Quick updates in the form of pictures:





Fundraising t-shirt for Scav. The Scavenger Hunt is Mothers' Day weekend--
am I prepared? No. See also The Joseph Regenstein Library.



I joined Twitter! You can follow me!



I'm following Barack Obama; I find it very interesting that someone
in his campaign takes the time to follow everyone who follows him--
thousands of people. Of course I don't imagine anyone actually reads any updates,
but it's an interesting tactic. Hillary Clinton, for example, does not.



Facebook suggests people you may want to be friends with,
which I find extremely irritating, since I either didn't know any of those people
or didn't feel any need to network with them. Or rather, I found it irritating,
since Facebook no longer even gives me these suggestions!
I am already friends with everyone I may want to be friends with!
And that, dear readers, means I have DEFEATED FACEBOOK.

Hi, guys.

So last time I very deliberately avoided (maybe-- maybe I just didn't have an opinion. Saturday was so long ago...) making any judgment calls re: my new Power professor's pedagogical style, id est, lots of lecture in a previously almost solely discussion class. I think it's time to judge.

Or, in all fairness, probably just gripe. I suppose in a way we were (I was) coddled by my previous teachers' emphasis on our figuring things out ourselves, but I'm finding myself very uncomfortable with the way my new professor (Professor Dan Slater, for ease of typing and my lack of comfort with first names aside from direct "call me _____" requests hereafter "DS") directs class. I'm not the only dissatisfied one, since I was talking to a girl in my class on the way out of the building, but her complaints and mine are very different. Anyhow, my issues are as follows:

- class direction: Guiding discussion is one thing, and a necessary one, but I feel DS more or less (probably less, but) uses questions with a very obviously specific goal in mind-- that is, he has in his head a Right Answer, and we can all tell. That makes it hard to talk about what we're thinking, because it's become a game of "guess what the prof is thinking" rather than an actual open forum. When someone finally does speak up, DS takes their answer and, if it was what it was looking for, runs with it for five minutes; if not, tweaks it so it sounds more like it, and then runs with that. It also puts us really solely in dialogue with him, not with each other, which isn't quite egalitarian enough to be comfortable, though I'm sure he isn't overly affronted by argumentation.

- exposition of authors: This is tricky, and maybe the issue today was only that we read the first half of a book, which consisted of critique of the existing system (the Weimar Republic in between-war Germany), and not yet the second half, which more directly lays out the author's opinion (Carl Schmitt). But I felt that today we weren't particularly grounded in the text, and instead were having a sort of high-flying conversation(ish) about generalities and applications. Mind you, generalities and their extrapolation into application is really vital and something we are supposed to be able to do, but that's supposed to come out of a familiarity with the text in toto and in detail, not at the expense thereof, y'know? I'm also not sure I entirely bought DS's delineations of Schmitt's opinions, though I hesitate to really go off on that, since in all likelihood he was simply thinking ahead to the book as a whole, which of course the rest of us theoretically can't yet do. (I suppose someone may have read ahead already.)

I know I'm not totally imagining the different atmosphere, though-- the girl I mentioned was talking about it, and she brought it up, not I. And we've both noticed that a first-year boy who's phenomenally brilliant (my thoughts), which is to say, always has incredibly concise and powerfully insightful things to say (and, in my opinion, seems really modest about the whole thing-- I really like him), has been mostly silent so far. There's always this silence after DS poses a question, and the questions are never open-ended-- they seem almost rhetorical because the desired answer is so clear. It's sometimes unclear what DS is driving at overall, as well...

Still, I'm optimistic that things will sort of right themselves as we get more used to DS and vice versa. Though I'm a bit worried that we'll all just decide we can get by this quarter without really participating, since DS will pick up our slack for us...? We'll see.

Hi, guys,

So I thought that today I would finally get around to updating this like a real journal. By which I mean, decide to make this part of my life, not something I do to procrastinate. This will hopefully result in much more frequent, shorter, and more readable posts.

The first order of business is a slew of pictures from Taiwan. I've tried to choose pictures that are more or less self-explanatory. Lots of natural beauty and gratuitous shots of mitcho and myself being cute together. Click any photo for notes.
 
( Behold!! )

Next: I pulled out of last quarter with four A's, about which I, my parents, and my GPA are very pleased indeed. That said, it was a really hard quarter in a lot of ways, academically and otherwise, and I didn't have as much time and energy to put into my classes outside of graded assignments as I would have liked, honestly. I do think, though, that I learned helpful things about myself, also academically and otherwise, and so should be able to avoid such stressful times in the future. :>

This quarter's shaping up to be better in a lot of ways. The weather is getting milder-- it raaarely gets below thirty anymore-- but it has started to rain pretty frequently (as in, is raining and has been off and on since Monday, Tuesday excepted, and will continue till tomorrow or so). This is terrible for my mood, but I like to think it means good weather's on the way. The forecast is currently promising clear skies Monday through Thursday and steadily warming temperatures. If true, I am well pleased, but I'd like to inform everyone that it's supposed to snow tomorrow. Tomorrow is the thirteenth of April. Just, you know, fyi.

I'm continuing classes from last quarter-- more Japanese, more Astro, more Power, more Religious Studies-- with a couple of twists. My Power teacher this quarter is a real professor, a junior faculty member in the Political Science department. I'm not totally sure about him. He's obviously brilliant generally and he's very funny, but I can't help thinking he knows he's brilliant and is being funny and self-deprecating on purpose. I'm also unsure how, if true, this affects how I feel at all. The biggest different in the class is that he lectures, which almost never happened before. I'd put us at about fifty percent lecture now, which in the grander scheme of things is not too much, perhaps, but comparatively speaking it's a great deal. Melissa, my teacher last quarter, only lectured say five percent of the time, and Steven from Fall Quarter never lectured period, basically.

My new Religious Studies class is called Historical Knowledge and Biblical Faith, which, it turns out, will be focusing on methods theologians have used to understand/reconcile historical understandings with Scripture; from about midway through the quarter on, we'll be reading Rudolf Bultmann, an existentially sort of guy. My teacher Marsaura is a grad student who has pretty obviously never taught before, but she's kind and intelligent and enthusiastic, and honestly I feel like I'll sacrifice structure if it means the class is a ninety-minute fun discussion time. It feels a little like academically-sanctioned relaxation, truthfully ;>

I've also been making a point of going to the gym regularly. I went three times last week, and I'm hoping to up that to four times a week this coming week or the next, whenever my body gets used to the activity. I have finally conquered my irrational fear of working out in front of other people, which means I'm now going to the glorious Gerald Ratner Athletics Center, a new and shiny gym full of hundreds of new and shiny weight machines. It's AWESOME. They also have great showers, so I can work out on campus between classes. It's really just great.

Important news-- I can't think why I haven't mentioned this before-- I was accepted into the acdemic year-long program at the Kyoto Center for Japanese Studies, so I'll be in Kyoto, Japan from the 3rd of September this year to sometime next Spring. The program ends the 27th of April, but I'm hoping one way or another to spend more time there afterward. mitcho is currently looking for yearlong jobs in the country, so it's possible he'll have an apartment where I could stay. Otherwise I'm not sure I can; staying at a hostel or something for any period of time is probably going to cost more than I can really afford, which is a shame. We'll see. I'm extraordinarily excited.

Also, I won a speech contest in Japanese. Cf mitcho's blog entry. :D

I also turned twenty last month. :D :D :D

I think that's everything! I'll see y'all again soon.

Just for future reference, this is probably how my life is going to be in five years. (from one of my favorite internet places, http://xkcd.com)

Hi, guys.

So I've definitely gone and done what I promised myself I wouldn't do, but then, winter quarter is very hard. It's half-over now, so I'll try to give a quick rundown of what's been going on:

I was with mitcho in Taiwan for another ten days after my last post, though that post summed things up fairly nicely, really. I'd like to add that I stopped being vegetarian for the first week, but having meat more than once a day disagreed with me, so mitcho and I compromised and would share dishes: he'd eat the meat and I'd eat around it. Sometime we got seafood or a vegetarian thing altogether, or sometimes I got some rice and steamed veggies while he ate on his own, but by and large sharing was the best way to go, since I don't eat too much. It's also a very cozy feeling.

The weekend after my post, we took at trip down to the south of the island, to another, tinier island off the southwest coast called 緑島, "Green Island," which was absurdly lovely. December is very decidedly the off-season (it's the middle of winter: Taiwan is about the same latitude as Cuba, and so gets cooler but shares our seasons), and so we had the island almost literally to ourselves. There were of course the few people who in fact live on the island, but I would venture to guess we were the only tourists. We rented  scooter and stayed at a little hotel a ways outside of "downtown," though nothing is too far away, since thirty miles and hour will get you around the island in about thirty minutes. We would get up in the morning when we felt like it (not too late, really) and tootle about the island, exploring the mountains in the middle and the coast all around and taking lots and lots of pictures. The tops of the central hills were sunny while the beaches were cloudy, usually, but the whole place had such changeable weather. The seafood was (understandably) delicious and the people very kind, although the majority of the shops and things were all closed for the off-season, which did get a little depressing after a while, so we were glad we stayed outside of the strip.

The ferry mentioned in the Wikipedia article is, incidentally, quite an adventure-- it's not very large, and it is the middle of the ocean, after all, so the swells are great. I was okay, but poor mitcho got very seasick on the way over (not an anomaly, since the same happened when he and the other ETA's visited Turtle Island). He listened to my ipod on the way back and was fine, though-- chalk it up to the power of music?

I left Taiwan on the 21st of December and got home late the 22nd, spending a pleasant and relaxing Christmas with my family (I definitely sound like mitcho when I blog sometimes... eew). It was really wonderful to be home... I definitely felt I didn't have enough time at home, though I also felt like I didn't have enough time in Taiwan, and so of course the solution is to have an eight-week winter break. Brilliant!

A few days after Christmas, my friend Sachiko (her blog is in Japanese) came to visit and stayed until New Year's. Being a charming young woman, she of course charmed my family-- Dad even offered to let her live with them if she wanted to ever transfer to the University of Florida  ^^. She came with us to our Pickens Family Christmas Dinner and was liked by all my paternal relatives, of course, since she's wonderful. While she was with me, she, Ellis, Mike, Hill, and I all went to Islands of Adventure, my first roller-coasters in a very long time but hugely fun, of course. I got slightly lost on the way home, but you know, things happen. We also went just the two of us to St. Augustine, where we ran around on the beach and drew in the sand and took pictures of seagulls before walking along St. George Street and having dinner at a Japanese steakhouse, funny because of how not Japanese it is. It was her first-- Sacchi is a a grad student and Japanese instructor at the University of Louisiana at Monroe, and there isn't much by way of silly hibachi restaurants there.

I came back to Chicago on the 6th and took rather a long time getting unpacked, since winter quarter doesn't start gently. Second week was Kuviasungnerk/Kangeiko (note on the text: Kangeiko is literally "cold training," and refers actually to how people learning swordfighting or another similar art would practice before dawn in the dead of winter), which had me awake at five to be on campus for yoga and activities at six; the insanity really isn't justified by the t-shirt you get for doing all five days, honestly, but it's still wonderful. The last day, Friday, we all walk from campus to the Lake (ironically right across the street from my dorm, which I left in order to get to campus) and do the Salute to the Sun a full ten times-- that is, ten times beginning with each leg-- to make the sun rise. It's awesome. It actually got me into the Chicago Tribune online, though that picture is now gone and memorialized only in the entry on mitcho's blog. I like to think that makes me a particular kind of famous (the good kind?)

Since then it's just been the growing realization that, though I love waking up early when the sun is out and I get enough sleep, nine AM classes are terrible when it's cloudy and sunrise isn't until twenty minutes after I need to be up anyway, and I actually do have a great deal of work to do all the time. My schedule looks like this:

MONDAY/WEDNESDAY:
9:00-10:30 Japanese
1:30-3:00 PIR (continuation from last quarter)
[3:00-7:00 Huge amounts of reading for Tuesday]
[7:00-9:00 M] Astrophysics lab

TUESDAY/THURSDAY:
9:00-10:30 Japanese
10:30-12:00 Introduction to the New Testament (BEST CLASS EVER)
1:30-3:00 Augustine's Confessions, auditing
[6:30-9:00 Th] Body and Soul, college youth group at church

FRIDAY:
9:00-10:30 Japanese
12:15-1:15 New Testament mandatory discussion section
4:00-5:00 話す会話 (Hanasukaiwa), a Japanese conversation group Charlotte, Sharon, and I started

SATURDAY:
8:30-6:00, counting commute, Work at the Academic Approach

SUNDAY:
10:30-2:00 Church

Now a couple of things shift-- for example, some days I don't go to Augustine's Confessions, though I feel obligated to go since the teacher specified participation as a requisite for auditing; during Lent (this past Wednesday until Easter, the 23rd of March; sometimes work gets out early, like today-- but I still feel like I'm always running around with something I must do. For example, I have a paper due on Monday I have to start working on today, besides the reading for class I need to do-- etc. Though I oughtn't to complain, since that's why I came here, after all.

In other news: It's about thirty outside, which feels warm after the frigid weather we've been having, and the sun came out briefly yesterday and today, which of course recharged me like a battery. The strings of grey days can get me down after awhile. Oh Chicago, the things I put up with for you <3

That's about everything of note, I feel. I'll definitely post many pictures, soon hopefully, though as always I hesitate to make promises.

Heeeeeey, guys.

So right now it's Wednesday here in Taiwan, where I have been for the last ten days. I just finished a bottle of orange juice, and mitcho and the other ETAs (English Teaching Assistants) are having important meetings about websites and other important things.

When you buy juice from a juice stand here, what they do is put fruit in a blender, blend it, and pour it through a strainer in to your cup. It's true. Last night I had watermelon juice made the same way.

Another important fruit institution is the fruit stand, frequent in night markets, where they have lots of whole fruit for sale, and you pick what you want, and they slice it and put it in a plastic baggy with a toothpick, which you use to spear fruit pieces to eat them.

Similar is every other stand in Taiwan, all open at different times of day, selling steamed dumplings and noodle soups and fried rice and more dumplings and rice balls full of 758974390578304 different things (whatever you want). My favorite stalls so far are the ones where you pick out things and they quickly grill or deep-fry them (deep-fried mushrooms = delicious) and give them to you on a stick or with a toothpick to eat out of a little paper sack, and the ones where you pick a couple of kinds of vegetables and/or meat and/or tofu and a type of noodles and they make you a noodle soup. I haven't had bao zi (pronounced "BOW-tzu") yet, which is too bad, because I already know they are delicious. Last night I also tried something, I don't know what it's called, where you put little shavings of peanut brittle, three little scoops of ice cream, and cilantro (no joke) into a burrito/crepe/something wrapper. Intense. Food here is all about being very fresh and generally involving copious amounts of pork, except for the (Buddhist!) vegetarian restaurants, which are totally vegetarian and involve cleverer and more delicious fake meat than the West has managed to come up with, when they have fake meat at all. Also no onions or garlic, so I hear.... Certain sects of Buddhism prohibit the eating of meat entirely, some only for monks, &c., but there are a great many vegetarian restaurants here, anyhow.

Oh let me see, let me see...

I left Chicago on Friday, November 30th, and arrived at 6:30 in the morning on Sunday, December 2nd. mitcho found me at the airport and we spent the day in Taipei, walking around a nice park, napping a bit in a hotel, visiting a night market (the image for the wikipedia article is actually the very night market we visited), and seeing a late-night showing of the movie Hero, made from the drama of the same name, which I love very deeply. Culture points I learned the first day:
(1) Western-style sit-down restaurants, while extant, are not the norm. The norm are stalls halfway between cart and cafe, with entirely open fronts (or, on corners, open fronts and side). The food is cooked on a cart with little tables and chairs behind. And such a place will only serve one thing, so you decide what you want and then say "oh let's go to the rice-ball place on the next block," and then you get drinks somewhere else altogether.
(2) People are nice.
(3) Scooters (mopeds??) are ubiquitous.
(4) Like in Japan, fashion is high, but different from America.
(5) "Internet cafe" is not an institution here the way it is at home-- rather, they're places full to bursting of desktop stations, equally full of fourteen-year-old boys playing noisy online games, and if you want you can buy bowls of instant ramen.

The next day we hopped a train back to Nanao, the township where mitcho lives and teaches. It has just over 5,000 inhabitants, all spread out from one another in little villages incorporated into the township. Nanao proper is a small town, about the size of downtown Palatka. We met with mitcho's co-teacher Jennifer to talk about lessons and then got me moved into mitcho's tiny little dorm room. Culture points I learned the second day:
(1) Train lunch boxes are delicious.
(2) Everyone here has an English name-- they get it in school in first grade, which makes for an interesting array of names, many of which repeat, and many of which you don't see among Americans of similar age anymore (Leo, Anne).
(3) Fashion in Nanao is the opposite of high.
(4) Once you leave the capital, you as a white person (or a black person, but I am not) are an oddity, and are stared at. In all honesty I did expect this coming in, but it's interesting. I will explicate further later.
(5) Seven-Eleven and Family Mart, the dueling convenient stores of Taiwan, are ubiquitous-- even a one-horse town like Nanao has one of each.

Since then I've been with mitcho in nanao, though on Tuesdays we go to Yilan City for meetings and mitcho's Chinese class. Yilan City has its own night market and almost 100,000 citizens, although it never manages to seem big, probably because all of the buildings are smallish and there doesn't seem to be one concentrated "downtown."

One Taiwanese dollar (NT$) is a bit over three cents, I think, so one calculates rough pricage here by multiplying things by three and pretending there's a decimal. Thus mitcho and I frequently have NT$35 bowls of noodles, which are actually about a dollar twenty-five. Things are almost obscenely cheap, often. It's really easy to live here, but on the other hand, cooking (at least for mitcho) isn't particularly cost-efficient. Sales tax is also prefigured into the prices of items, so you can go into a Seven and buy two bottles of beverage for twenty-five dollars, and hand over a fifty dollar coin, and you're done. It's marvelous.

The whiteness factor: In Taipei, foreigners are not particularly interesting, but in smaller cities they're really something to comment on, and people do. What I find particularly interesting is that people between the ages of about ten and sixty don't like to be caught staring and so are furtive about stealing glances at the American (me), but small children and those safely classed as "senior citizens" are equally unabashed about staring. Last night in the market with mitcho and his friends (other Fulbrighters) Josue and Julie, we stopped to buy the abovementioned delicious watermelon thing, and the two sixty-something women at the stand were speaking and looking directly at me. I started freaking out because they were talking to me and I couldn't respond and felt very rude, but mitcho was frustratingly nonchalant.
"mitcho! mitcho! What are they saying?? I can't understand!!"
"Relax, they're not talking to you."
"mitcho, they are!"
"No, they aren't."
"But they're looking RIGHT AT ME."
"You're white."
"Oh."
And he was correct. It's really just good-natured, open curiosity at an unfamiliar sight. Political correctness as such doesn't seem much to exist either, but it has nothing to do with a lack of kindness. When mitcho and I saw the Hero movie, the young man selling the tickets expressed concern, wondering if I would be able to enjoy the movie. Why? It was in Japanese with Chinese subtitles, and I am white. mitcho explained to the man that I speak Japanese (an exaggeration, especially considering the movie concerns lots of legal terminology, but there were exceptionally good English subtitles, so it was fine), but I was slightly taken aback for a moment. I felt that perhaps offense at his generalization based on my race was sort of an option, but decided it was an extraordinarily stupid one, given that the average white person doesn't have particular facility with East Asian languages, or any Asian languages, and Americans in particular with no language besides English, and so his generalization is pretty accurate, and besides, he was only being somewhat unusually kind, worrying about my enjoyment and not making a critical judgment about white people.

A cute thing: everyone in town recognizes mitcho by sight, even ones who don't know him, which is sort of odd given that outside of Nanao he's often first taken for Taiwanese (he looks much more Asian than American, and is also taken for a native Japanese when in Japan, though that's easier to support since his Japanese is native). So the little kids who have bigger siblings in his classes call "mitcho! mitcho!!" when they see him, but can't really respond to his "Hello! How are you?"

More + pictures later (I hope).

This morning in Japanese, we discussed a new vocabulary word: 認知する, ninchi suru, to recognize.

"For example," said Noto-sensei, "are you recognized as your parents' child?"
"Mmm... no," I said. [Blank stares.] "I mean, they say, 'Oh, you have your grandmother's cheek' and that kind of thing, but I really don't look like my parents." [Blanker stares] "...It's like, when you look like someone, right?"
"Oh no!" said Noto-sensei, "not that kind of recognize!"
[LAUGHTER]
"It's like, are you an illegitimate child?" said a classmate helpfully.
"OH. I'm recognized."
"Are you sure?" Noto-sensei asked, grinning. "Make sure you check carefully with your grandmother! ...Oh, Bailey-san, thanks for such a good mistake."

A video Jessie sent to Kate, Francesca, and me. I love my roommates.

After a relaxing visit in Gulf Shores, during which I got nothing done, I am back in Chicago. I will post pictures later, perhaps tomorrow.

Hi, guys.

So right now I'm sitting in Midway airport, experiencing the delays you always hear about on the news. Let's compare my previous flight schedule with my current one:

12:30 leave Chicago --> 2:40 leave Chicago
3:45 arrive in Atlanta --> 5:20 arrive in Atlanta
5:45 leave Atlanta --> 9:00 leave Atlanta
6:10 arrive in Pensacola --> 9:15 arrive in Pensacola

I am very frustrated for several reasons. Let's explore those as well:

1) It's cloudy and raining out, which always makes me prone to ill moods, especially in conjunction with (2)
2) I didn't sleep enough last night, which always makes me prone to ill moods, especially in conjunction with (1)
3) I don't want to sit in airports for six hours
4) This is going to give me plenty of time to read Durkheim and Mauss
5) I'm going to get to Gulf Shores at 10:00 instead of 7:00
6) The twenty-minute gap between my later flight and my original connection would be enough time to connect, except that the Atlanta airport is so sprawlingly huge that I'd have to take a tram between concourses and there isn't enough time for all of that

So I am cranky. Since I'll obviously do anything, however, to avoid work for class, I'll try to recap the last three weeks. (Not that I remember them particularly well.)

Clearly my intention to study discipline hasn't worked at all, and I'll be trying it again this weekend.

Since last I updated, I've gotten sick for the first time in years. Two weeks ago I came down very suddenly with a sort of mini-flu, going from slight headache and sore throat with significant body aches (in all fairness, severely compounded by having worked out for the first time in a week the day before) to having difficulty with stairs, a real headache and sore throat, and a fever by the late afternoon. The next morning the fever and aches were gone and the head and throat difficulty were minor, but then a cough and congested head settled in, and I've only gotten rid of the cough in the last few days. It's meant I've become sort of a truant in Japanese-- it's a thrice-weekly course, and so of course I missed it twice instead of once, then missed again today in my mistaken belief that my flight would be on time.

In addition, I've seen three interesting movies: Monsoon Wedding, ENRON: The Smartest Guys in the Room, and 心中天網島 (Shinjuu Ten no Amijima, "The Love Suicides at Amijima," but released with the English title "Double Suicide"). [-- BREAK HERE FOR TRANSIT TO ATLANTA--] I immediately purchased Monsoon Wedding because I loved it so-- more substance than an American romantic comedy and incredibly beautiful to look at, if you like shades of red & orange & gold, and I do like the music (especially the traditional songs). The documentary about Enron was pretty depressing, actually-- I suppose everyone knows about the hands-in-each-other's-pockets-ness of business and government, but I suppose I never really thought it was so bad. And Amijima  was one of the most interesting films I've ever seen-- of course not particularly uplifting-- but it's extremely aesthetically... mmmm, not "beautiful," but it's really artistic. It's all in black and white, the set is non-realistic, and though it's a movie with human actors it retains really obvious traditional espects of puppet plays. The wikipedia stub's good.

Oh, what else? Jessie & Kate had birthdays, so they had a joint party with lots of people I don't know in my living room. It was interesting & generally very nice, but I slept in an empty room down the hall fairly early, since I was still sick and had work in the morning. Daniela came to visit this past weekend, and we discovered the affordable glory that is State Street, as well as attending a very good concert by Ms. Leslie Feist. I obtained a hat: a more impressing feat than you'd think, since I have a terrible head for hats.

Speaking of music, Pandora has become a good friend of mine. It's awesome-- type in a song or an artist, or several, you like, and it searches its database for songs or artists with similar characteristics and plays them for you on a sort of custom radio station (without interruptions). It's a wonderful tool for finding new music, or listening to things that are all pleasantly the same when you're trying to study and don't want to be distracted by changes of tempo. They also recently added classical music to their repertoire, leaving only world music to be desired (likely not in great demand, and I can always listen to Japanese music at last.fm). Along the same lines, I've signed up for an account with emusic, a great tool for obtaining little-known or not-popular artists, since they provide tons of music from labels that aren't the top few major ones. It's no good for, say, Fall Out Boy or Beyonce, but it's good for Feist, for instance. After the 25-song free trial, you have to pay, but considering that iTunes doesn't have many of the artists emusic does and emusic is almost comically cheap, it's worth it. James introduced me to it.

The weather's finally taken a turn for, well, the normal-- cold and wet-- and while of course I've been expecting it for a while, it's sad to see it finally arrived. On the other hand, it does mean I get to wear colorful rainboots. It's getting harder and harder to wake up in the mornings, though, and not only because I've been sleeping less. Sunrise is later, and when it rises it's cloudy out, and the light isn't nearly bright enough to provide an impetus to wake up. Great on days like yesterday when I first class is cancelled, terrible when I have to be up by 7:30 at the latest to get to Japanese on time. :'<

On a lighter note: last night, I attended the 61st annual Latke-Hamantash Debate (latkes, of course, won out, though I do think hamantashen put up a great fight). It was funny in myriad ways, especially thanks to the Judaic Civilization courses I took last year, which gave me an inroad to lots of the jokes involved. :D

Bullet points:

- I leave for three weeks in Taiwan a week from Friday
- The Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport has "installed hard surfaces" in an effort to keep itself "fresh," but is requesting our help in staying "opening-day fresh," so they give us a number to call to "report untidiness." I am not making this up.
- There are two really, really cute small children across from me.

The temperature has finally dropped considerably, with highs of about 65 now being warm days, but it's been unusually very sunny and much fall-er than it was last year. Did I mention? I've been watching the trees change from ninety-eight percent green to ninety-eight percent red-yellow, and it's awfully nice.

Halloween is over, and so is my creepy theme, but I nonetheless feel slightly bound by duty to pay homage to the season, so now we have orange flowers. That's fall-y, right? The question is, after Thanksgiving, do I choose a Christmas theme or return to the skyline? What about during Spring? Valentine's Day? Oh, what a Pandora's Box I have opened!

As for my AWOL status these last two weeks: things have been happening. I've got to see Thyestes, which of course is a story of a man being fed his own children by his vengeful brother and so was of course somewhat unpleasant; I've eaten Ethopian food, which utilizes the fingers only (you pick up soft mushes of vegetables & spices with thin, spongy pancake-like bread probably made out of chickpeas & water); I've had a terrible three days writing an odd (and low-quality) paper about the process of meaning (not what do they mean, how do they mean?) in abstract Japanese letterpress art (the pieces were Miyatake Gaikotsu's "Ten Thousand Bonzes at a Memorial Service, Tennoji Temple," Seichi Niikuni's "Hole, Skill, Sky, Spade," and Kinoshita Katue's "Plastic Surgery Operation"; I'd post the images, but I can't find them online); I've had a wonderful day eating pesto-goat cheese-spinach-mushroom-mozzerella pita-pizzas with my roommates and hearing a talk on faith and reason with James and seeing a play by Steve Martin; and I've received in the mail presents from my parents' trip to Las Vegas (t-shirts, "chillin' with my gnomies," featuring lawn-gnomish things, and "peas on earth," with sweet peas holding hands on a globe: Jessie's comment: "Your parents know you too well") plus a stuffed boar from Taiwan (see mitcho's blog for pictures of when he owned it).

I have also discovered a deep, slightly inappropriate love for parentheses.

Daniela is coming to visit in two weeks, and we are going to see Feist together! I'm extremely excited... I consider myself lucky that my friends come see me so often. :D

I haven't much to say by way of profound observations or witticisms; I've just been being a college student, although I can say fairly unequivocally that I have little use for writings about modern art (though the art is largely interesting to think about) and even less for letterpress experimentation outside of visually interesting poetry. Anecdote: My friends Daniel Citron, James, and Maxwell all went to New York City for a spell last year, spring break or some such, and of course went to MoMA. There, confronted with a huge red canvas, Daniel Citron had a small crisis, so great was his rage that this was called "art," though later painedly admitted that, because it had caused him to think about the meaning of art, it had "succeeded as an art piece." My own struggles are not so poignant nor sudden, but I can now use words and phrases like "discursive" and "deliberately self-referential" and "self-conscious use of medium."

Two books:

The Year of Living Biblically, which I found reviewed in this week's Onion; I'll be locating and reading it as soon as possible.
Gilead, by Marilynne Robinson, which is one of my favorite books, by which I mean "the two books which have most resounded with me." Full of religion, but still, I think, accessible to an outside observer. Also very calm, sometimes calmly sad, and lovely, I think. (wikipedia, replete with spoilers - amazon - wikipedia disambiguation, helpful for the connotations of the word "Gilead").

I have realized suddenly what a busy month I will have: next week, a large party for the joint birthdays (tomorrow & next Sunday) of Kate and Jessie; the next week, Daniela; the next week, Thanksgiving; the next week, I leave for Taiwan. Wow. Okay. These next weeks will be a study in discipline.