Not usually political, but...

I don’t usually put up political stuff on here, but I recently found a video that is interesting, easy to understand, and possesses none of the helpless anger and frustration that clouds a lot of other explanations.  It’s definitely worth a looksie and I encourage you all to do so. 

It can be found here, at The Guardian's website.

Bell tower

We walked down from halfway up the hill, where the bus dropped us off, to the beach.  This is Positano's bell tower, with the beach right behind me. 

Beachfront property

 

December 2011.  View off a cliff in Positano, Italy.  Weird perspective, but I like it.

Sell/Use by: ____

A few weekends ago I went over to a friend's house for the evening for champagne, homemade tiramisu (courtesy of moi), and to exchange a few stories from last year.  She just got out of a good relationship, and to be quite honest so did I (well--it feels like "just"), but the one conspicuous similarity between the two is that there was a time limit on both.  An expiration date that hovered in our periphery the whole time, that sometimes squeezed the breath out of my lungs with its inevitability, but still hauled us off toward happiness.

That horrible, hovering inevitability could only be disregarded when I consciously decided to make the most of my time left in Edinburgh.  When I got up at a reasonable hour and decided that instead of hanging around and being useless all day, I'd drag someone I wanted to spend the day with to the botanic gardens, or to a movie and then for a pint, or--you get the point.  The deadline-related panic only abated when I spent my time doing something fun with a friend.

Consciously deciding to make the most of your day, though, doesn't apply only to romantic relationships.  The world could be caving in, but we're still surrounded by people who love us and who we love in return.  We shouldn't forget that, even if we're not surrounded by all the people we love at present.

What I'm getting at is that life is a lot happier when we live as if we have an upcoming expiration date (even when we don't)--an expiration date that we've decided to disregard so we can make the most of what's left of our fleeting butterfly lives.

It's difficult, and sometimes requires an excessive amount of optimism.  I won't try to deny that.  But it's worth it.  We can find small bursts of laughter in more places than we're willing to believe, and those amusements build up into something resembling a happy life.  It's worth it.

Positano, Italy

 

Aaand to take a break from all the snowy pictures of Scotland, have a sunny picture of Positano, Italy, on the Amalfi coast.

Sunshine!  Beach!  Ocean!  I flailed with excitement and ended up buying some local art by a chatty old native whose daughters all lived in Rome, but he preferred Positano and Sorrento.

Stirling, again.

Another view of Stirling from last December, again facing away from the castle.  The temperature had begun to rapidly drop not too long before this. 

Stirling

Stirling, Scotland, in the midst of a cold December day, 2010.  Behind me is Stirling's castle, and off in the distance on the tree-covered hill you can just barely make out the Wallace monument. 

Here, have another photo.

This one's not as exciting as the others.  It's the (currently) dull view outside my window.  It's been raining all afternoon.  The ground is thoroughly soaked, but I'm inside lying in bed, drinking wine, and working on my novel.  My essays are done and handed in, I survived my Latin midterm, I finally ate a healthy meal this morning, I got to skype for almost two hours with my friend (codename:) Pencaitland, and I'm only a thousand words behind schedule.

Okay, yes, there are still a million things that absolutely must be done, and soon, but for now, just--just give me this small victory.  I made it through the week.  (Thank god it was only four days.  Happy Veteran's Day, my loves.  Go hug a vet.)

View of Loch Lomond from December 2010

Very, very chilly out there.  I had fingerless gloves on at the time.  Did my hands leave my coat pockets?  No, they did not. 

A bad sign, probably.

I don’t remember the last time I frowned this much.  It’s probably a not a good sign.
To be fair, there’s been a lot going on.  Midterms, essays, Nanowrimo, school-related books to read, grad school applications, letters of recommendation, portfolios that’re necessary for graduation, writing contests, (pathetic) attempts at a social life, keeping my (grease-fire-burned) hand from stiffening back up to the point where I can hardly write, etc.

Sleep kind of fell of the Wagon of Importance for a while.  So did eating real food.  So, of course, I got sick.  Spent fifteen hours sleeping last Saturday, and ta-da, I’m almost well enough to do all that self-destructive stuff all over again, all for the sake of making it through my last year.

I’ve got a Latin midterm tomorrow morning.  No, I’m not ready.  Do I know more than last year?  Sure.  Will I pass?  Also sure.  But…

I don’t know what the “but” is.  (Is this all there is to life these days?  What happened?)  At least I got an extension on one of my essays.

Does anyone wanna write me a bomb-ass letter of recommendation?  That’d be really, really helpful, thanks.

View from a train.

Transylvania, Romania.  View from a train from Brasov to Sighisoara.

(Neither are in Firefox's spell check.  This displeases me.)

Well, wouldja look at that. A picture.

Oh, hey--look at that.  Snow in Romania.  In April.

Pffft.  It wasn't even that cold in Edinburgh at that point.

This is me...

A) freaking out over school

B) determinedly ignoring upcoming due dates for grad schools

C) worried about all my writing projects and their due dates

D) trying to keep up with life

E) trying to figure out what to do (and how to do it) after graduation

E) missing that “eternal summer” I kept talking about

F) all of the above


Take a wild guess, guys and gals.

Giving blood (in time for Halloween!)

The weather has been absurdly wonderful the last few days.  Sundresses in October, wooo!

Last Monday I went to give blood—save the world one pint at a time, that kind of thing—and elected to let them run my blood through some kind of machine, then deposit some saline into my system, then take more blood, then deposit more saline, and so on and so forth.  It seemed like the better choice.  After all, if the goal was to do a good deed, then why not do an even better deed?

Because it messed me up for a full twenty-eight hours afterward.  God, it was miserable.  I think I just didn’t have enough iron to go around—I was shaky and dizzy all the rest of the afternoon, even after two litres of water and about a dozen Oreos.  I almost didn’t make it home, even.  I collapsed onto a picnic bench behind the Career Services Center with my head in my hands for almost twenty minutes before I could make myself get back up and start putting one foot in front of another again.  And after I finally staggered through the front door, I kind of stuttered out an incoherent hello to my flatmate (codename: Victorville) and collapsed in the bed for the rest of the day.  I don’t even really remember what I did, beyond lie there and pretend I was recovering.

Being an adult sucks sometimes.  Especially when you have to take care of yourself.

On the other hand, though, last Sunday I spent the majority of my day skyping with an Edinburgh friend (codename: Pencaitland—thank god for Facebook, or I’d never know what to codename everyone), and right now I’m off to the Goleta train station to pick up my friend (codename: Irvine, for where she goes to uni) and the Brother!  It’s going to be an excellent weekend.