool enough to suppose myself qualified, nor have I anything to offer my readers except my conviction that, when pain is to be borne, a little courage helps more than much knowledge, a little human sympathy more than much courage, and the least tincture of the love of God more than all.

My very deep thanks to everyone for their "human sympathy", which has been more than just a little. In my experience so far, I think he's absolutely right. I have been given so much help and support from family and friends that I'm able to face the prospect of continued suffering in the future with much less dread. I know that you all will be there with me.

More randomness

A great remix of an old Reagan-era commercial...



To make this even cooler, the actual footage of Sarah Palin is taken from a filmed meeting she had with the guys from American Chopper, who are making a motorcycle to commemorate Alaska's 50th Anniversary as a state!

[h/t Conservatives 4 Palin]

Happy feast of St. Joseph the Worker!

My favorite image of St. Joseph to date, commissioned for the chapel of the Catholic Information Center in D.C. (Aside from the refreshingly masculine portrayal of St. Joseph -- not a lily to be found! -- I just love the sight of the Christ Child in a football hold.)

Meditations from Holy Saturday

I had meant to write about this earlier -- in fact, I had, and then I deleted it. I'm still struggling with how much to say here, whether these ramblings about my life right now are of any interest to anyone or just a form of spiritual navel-gazing, but I've decided to see it as a tracking of the movement of grace and a personal reminder to myself of what my focus should be. If it's of no interest to anyone else, to me it deserves noting and meditating on. (And, finally, it's my blog. Deal with it.)

I had mentioned before that I thought Holy Saturday would be a significant day for me, and it was. I went to St. Matthew's Cathedral for confession that morning, and as I sat in the pew in front of the open, empty tabernacle and looked around at the statues hidden by heavy purple cloth, I suddenly felt completely relaxed and at home: "This fits. This is right for me." It's hard to explain that in a way that doesn't seem morbid, but the fact was that, at that specific point in the liturgical year, everything was congruent with my spiritual life. It felt utterly peaceful to think about Jesus in the tomb -- knowing with certainty that the Resurrection was coming, but for now, "God is asleep", as it says in the Office of Readings for the day.

I was finally able to meet for spiritual direction with Father Donahue this afternoon, and he encouraged me to stay there. "I think it's true that our lives reflect different aspects of Our Lord's life," he said. "You've been given the chance to go down into the deep end -- into the darkness, but into the heart of the Redemption." We talked about St. John of the Cross and his explanation of why God will sometimes remove all sense of His presence from a soul and all of the person's powers of thought and imagination in prayer. "It's to get rid of the notion that we have any power at all to come to God ourselves. It has to be all Him." His advice: stay there in the peaceful, dark quiet and let God do all the work.

One last thought from Father that I'm hanging onto: "I'm willing to bet that you'll finish your degree. Whatever you're dealing with physically right now, I predict it's not going to stop you. If you have to do therapy from a wheelchair, you could do that. But whatever you're going through now is going to mold you into an amazing psychologist." I can hear this from a man who walks with the aid of two canes, who is in pain every day, and whose schedule is so busy it takes a month to get in to see him.

****

Some meditations from the day:

"Exploration into God is exploration into darkness, into the heart of darkness. Yes, to be sure, God is light. He is the light by which all light is light. In the words of the Psalm, “In your light we see light.” Yet great mystics of the Christian tradition speak of the darkness in which the light is known, a darkness inextricably connected to the cross. At the heart of darkness the hope of the world is dying on a cross, and the longest stride of soul is to see in this a strange glory. In John’s Gospel, the cross is the bridge from the first Passover on the way out of Egypt to the new Passover into glory. In his first chapter he writes, “We have beheld his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father.” The cross is not the eclipse of that glory but its shining forth, its epiphany. In John’s account, the death of Jesus is placed on the afternoon of the fourteenth day of the month of Nisan, precisely the time when the Passover lambs were offered up in the temple in Jerusalem.

[...]

Here on Calvary’s hill, all is fulfilled. It is the glory of Jesus’ cry, “it is finished.” The cross is the moment of passover from the old covenant to the new. Weeping at the cross, Mary is both the mother of sorrows and the mother of hope. The resurrection glory is discerned in the way that Christ dies. Now the reason for the whole drama becomes clear in the Son’s unqualified obedience to the Father, even to death, and the Father’s promise to glorify the Son. John says nothing about the risen Christ appearing to his mother. The other disciples discovered the resurrection glory at the dawn of the third day. Mary had already discovered the glory in the cross. There she took “the longest stride of soul.”

“In the Cross of Christ I Glory,” declared the nineteenth-century hymn writer John Bowring. It seems a strange, even bizarre, glory. “We have beheld his glory,” St. John wrote, meaning that he was there, with Mary, beholding the final and perfect sacrifice. In the churches of Asia Minor that were founded by John, Easter was celebrated not on Sunday, as with the other churches, but on 14 Nisan, the anniversary of Christ’s death. This was his “hour” of glory. The resurrection ratified and reinforced what was already displayed on the cross. When John, therefore, places Mary at the cross, he is placing her at the very center of salvation. She was there, with him, beholding a glory different from, even the opposite of, everything ordinarily meant by glory. It was God’s glory, which is love.

This is the light in which we are to understand those exultant passages in I John. “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon and touched with our hands, concerning the word of life the life was made manifest, and we saw it, and testify to it, and proclaim to you the eternal life which was with the Father and was made manifest to us.” (Mary and I, we saw it!) John continues: “By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.” “So we know and believe the love God has for us. God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.”

In the cross we see that of which humanity is capable: self-transcendence in surrender to the Other. All the evidence to the contrary, we are capable of love."

Father Richard John Neuhaus
--from Death on a Friday Afternoon

"Lord, when clouds gather on the horizon and everything seems lost, when we find no friend to stand by us and hope slips from our hands, teach us to trust in you, who will surely come to our rescue. May the experience of inner pain and darkness teach us the great truth that in you nothing is lost, that even our sins – once we have repented of them – come to serve a purpose, like dry wood in the cold of winter."

--Thomas Menamparampil SDB
Via Crucis at the Colosseum
Rome
Good Friday 2009

"Growing Up Buckley"

The New York Times posted a fantastic article by Christopher Buckley this past Wednesday on the recent passing of both his parents, Pat and William F. Buckley, (whom he called "Mum" and "Pup"). Christopher shares his father's great writing ability but not his faith, something he had to grapple with -- apparently, for the umpteenth time -- when dealing with their deaths. The article is long, but well worth reading in its entirety. Below are the passages that most struck me, though; I just wanted to share.

****

[Sitting at his mother's deathbed]: I’d brought with me a pocket copy of the book of Ecclesiastes. A line in “Moby-Dick” lodged in my mind long ago: “The truest of all men was the Man of Sorrows, and the truest of all books is Solomon’s, and Ecclesiastes is the fine hammered steel of woe.” I grabbed it off my bookshelf on the way here, figuring that a little fine-hammered steel would probably be a good thing to have on this trip. I’m no longer a believer, but I haven’t quite reached the point of reading aloud from Christopher Hitchens’s “God Is Not Great” at deathbeds of loved ones.

****

Pup stood, holding onto the edge of his desk for support, and began to dictate the last chapter of his memoirs about Barry Goldwater.

“The years ahead were, by the standards of Barry Goldwater, unhurried. . . .”

What amazed me, and still does now, was how fluent it was. Rereading the final chapter in the recently published book, it’s remarkable how little changed it is from what issued from Pup’s oxygen-deprived blue lips that rainy morning in his study. His mind was a still brightly burning fire deep within the wreckage of his body. He made hardly any self-corrections as he spoke. The words came out punctuated and paragraphed. And fast. My fingers scuttled across the keyboard like crabs. In less than 10 minutes, we were on the last paragraph of the last book he would complete.

“And that was that. No one else comes to mind who sustained for so long a comparable reputation for candor and courage. Over the years, if active in the political community, one comes across rejected aspirants for the presidency. But even in that rare company Goldwater, whether initiating a call from the South Pole to my wife or puddle-jumping the Grand Canyon for his friends, was unique, and will forever remain so.”

My eyes misted up as I typed. I said, “It’s beautiful, Pup.” I was, for the 1,000th time in my life, in awe of him.

****

I think about them every day. Orphanhood proceeds, tanned — as Leon Wieseltier hoped — and otherwise. It comes in waves. One moment you’re doing fine, living your life, even perhaps feeling some sort of primal sense of liberation — I can stay out as late as I want, and I don’t have to make my bed! Then in the next instant, boom, there it is. It has various ways of presenting, as doctors say of disease.

Sometimes it comes in the form of a black hole inside you, sucking the rest of you into it; at other times it is a sense of disconnection, as if you had been holding your mother’s hand in a crowd and suddenly she let go.

The summer after Pup died, I got a midnight call with the news that my friend Rust Hills, the editor and writer, had died. Rust was a great admirer of Montaigne. I thumbed through my copy of the “Essays” and found this: “The ceaseless labor of your life is to build the house of death.” It’s probably too downbeat a sentiment by American smiley-face standards to make it onto a refrigerator magnet, but . . . pas mal. You want to be able, when the end comes, to look the Reaper right in the eye and say, “Oh, puh-leeze.” I’m sure that’s how Mum did it. She’d have added, “And what, pray, is that preposterous costume supposed to indicate?”

Good Friday

The wounded surgeon plies the steel
That quesions the distempered part;
Beneath the bleeding hands we feel
The sharp compassion of the healer's art
Resolving the enigma of the fever chart.

Our only health is the disease
If we obey the dying nurse
Whose constant care is not to please
But to remind us of our, and Adam's curse,
And that, to be restored, our sickness must grow worse.

The whole earth is our hospital
Endowed by the ruined millionaire,
Wherein, if we do well, we shall
Die of the absolute paternal care
That will not leave us, but prevents us everywhere.

The chill ascends from feet to knees,
The fever sings in mental wires.
If to be warmed, then I must freeze
And quake in frigid purgatorial fires
Of which the flame is roses, and the smoke is briars.

The dripping blood our only drink,
The bloody flesh our only food:
In spite of which we like to think
That we are sound, substantial flesh and blood-
Again, in spite of that, we call this Friday good.

--The Four Quartets, T.S. Eliot


*Sorry for the blog format change yet again -- it was feeling cramped and cluttered to me. Time for some spring cleaning!

Update

Much better today (though it may be days before any of you ask yourself, hoping wildly against hope, whether perhaps today I will have posted on my blog, and actually see either of these posts.) :)

I'm still sore and inclined to take things slowly, so I cheerfully ditched class this morning and am trying to get some semblance of order back into my life by doing the little administrative-type things.

Meanwhile, I realized that I never posted photos of my trip to the NC mountains a few weeks ago. Enjoy! (These are from my digital camera; the best ones I took with film, but they haven't been developed yet. I'll put them up as soon as they're ready.)

Anniversary

I had a horrendous day today, pain-wise. In the midst of all the emotional fragility that usually comes with that, I realized that the one-year anniversary of my invalidity is next Saturday, April 11th.

Normally (and presuming a good day), I think that milestone would simply earn a slightly ironic comment from me, a sigh or two, or -- at my worst -- an opportunity for navel-gazing and self-pity.

But the date falls on Holy Saturday this year, which is very significant to me.

Some time ago, I was having coffee with a very good friend, who was telling me about her struggles with loneliness, fear about the uncertainty of her future, and her pain over the fact that, at 46, her life has turned out so dramatically different from what she imagined for herself. "I realized recently," she said, "that Advent is like the season of my soul. I'm just waiting in trust for the fulfillment of whatever it is God has planned for me."

I told her that, if that was the liturgical season of her soul, Holy Saturday was mine. I'm not waiting in peaceful expectation of His birth, but with hope and trust struggling mightily against fear and despair at His death. The Blessed Mother was able to get through that day with hope coming out on top, I'm sure. On the other hand, I imagine St. Peter being perilously close to coming completely unhinged -- everything was suddenly, horrifyingly, catastrophically wrong.

I don't know what God is doing in my life -- adding crisis to confusion like this -- but the date reminds me not to overlook the fact that He clearly does.

Extreme sheep herding

Courtesy of Thom Peters.



One of those guys sounds just like Wallace. This is exactly something he'd do, too!

Reprieve!

I am writing this at 1:30pm on Tuesday, March 10th. Sitting at home in my comfy chair. This is significant.

My comps defense has been deferred for a month, at my request! Woo-hoo! I hesitated to ask for it, since I've done 95% of the work already and I want the professors to know I take this seriously. But my health just hasn't been up to snuff lately -- not just back pain, which has been bothering me a bit more in the past week or so, but these strange dizzy spells have really been doing a number on me. I had a dizzy spell right in the middle of a meeting with my dissertation advisors; I lowered my head, fanned myself with a nearby journal article, and tried to keep talking calmly about assessment measures and statistical methods. (Both my co-chairs watched me silently with that "deer-in-headlights" look men seem to be so prone to at the sight of a woman in physical distress or tears.)

It's been happening more and more often, sadly. I don't really come close to fainting, but it's darn inconvenient and unpleasant. Plus, it affects my thinking, alertness, and reaction time. Periodically I feel like the monitor screen in my brain flickers in and out. Nooot the best time to try to stand up to the onslaught of aggressive attempts by two professors to tear my thesis apart. (The third one is mostly a teddy bear. I have no fears about him. He's the type who asks a question and then gives you half the answer.) I told the department chair that I would end up either bursting into tears (did I mention I've been hyper-emotional lately, too?) or staring blankly at the professors while I slowly processed the sounds hitting my ear into a coherent expression of intent.

Happily, I was told "no problem at all." Phew! What a weight off my mind. Now I just look forward to a road trip, seeing the family, and spending several days in the mountains!

Thoughts on female blogging, by Mr. Henry Tilney

I was looking for one particular quote (the last one below), but -- what the heck? Have them all!

"She was heartily ashamed of her ignorance. A misplaced shame. Where people wish to attach, they should always be ignorant. To come with a well-informed mind is to come with an inability of administering to the vanity of others, which a sensible person would always wish to avoid. A woman especially, if she have the misfortune of knowing anything, should conceal it as well as she can."

***

"What am I to do?"

"You know what you ought to do. Clear your character handsomely before her. Tell her that you think very highly of the understanding of women."

"Miss Morland, I think very highly of the understanding of all the women in the world - especially of those - whoever they may be - with whom I happen to be in company."

"That is not enough. Be more serious."

"Miss Morland, no one can think more highly of the understanding of women than I do. In my opinion, nature has given them so much that they never find it necessary to use more than half."

***

"Yes, I know exactly what you will say [in your journal]: Friday, went to the Lower Rooms; wore my sprigged muslin robe with blue trimmings - plain black shoes - appeared to much advantage; but was strangely harassed by a queer, half-witted man, who would make me dance with him, and distressed me by his nonsense."

"Indeed I shall say no such thing."

"Shall I tell you what you ought to say?"

"If you please."

"I danced with a very agreeable young man, introduced by Mr. King; had a great deal of conversation with him - seems a most extraordinary genius - hope I may know more of him. That, madam, is what I wish you to say."

"But, perhaps, I keep no journal."

"Perhaps you are not sitting in this room, and I am not sitting by you. These are points in which a doubt is equally possible. Not keep a journal! How are your absent cousins to understand the tenour of your life in Bath without one? How are the civilities and compliments of every day to be related as they ought to be, unless noted down every evening in a journal? How are your various dresses to be remembered, and the particular state of your complexion, and curl of your hair to be described in all their diversities, without having constant recourse to a journal? My dear madam, I am not so ignorant of young ladies' ways as you wish to believe me; it is this delightful habit of journaling which largely contributes to form the easy style of writing for which ladies are so generally celebrated. Everybody allows that the talent of writing agreeable letters is peculiarly female. Nature may have done something, but I am sure it must be essentially assisted by the practice of keeping a journal."

"I have sometimes thought," said Catherine, doubtingly, "whether ladies do write so much better letters than gentlemen! That is - I should not think the superiority was always on our side."

"As far as I have had opportunity of judging, it appears to me that the usual style of letter-writing among women is faultless, except in three particulars."

"And what are they?"

"A general deficiency of subject, a total inattention to stops, and a very frequent ignorance of grammar."

***

[Margaret: I included those last three lines at the end of a paper I wrote two years ago for Dr. Scruton, too. I felt the paper needed some explaining...]

Calloo, callay

...oh frabjous day! I chortle in my joy.

Waxing poetic

...with apologies to Wm. Shakespeare.

Yes, clearly I'm avoiding getting started with work this morning, despite the firm, brave words about dedicating myself to the cause in my last post. Well, I just thought I'd post my thoughts about my comps (which I am avoiding) in iambic pentameter. What could be more worthwhile? [Yes, that was rhetorical. Don't answer that.]

Actually, I wrote this almost 15 years ago at the end of a school paper. I still like it.

If this student has offended,
Think but this and all is mended --
That at least you slumbered well
Whilst this thesis we did tell,
And this weak and boring theme
No more yielding than a dream.
Teacher, do not reprehend --
If you pardon, we will mend.
And, as I am a simple Jen,
and have with all unable pen,
If fairly wrought an answer here,
Let gentle countenance appear.
(Lest the student fail anon.)
And so I bid thee patience long!
Give us an "A" if we be friends;
Exams will all restore amends.

...except they *won't* if I don't get on the stick (or, is it "off"?) and start working.

Comps

This weekend I'm going to be shutting down all other activity that doesn't directly relate to my comps. The first wave of preparations involved getting the paper written, due about two weeks ago. After nearly killing myself working crazy-late hours for about a fortnight, I handed it in on time. I was supposed to hear back from the professors this week about whether they'll be giving me the thumbs-up to go ahead with the defense, scheduled for March 10th. (No word yet. If they don't tell me today... um, yeah. I got nothin' but empty threats. *sigh*) So I'm going to work on the assumption that they're just bowled over by the sheer genius of it and prepare for D-Day on Tuesday.

So, quick recap: the paper presented a case from initial intake through assessment, treatment planning, and therapy progress. Tuesday I will be given half an hour to make a professional presentation of the case (just as I would if I were working with a team at, say, a psychiatric hospital). I will then be grilled by three professors for about an hour, on everything from why I made a particular diagnosis given the unusual MMPI profile to how I envision the Catholic anthropological premises being played out in the dynamics of the person's psychic functioning. (...yeah, I know. Pompous, but it sounds good at cocktail parties.)

Well, I thought, in exchange for demanding that every single person who reads this blog pray for me at 1pm on Tuesday, I would leave you with some E.B. White. How I love his stuff.

Up early today, trying to decide whether or not to bequeath our brain to our alma mater, which is making a collection of such stuff. It struck us as odd that the decision will have to be made by the brain itself and that no other part of us -- a foot or a gall bladder -- can be in on the matter, although all are, in a way, concerned. Our head is small, and we fear that our brain may suffer by comparison if arranged on a shelf with others. Spent part of the morning composing an inscription to go with our brain, but all we got was this:

Observe, quick friend, this quiet noodle,
The kit removed from its caboodle.
Here sits a brain at last unhinged,
On which too many thoughts impinged.

--"Daylight and Darkness" from The Second Tree from the Corner.

Are they cold?

I really don't have words for this. I mean, other than "Bwah-ha!!!"

What he said

I just found it. This is why I find it so hard to keep a blog:

"If you write for God, you will reach many men and bring them joy. If you write for men, you may make some money and you may give someone a little joy and you may make a noise in the world, for a little while. If you write only for yourself, you can read what you yourself have written and after ten minutes you will be so disgusted, you will wish that you were dead." -- Thomas Merton, "New Seeds of Contemplation"

Amen, Brother.

On a happier note...

...I just found this adorable video, set to a song sung by Edith Piaf:



Might help set the mood for spring!

Spring?

After our lovely warm weather here last week, I just wasn't ready to hear that we're getting snow tonight. On the eve of March 1st. It isn't that I expect the weather to be suddenly warm, it's just that I want it to be spring SO. MUCH.

I'm tired of winter. I want longer days. I want to be able to run outside without a coat and feel the warm sun. I want green and growing things and the smell of wet earth.

Instead of which, it's cold again, and sleeting. It's also Lent, which for me means no longer making excuses and facing the dark and the dry quiet in my soul.

Which maybe is part of the point of Lent, anyway -- waiting in the quiet.

Everything has its wonders, even darkness and silence, and I learn, whatever state I may be in, therein to be content. -- Helen Keller

Any excuse for posting

Do I have much to say? Nah, not really. I could complain about the gosh-awful-hope-I-never-see-its-like-again week I just had or jabber your ear off about my upcoming comps, but why? My week was awful and overly stressed (on top of a sinus infection and mysterious dizzy spells) but it's done. I'm going to spend the day tomorrow with family and two adorable little boys. The drama of comps won't take place in any visible way until March 10th, at which point I will give you all a play-by-play.

Meanwhile, let's have some frivolous fun. Here's another meme that's been going around the blogosphere! Type "[your name] needs" into Google and enter the first 10 responses*, either on your own blog or in the comments box.

So, according to Google, Jen needs:

1. a muzzle. (*snicker*)

2. human anatomy lessons. (bwah-ha!)

3. cheering up. (aww... so true!)

4. a tech-makeover.

5. taking out for fun. (woo-hoo!! you know that's right.)

6. you. (awww...)

7. work. (um, would that be a "job" or "improvements"?)

8. to get off facebook. (I kid you not.)

9. advice. (yeah, okay)

10. to go. (Ugh. I'm going to take this to mean, "I've got stuff to do! Time to get crackin'!")

Fortunately, the meme cuts this off at 10. Good thing, 'cause the next three were "...a new job", "...to step it up", and "...help." Looks like Google was gradually losing patience with me. :)

*Actually, I had a hard time finding bona fide responses to this, given the sheer number of "Jens" out there who have already done this on their blogs. I just kept getting linked to their lists. So "first 10" maybe isn't exactly accurate...

Sunday, Lovely Sunday

I know we're not officially hibernating creatures, but in the deepest parts of winter, we might as well be. Most everyone's* general objective during the day seems to be to get where they're going and get home again, with as little time spent in the open air as possible. As one of the bloggers on Inside Catholic said recently about their sub-zero temps, "Breathing in feels like Jack Frost is reaching down into my innards and feeling around for his keys." (Yes, I know he was writing from New England and we don't have as much excuse, but our temps last week were in the single digits, so I'm allowed to complain.)

So the contrast made this weekend's weather that much more spectacular! Temps in the upper-60's to low-70's! Even at night! Everywhere today, people are leaving their homes, blinking in the sunshine, and smiling at each other. An elderly gentleman at the end of my street is washing his car. A couple of neighborhood dads and a pack of boys are knee-deep in a woodworking project out on someone's driveway. Two of my roommates slapped on their helmets and sped their bikes off towards the path along Four Mile Run.

And me? Well, I had to go to IPS to work on my case presentation for my doctoral comps, coming up in a (very) few short weeks. But on the way, my car windows were down, my sunroof was open, I was air-drumming on my steering wheel, and singing loudly along with the radio.

Happy Fake Spring, everybody!



*The exceptions to this rule are the looneys who get up at the crack of dawn to go for an invigorating run along the frozen Potomac in nothing but a layer or two of spandex. Even the geese floating along the river on thin sheets of ice regard them as a freak of nature. Natural selection will kick in at some point and kill these folks off, making the rest of us feel better for huddling over the heating vents in our cars.

Coffee love

I randomly came across a hilarious video about coffee which I posted to my facebook page a few days ago. Aside from the fact that it has a really catchy tune, I've been replaying the video a lot lately -- both online and in my mind -- because of how germane it is to my life at the moment.

Do you have any idea how hard it is to stay awake in a class where the professor, to put it baldly, has both a soothing, monotonous voice and a rambling teaching style? Do you have any idea how hard it is to stay awake in the above condition while reclining almost fully-prone in an extremely comfortable, ergonomic chair?

I think about coffee a lot now. I drink it a lot now. And somehow, this little video just makes me want to drink it more, in a really...perverse kind of way. Enjoy the clip! (And, Amy, be forewarned: as the man's coffee high gets higher, the video gets more and more bizarre. And a bit gruesome. If you're squeamish, stop the video when he comes back to the office after a working lunch!)

Back in the saddle again

Sorry for planting a little earworm, there. (Hey, if it's stuck in my head, might as well be stuck in yours, too.)

School started up again this past week. However, what with having Monday (Martin Luther King Day), Tuesday (Inauguration Day), and Thursday (the day of the March for Life) *off*, we didn't have much in the way of actual school until Friday. Until then, I'd still just been going to my externship two days a week and seeing my one IPS client for one hour Wednesday mornings. Life was still pretty relaxed.

Then Friday hit. Here's what I did yesterday:

9-10am: finish preparing for my class presentation

10-11am: class discussion on last week's lecture

11am: my hour-long class presentation on my off-site externship experience, including the process of diagnosing Executive Function disorders in children and the neuropsychological effects of neurofibromatosis on the developing brain. [extended Q&A, general applause, *phew!*]

[11:59am: Make mental note to self to read that chapter on the neurological effects of chemotherapy on children with leukemia before returning to externship on Tuesday.]

12pm: eat lunch with one hand, while completing the file on a recent assessment case for IPS with the other.

2-3pm: supervision of the assessment case; present my supervisor with my diagnosis of the case and get direction on how to write up the report [due next week].

3-4pm: dissertation meeting with my two co-chairs; establish my dissertation goals for the semester {finish initial research, complete proposal, defend proposal, get approval to begin my study] and get my working assignment for the next two weeks.

4-4:20pm: quick check-in with Dr. Moncher, whose class I'm the T.A. for, to get my reading and teaching assignment for class on Monday morning. {Read three chapters, teach the Master's students about the importance and function of empathy in therapy.]

4:30pm: COFFEE BREAK WITH FRIEND!! ...but only for half an hour, 'cause he's in the middle of doing an assessment with a client, who should be finishing up that paper-and-pencil test any time now...

5pm: go home exhausted.

I had hoped to do some peaceful studying from my chair that evening, but I ended up ditching that plan and watching episodes of Frasier and 30 Rock online. No sense in diving into this "school" thing all at once...

So school is in full-swing again, and so (apparently) am I! Mostly. The good news is I actually feel invigorated by it all, (though a tiny bit overwhelmed). I do love what I'm doing, and having my chair at school helps enormously. The Master's students already know to expect to see me teaching from a semi-recumbent posture.

I'm going to be much more comfortable than they will. :)

Need a laugh?

I'm sorry for the long delay in posting! I have several thoughts to get out on...er, post. But to tide you over 'till then (all, like, four of you), here's a video clip I have watched at least 8 times.

It just gets funnier.

Final "Burning Jesus" poem

(I originally had "Flaming Jesus" in the title, but that sounded...unfortunate.) Sorry for the absence! I've been enjoying a very pleasant, relaxed Christmas season.

However, we need something to mark the transition from the promise of Advent to the fulfillment of Christmas, so here's that final poem I had in mind, continuing the theme started by Wasichu with "A Christmas Carol" and followed by "The Burning Babe":



Fire in the Earth

It is done.
Once again the Fire has penetrated the earth
Not with the sudden crash of thunderbolt,
riving the mountain tops;
does the Master break down doors to enter his own home?
Without earthquake, or thunderclap,
the flame has lit up the whole world from within.
All things individually and collectively
are penetrated and flooded by it,
from the inmost core of the tiniest atom
to the mighty sweep of the most universal laws of being;
so naturally has it flooded every element, every energy,
every connecting link in the unity of our cosmos,
that one might suppose the cosmos to have burst spontaneously into flame.

--Pierre Theilhard de Chardin

A blessed, joyful Christmas to everyone!