Let us therefore make every effort to do what leads to peace and to mutual edification.

i am idiot or at least my behavior has been idiotic

The unexpected quiet

its quiet enough that i can hear the cat darting back and forth downstairs, listen to its tentative pitter-patter before it evolves into a rapid burst of speed. up in my loft(?) or 4-walled enclosure at least, I hear the occasional car going down the street and the chirrups of birds i don't recognize.

this is my unexpected quiet, something i didn't foresee for the summer. i had expected it to be a busy summer, what with planning to go on the job market and getting ready to present at conferences and filling up applications. but in this foreign city, i find myself waiting. always waiting. waiting for code to finish, for the day to end, for the weather to clear up. and though there's so many things to be done, i find myself stuck, trapped, slightly frustrated and panicking that nothing will get done on time. 

and yet all i can do is bide my time in this unexpected quiet, work on the pieces that are available to me. and hope that something will come to fruition. 

how the hell did those monks survive all those solitary retreats

in the end, i don't know what great gesture i am waiting for and i don't think it will ever come.

trying to re-create the same kind of christmas spirit here as back home isn't easy. i guess the event means different things to different people and its not like you can get everyone on the same wagon

"Our idea of God tells us more about ourselves than about Him" - Thomas Merton

I am far too proud these days and need to get off my own self-constructed lofty tower.

there are some days where i just feel like .... 

Chapter Heading

 For we have thought the longer thoughts
     And gone the shorter way.
 And we have danced to devil's tunes
     Shivering home to pray;
 To serve one master in the night,
     Another in the day.

- Ernest Hemingway