My life is great. I'm sorry for being obnoxious, but I've been very happy lately. I'm living off-campus this year--which means that I live in a HOUSE with a kitchen and an oven and a nice bathroom and a beautiful bedroom and a cozy living room and a (fake) fireplace. It's the best thing ever!

It takes me about 20 minutes to walk to campus but that's fine! I don't really care.

I've also started baking and cooking! Which is amazing and great. This weekend my housemate and I are going to BAKE BREAD in our new cast iron dutch oven which will be really exciting. Hopefully we'll be able to do this and avoid buying expensive and lame bread from the supermarket. Woo.

Uhm... Oh yeah, last weekend was Tom's birthday so I went down to NY and visited him. It was really nice! We watched a play (Below the Belt--which was only so-so) but hanging out with his friends was awesome. (Miming ways to die in the subway was definitely a highlight--obviously his friends are as crazyyy as he is).

Hmmmmmm....

I... want to start my own business. I've been toying with this idea for a long time. I lied. Actually since yesterday afternoon. BUT I think it's a viable idea and could be... beautiful.

Anyway, what's up with all of you? Give me a shout--tell me what's the latest thing going on! I've been away for toooo long.

Loves

Wah! it's been a looong while.

How is everyone doing?

I come here with not entirely pure intentions:

If you enjoy reading children's books why not head over here:
http://booksforyourchild.blogspot.com

or

if you like cooking or baking:

http://i-cook-sometimes.blogspot.com

Hi friends,

being out of practice with an online journal... makes it hard. Sounds like I'm just typing to a mass of electricity. I don't know.

I've been working, and I like it. I am probably some form of workaholic. I don't have a life. I work and eat and go home where I work some more and then I go to sleep only to wake up and work. Not such a bad life. It's good when you like the work you're doing.

I've been reading on the train to work. Which gives me a nice 30 minutes each way. My reading is pretty meager this summer, but at least I'm doing it.

1. The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera (finally finished after like... 3 years)
2. some short stories by Salinger
3. 3/4 of atonement which... just kind of became a little trashy I don't know
4. Redwall, Brian Jacques
5. Of Mice and Men, Steinbeck (which was great!)
6. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Robert Pirsig (Also great, and strangely thrilling)
7. I'm in the process of reading The Devil to Pay in the Backlands by Joao Guimaraes Rosa whose works are nearly impossible to get ahold of

And that's it.

Do I understand this country? A little. More than foreigners.
Do I like this country? I think I do. But sometimes, people here disgust me. And I hate them. But then I remember the whole world is pretty disgusting. And anyway, I'm just a little duckweed.

Or maybe we just miss things we don't have at present. Like my sudden longing for Shanghai. Why Shanghai?

The memories of free times.

And I think it must be the memories that we long for. I miss Bedok Reservoir Rd, the scent of rust on my forehead, and the incessant wind. In other words, my childhood.

I'm not sure.

Hi. I don't know why, but I've been away.

Spring has come, but today I cried.

Hm.

Something about this world terrifies me, and recently I feel it coming closer and closer with each day. I don't know

what I am supposed to do.




Anyway: on a less emo note:

I am going to be in Singapore from June to August. Because I have a teaching internship! Yay!






I am ... happy?

This seems to be in line with the trend: more than a month has passed since my last entry.

(That sentence has an odd gravity that I did not intend! Strange)

In any case, it is snowing today. New England. I am tired of this weather. I cannot wait for spring. I am waiting for you Spring; I am lusting for you Spring; I need you. Now. And I cannot wait any longer.

To have let this lag behind my life and then to try to fill in the gap seems to me quite... impossible -- no, not impossible, but somewhat... trying, un-enjoyable, and useless. So I won't.

Suffice to say it has been winter. And will continue to be for some more time.

I am happy, and tired; I am happy, and content. I am quite tired of this weather, but yesterday I wore a T-shirt out (with a cardigan) and went to the playground and watched young children play in the unseasonably/seasonably warm weather and it was very nice.

I finished reading Watchmen and it is really quite wonderful. I hope the movie is good -- though after I closed the novel, I lay on my bed and couldn't quite understand how the movie was going to do it. Still though, I am planning to watch it during Spring Break with Tom.

My room is a mess -- I am still, however, waiting for Spring to arrive.

Because it's snowing right now, and rather unpleasant.

What to say that is insightful? Bear with me -- I am an empty vessel. Place your thoughts onto mine, chances are: I've had them, and if I haven't I will soon.

xoxo,
Abigail

25 Things about me:

1. I love birds. I swear I must have some natural affinity for them because in almost everything I write about, birds appear. An impulse for flight? I think sparrows are adorable. I could pick up birdwatching -- in fact, in my old age I probably will. Sometimes I stop in the middle of the street to stare at birds washing themselves in dusty mud, or stare at a line of starlings nudging down a telephone wire against a winter sky. But I don't really care that people think I'm weird!


2. I love CHEESE. I do I do. Mostly the soft kinds like brie and camembert, but I've recently discovered parmesan. I also enjoy blue cheese and gorgonzola. Sheep cheese. I wish I knew more about cheese, but I don't. Love it though! When I go shopping for groceries at East Side (or Whole Foods which is <3) my favourite section is the Cheese section. I can spend as long as anything just wandering the aisles, picking something up, and putting something down.


3. I do the same thing in bookstores. A friend told me that unless she really liked a book, she would just borrow it from the library. But I like owning them. I like the physicality of the book itself.

4. Right now I'm really hungry! I'm debating between running over to the ivy room and getting a falafel wrap, or going to Spice and getting fried rice/pad thai... Oh decisions...

5. I am double concentrating in Biology and Literary Arts and I love it. There are so many classes here I wish I could take... but with two concentrations it's rather hard to fit them in when I am also learning Japanese.

6. I love learning -- so corny! But I just love it.

7. I'm a lefty and I like it because it makes me feel special and unique.

8. I like feeling special and unique -- but don't we all? Of course the really ironic thing is that none of us really are completely unique/special -- and yet the foundation upon which our sense of ourselves and our identity rests tells us that we are! Or perhaps that's the western way of thinking about it?

9. I really enjoy typing on the keyboard -- the sound is nice, but more importantly for me: the way in which the keys bounce against my fingers is particularly delightful.

10. I love notebooks. I love them, I love writing in them, I love scribbling in them. Recently I've become a huge proponent of the idea of an everything notebook. Basically this means that your journal, your planner, your to-do lists, your random doodles, your poetry drafts, everything, is in one book. It's lovely.

11. On that same note, I really want a moleskin journal. But it's rather extravagant. (but I want one!!)

12. I've decided to go to Spice even though it would entail me spending real money as opposed to money I've already spent and have been converted to points.

13. I really love socks and stockings.

14. Edward Norton is really hot, in my opinion.

15. I'm a middle child, but despite that I think that at this point in my life I am happier than most people, and more content, and more stable.

16. I think emotional pain is catalyzing. It sure catalyzed change for the better in my life. Something of a metamorphosis.

17. When people ask my what my favourite book is, I can't answer them. Same goes for movies. Favourite -- what does that mean? I can tell you that my comfort-book is A Ring of Endless Light and that I currently adore Amelie. But other than that -- how can you limit yourself to a single book? What should the criteria be? I really like Anna Karenina -- but can I really say that it's my favourite book? (Though, it just could be -- Tolstoy is amazing, just amazing).

18. My life was changed by one lit class TWICE in one semester. Thanks to Borges and Guimaraes Rosa.

19. My "home" is poetry. (I was talking to a girl about this literary arts class called the Foreign Home. I thought it was about like world literature. Something normal like that. But to my surprise and jealousy, it was not at all! So you have your "home" medium, and then it forces you to explore to foreign media and combine them with your home medium! An example would be, (for me) say, Poetry, and Birdwatching, and Glass blowing. Isn't that so cool? There are just too many cool and interesting classes in my school and I am constantly mourning my lost opportunities. )

20. I have these post-it notes of things to do that I put up on the wall next to me. But that was last semester. This semester, my friend gave me a notebook that's about the same size as a post-it note and I've been using that. I love it!

21. I have an internship with the learning lab this summer. I forgot to ask about how much they'll pay me (if they will at all.

22. I'm interested in circularities and moments of glory and joy and ecstasy.

23. I am in love with life. I think it is wonderful even when it is awful. My life anyway -- that's how I try to live. I think happiness is knowing that one is happy despite sadness. I don't know if that makes sense but I think it does. For example, being brave isn't a lack of cowardliness, it is being able to carry out what you need to do despite being scared.

24. My new Gibran calendar keeps falling down and it's rather annoying.

25. Time for me to go get food and eat! And then I'll watch some tv and read some biology. The thing I love about biology is the sex. It really must be it. -shrugs shoulders-

And that's a wrap!

Back at Brown. Snow: a foot deep; pure white. Heat? None.

I am jetlagged. I have things to do.

( Read more... )

It is cold without heat in my dorm. There are limits, Abigail, and it's time to start cleaning the room.

--

Beautiful moment:

I was walking to Au Bon Pain for Brunch today, and the sun was shining brightly such that the icicles were starting to melt; you could hear the dripping noise of water on snow. I crossed the street, and carefully spread my arms for balance in the slush and ice. A man going around a snowbank looked at me; I smiled. He said, Be careful! smiling back. I went to ABP and got a Caprese sandwich, and






I have no idea what I am talking about.

and the snow is falling falling falling falling as if a blessing or some kind of absolution. God, what are you trying to tell me? I'm not sure

everything covered by snow -- everything covered? I'm not sure

everything beautiful and dangerous and soft -- above all, soft and cold and warm and beautiful and wonderful and white white white and everything falling from the sky like petals -- and God?

are you shaking some tree? and the soft petals of a snow tree

scatters

and we are covered and beauty

only beauty?

and cold

and only cold? and ice? and if covering is hiding

what are we hiding?

the snow was falling softly outside

Fear fear fear and desperation and clawing and madness --
my soul gnashing -- struggling
at the ghost-phantom haunting the periphery
of my life -- the one standing at corners of
uninhabited blocks of my mind -- the one
embracing me numb -- fear and
longing and fear and longing -- and if
I embrace will I never again escape?
Never leave me; never meet me. Never never
and forever.