"They say that an unlearnt ability (or liability) in human beings is their capacity to see one thing in another." (from page 157, Ch. 11, which is by Trevor Pateman, of The Self on the Page, edited by Celian Hunt and Fiona Sampson. Sorry for not using the proper format to reference that.)
Such an interesting ability, to see one thing in another. The Man in the Moon, the face in the swirls of the bathroom tiles (I could see a whole series of sea captains in the tiles of my Grandma's bathroom), the way particular colours make us feel. Is it a liability? Perhaps it's distracting. Who are the people for whom no feelings or visions are evoked indirectly? I met a priest once who'd travelled to a small chapel in the Vatican where a mystic/priest had prayed incessantly for years. I asked him what it felt like to visit the chapel, and he said well, of course it was very interesting. No, no, I said, what did it feel like to be there? Feel? he said. Yes, feel. What did you feel when you were in there? Nothing, he said, it was just an empty room with a bench.
Yuck. What a way to live, to be immune to the history of the space, to have so little imagination available to you that you only see an empty room.
On the other hand, maybe it's better for him, religious-wise, if he doesn't have any sixth sense. I don't know. I know that I did ask him what kind of an insensitive man he was, to not have had any feelings walking into a room so full of history...as usual, acting the diplomat...to which he said he thought he'd get another beer.
I don't know anyone for whom feelings are not evoked by this "capacity to see one thing in another". Maybe I don't know anyone who's completely literal (except my son, but he's six). It is my understanding that autistic people are extremely literal, but I don't know any autistic adults.
***
I have been taking a lovely holiday, athough we have had a certain number of obligations during the festive season. Tomorrow we have no real obligations, although we might go downtown and see Madagascar 2, and do some visiting on New Year's Day, and on Friday FFS may visit, as he's here with his partner's family. Saturday we're visiting friends from grad school who've landed jobs at Gigantic U near here. Very exciting. Sunday is the day before we go back to regular life and work and playing catch up all the time. If it ever come to pass that I catch up with all the work, I won't have a job any more. Hmph. Luckily, the work keeps changing and we keep finding new applications and new ways of attacking problems and people keep thinking of new things to do when we are running around doing other things for other people. It's a pretty good life, this science thing.
****
Wall-E is a cute movie.
*****
We have tickets to see The Sound of Music on January 10 in the big city. Someone I know can't go, and so we're going. Which of the family members is accompanying me? Not Hub, that's for sure...
******
We are considering the Waldorf school for the children. We can't really afford it, but I am not thrilled with their current school, and you can't just switch to another one that looks nicer, you have to live in the area to do that. I don't think I'd be more thrilled with the public school that they could go to (they're at a Catholic school now). If you've attended a Waldorf school or know anything about it first-hand, I'd like to know more from your perspective. I can read web pages as well as anyone else...Google is my friend, after all.
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Monday, December 22, 2008
Okay, I get it...
Yes, I'm behind in the posting. Almost a month behind. It will be Christmas in a couple of days, and here I've not said anything about the crazy panic nest that this house has been lately.
That changed yesterday. Absolute house of panic, until I got rid of my final paper for the arty course I was taking. I don't think it was my best work, but it had to leave. Of course immediately after pushing the submit button I found a place where I was supposed to have filled in a reference...this might not have been as obvious if I hadn't put ref? in bold letters in the document. Doh! but whatareyagonnado?
The next course I'm taking is very touchy-feely, writing the self I believe it's called. I think I have to keep an online journal and write in it every day. Expect to hear more about me talking about myself, the most fascinating subject I know. I assume that you are the most fascinating subject to you. That's okay.
The Christmas shopping is all done, I only knitted one thing for Christmas (the Noro scarf that a lot of people have been doing. It is fascinating how the colours turn out, makes you want to keep making them, which I might do but that entails buying more yarn, because I don't have more of that stuff. My problem with buying more yarn is that it's more yarn. More yarn in my house. I think I know of more than a few people who would have a negative opinion about that situation.) and I bought a lot of other presents. Not more than normal, but it felt like a lot. I am glad that the buying is over and that just the wrapping remains. I'm not thrilled with the wrapping, but it must be done.
That last paper? was a total pain. I am so glad of its little trip through the internet to my instructor.
It's getting a bit late, I have to get up early but just thought I'd stop in to say that I'm not dead. I am, however, only working until no later than 2:00 tomorrow, and I have a faculty guy on my back because he doesn't like the way I modelled some disorder in one of his molecules. He's had two months to resubmit this paper, and he bugged me about it at the last minute, and I'm inclined to tell him to piss off, although that would be rather bad form, even for me. I gave him this data a month ago, and now he's telling me that he's got five days to get it to the publisher. Really? how much do I care about that? I didn't even collect this data, I just fixed up the mess from someone else...although my version of fixing he doesn't want. I can fix it back. I just don't want to. Trials and tribulations of being lowly staff.........
That changed yesterday. Absolute house of panic, until I got rid of my final paper for the arty course I was taking. I don't think it was my best work, but it had to leave. Of course immediately after pushing the submit button I found a place where I was supposed to have filled in a reference...this might not have been as obvious if I hadn't put ref? in bold letters in the document. Doh! but whatareyagonnado?
The next course I'm taking is very touchy-feely, writing the self I believe it's called. I think I have to keep an online journal and write in it every day. Expect to hear more about me talking about myself, the most fascinating subject I know. I assume that you are the most fascinating subject to you. That's okay.
The Christmas shopping is all done, I only knitted one thing for Christmas (the Noro scarf that a lot of people have been doing. It is fascinating how the colours turn out, makes you want to keep making them, which I might do but that entails buying more yarn, because I don't have more of that stuff. My problem with buying more yarn is that it's more yarn. More yarn in my house. I think I know of more than a few people who would have a negative opinion about that situation.) and I bought a lot of other presents. Not more than normal, but it felt like a lot. I am glad that the buying is over and that just the wrapping remains. I'm not thrilled with the wrapping, but it must be done.
That last paper? was a total pain. I am so glad of its little trip through the internet to my instructor.
It's getting a bit late, I have to get up early but just thought I'd stop in to say that I'm not dead. I am, however, only working until no later than 2:00 tomorrow, and I have a faculty guy on my back because he doesn't like the way I modelled some disorder in one of his molecules. He's had two months to resubmit this paper, and he bugged me about it at the last minute, and I'm inclined to tell him to piss off, although that would be rather bad form, even for me. I gave him this data a month ago, and now he's telling me that he's got five days to get it to the publisher. Really? how much do I care about that? I didn't even collect this data, I just fixed up the mess from someone else...although my version of fixing he doesn't want. I can fix it back. I just don't want to. Trials and tribulations of being lowly staff.........
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