Enough turd posts?

So it hasn't rained for two days. That means I'm on cloud nine. It is amazing to see how interconnected my mood and emotions are with the weather. I know I've mentioned it before and I know that it's exacerbated because I haven't a home to shut out the weather but still. I think I've accumulated enough evidence to argue for a permanent home in LA.

Also, I will put a poll at the bottom of this page asking all of you if you'd like me to continue with the blog after I leave Ireland. I am toying with the idea and am not sure what to do. Your input will help. It might not be as depressing after I leave (haha) but I can almost guarantee adventure and interesting stories. So yeah?

It's amazing how quickly this final time will fly. I am almost already gone. But its sort of bittersweet because I just got back and yesterday I was walking around town just enjoying being back and seeing all the people I haven't seen in so long. With the end come all the final thoughts and oddly enough, I'd say, perhaps more from other people than from myself. I don't really feel the need to talk about the end. That's what the few weeks after the end can be for or something.

I have some worries however that the house won't survive. I've tried very hard to get it to a point where I can basically simply maintain most of the work we've done to it so it can be picked up at a later date and pushed further along. But, those thoughts lead to future thoughts, and the whole point of this first year out of college was NO future thoughts or plans or whatnot, and yet I find myself already planning the next 3-4 years out. Well, ferk that. I guess I just can't avoid it. And now, that stupid Into the Wild movie keeps creeping into my thoughts whenever I entertain those type motifs.

I did think of this yesterday though that brings a smile to my face. Maybe it's just me, but, haha, before a year has passed since graduating I will have literally, yes, literally, circled the globe. Haha, what a thought. Certainly, not what I had planned. It's amazing what the mere thought of warmth and sunshine can do to my mood, even though I'm still sick, it gets dark at 5pm (which means I go to bed at around 6pm) and I now no longer cease to see my breath. Oh and also! I took another outdoor shower yesterday. I didn't think I'd make it this far...November 15th, that's pretty late in the year to be taking outdoor showers with groundwater. maybe that's why I'm still sick....nahhh. It's been staying out here that gave me the superb immune system I had before a 10 day drinking binge while confined to a shit Ford Fiesta with a disease bag (Crosby, ahem) that finally broke it. Eastern Europe was fascinating. by the way.

Fascinating mainly because, well it seems to be the general consensus, but speaking only for myself, Behind the Iron Curtain was not really the realm of any primary education, and, as I chose a rather esoteric college course of study and practically mundane course of study (pre-med) I never came across it there. And to think, my dear Elliot, a Russian major. Ok, I take that back, I briefly encountered Eastern European/Russian issues in my final course at Pomona, Religion and the Environment, mainly through the book Blood and Oil by I believe Michael Klare, let me check...yes, I was right. In this book, I learned about the struggles to secure oil deposits by the Soviet Union. But besides that. I knew nothing about Czech and Slovak Republics, very little about Germany (besides a lot of the literary and philosophical figures and WWII stuff), nothing about Hungary and to be very honest, I would not have been able to locate Poland on a map...Now, after pouring over maps after map while driving through the Slovak countryside, or through the Tatra mountains on the Czech and Polish border and circling around the labyrinth of Bratislavan streets, or yuckin' it up with Lithuanians in Budapest, I can now confidently locate almost any Eastern European country on a map and probably could tell you a little bit about it, except for the southern Eastern European countries....which I've been told should be saved for summer. I know nothing about Moldova and didn't know Macedonia was a modern day country apart from it's Biblical land claims. Sigh, we can all now admit how extremely lacking our primary education in the States is...and that was back in the 90s when it was half-way decent! Hah. I still will never forget being absolutely mortified in college taking my first class on Islam (Sufism: Islamic Mysticism) and being shocked when we began to study a prominent Sufi from...gasp! Spain. Spain? Now that doesn't make any sense, until it was painfully explained to me that the Islamic Empire, the Fertile Crescent, was actually a crescent of land that stretched from Spain all the way to Southeast Asia. Doh! The moors of Spain...the spanish architecture....well, thank you primary education you sufficiently blocked out oh say half the globe in my education on 'civilizations'. But to be fair, we only had 12 years.

I'm rereading the Golden Bowl (it finally came in from library exchange, from some place in Gweedore (really rural)) by Henry James. I had to read this my first year in college for my Modernism: London and Berlin course. Well, I was so taken with it and thought I understood the author's tone and the interplay between characters so well, I wrote furiously about it only to have it torn to shreds by the head of the department, Miss Else Lasker-Schuler herself. No, that was just the writer she had taken to emulating this year. So frustrating, that course. But I wanted to reread it to see if after another 3 1/2 years I still had those convictions. I still love the book, and have a sneaking suspicion I still had an accurate analysis. What was the point of this..? I had a point. Oh. that's it. So, in the Golden Bowl there is a character who is American, but travels all over and most of her social circle (as we can gather from the book) is not American, but there is an interesting point brought up that rang true for me now... let's see if I can find it.

well after a damn long search I found it, and it turns out its not quite as clear of any sort of point as I thought, but I'm struck by it regardless:

This character is struck by the type of day it is in London as she is walking around with an Italian. She feels strongly about the 'weather-washed English type' day it is.

"So far as this was the case the impression of course could only be lost on a mere vague Italian; it was one of those for which you had to be, blessedly, an American--as indeed you had to be, blessedly, American for all sorts of things: so long as you hadn't, blessedly or not, to remain in America."

Take from it what you will.

What else is there? I'm afraid my life can be quite boring and normal when I'm not in a flurry of unnecessary distress. I could tell stories from our adventure, but let's be honest, those are best told in person or at least over the phone. Some things you just can't write, unless it's in a novel form. Which. I'm not going to do now. Sorry.

I am extremely excited to begin training again. As part of this year of no plans, part of it included taking a huge break from running (which I more or less did whilst here). But. Enough is enough. I can't wait to get back into it, especially in warmer weather. I surprisingly haven't filled out more. But I can tell I'm horribly out of shape. It is a good sign for the future (or that my metabolism hasn't quite slowed down yet...). Four months of pretty much no exercise with the onslaught of winter normally resulting in a bulking up. Nope, still got it. Although I did notice on pair of pants felt a bit tighter. Wow, what an alarm bell that sent ringing. There is some primal fear, I believe, in men, who view themselves as aging in gaining weight, or at least girth.

On that note, I'm going to go finish my loaf of bread breakfast.