Time Off
Can you imagine taking two years off. Instead of going to grad school you would just focus on cooking healthy food, reading, keeping your apartment clean, and increasing your ability to communicate thoughtfully and clearly through writing. This is kind of what I'm doing right now. It is hard, I walked by a bakery/cafe yesterday with a 'for hire' sign up and really wanted to apply. What would be the point? I do not need the money right now...it is just hard to justify your existence or be alone with your thoughts all the time which is what inevitably happens when you have nothing you Have-To-Do.
Would reading a lot make me a better person? I think it would only sink in to a meaningful level if I took notes. My granddad just wrote me a letter. He finished a book I gave him, Devil in a White City. It is about Chicago in 1893 with the worlds fair, wraps up politics, progress and a serial killer in a sweet non-fiction tale that almost all the hipsters have read in Chicago. My granddad sent me a book report/thankyou letter. He always takes detailed notes when reading books, lists of characters, etc. He also writes letters a lot and keeps a diary he writes in everyday. He has typed his memoir. He does not get paid for his writing, but he does it anyway. I think he is what you would call a 'man of letters'.
This morning was kind of rough. I didn't drink any coffee or eat breakfast and I had trouble getting anything done. I went running and spent the day worried about the urinary tract infection I have had for the past 4 weeks. I always live with these things and try to ignore them, if I was a soldier trying to survive a war this might be a good tactic. I think it has spread to my kidneys. Drinking all the water and cranberry juice I can now will probably not help me.
I went back to bed which always feels like a defeat at 12:30 in the afternoon. Then I got up drank 2 cups of coffee and read a eulogy Howard Zinn wrote for Kurt Vonnegut which made me cry. Now I am ready for the day.
This is how the article began:
"Kurt Vonnegut, who died recently at eighty-four, liked to quote Eugene Debs, when Debs addressed the judge who sentenced him to ten years in prison for protesting U.S. entrance into the First World War: 'Your honor, years ago I recognized my kinship with all living beings and I made up my mind that I was not one bit better than the meanest on Earth. I said then, and I say now, that while there is a lower class, I am in it; while there is a criminal element, I am of it; while there is a soul in prison, I am not free.' "
It makes me think about privilege?
Would reading a lot make me a better person? I think it would only sink in to a meaningful level if I took notes. My granddad just wrote me a letter. He finished a book I gave him, Devil in a White City. It is about Chicago in 1893 with the worlds fair, wraps up politics, progress and a serial killer in a sweet non-fiction tale that almost all the hipsters have read in Chicago. My granddad sent me a book report/thankyou letter. He always takes detailed notes when reading books, lists of characters, etc. He also writes letters a lot and keeps a diary he writes in everyday. He has typed his memoir. He does not get paid for his writing, but he does it anyway. I think he is what you would call a 'man of letters'.
This morning was kind of rough. I didn't drink any coffee or eat breakfast and I had trouble getting anything done. I went running and spent the day worried about the urinary tract infection I have had for the past 4 weeks. I always live with these things and try to ignore them, if I was a soldier trying to survive a war this might be a good tactic. I think it has spread to my kidneys. Drinking all the water and cranberry juice I can now will probably not help me.
I went back to bed which always feels like a defeat at 12:30 in the afternoon. Then I got up drank 2 cups of coffee and read a eulogy Howard Zinn wrote for Kurt Vonnegut which made me cry. Now I am ready for the day.
This is how the article began:
"Kurt Vonnegut, who died recently at eighty-four, liked to quote Eugene Debs, when Debs addressed the judge who sentenced him to ten years in prison for protesting U.S. entrance into the First World War: 'Your honor, years ago I recognized my kinship with all living beings and I made up my mind that I was not one bit better than the meanest on Earth. I said then, and I say now, that while there is a lower class, I am in it; while there is a criminal element, I am of it; while there is a soul in prison, I am not free.' "
It makes me think about privilege?
posted by sarah at 3:06 PM
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