Wanted: Equilibrium

Challenge of the moment: finding the balance between resting the ol' brain after the many years of intense overwork, and still functioning enough to do all of the thinking, writing and deciding that needs to be done.

After a lifetime of being forced into positions where I had to take everything (myself included) oh so seriously, I'm tempted to throw it all to the wind, be irresponsible and frivolous for perhaps the first time in my life.

But I don't know how to do irresponsible and frivolous! Help me, somebody.

Cloudy...

... with a chance of...






MEATBALLS!

Pork meatballs with carrot, leek and onion, made from scratch without a recipe. *pats self on back*

Finished, Part II.

It is DONE! In the assignment box and away they go.

Goodbye, academic writing! So long, hours of tedious research! Maybe we'll meet again.

Maybe.

I'm too alone in the world, yet not alone enough
to make each hour holy.
I'm too small in the world, yet not small enough
to be simply in your presence, like a thing --
just as it is.

I want to know my own will
and to move with it.
And I want, in the hushed moments
when the nameless draws near,
to be among the wise ones --
or alone.

I want to mirror your immensity.
I want never to be too weak or too old
to bear the heavy, lurching image of you.



I want to unfold.
Let no place in me hold itself closed,
for where I am closed, I am false.
I want to stay clear in your sight.

I would describe myself
like a landscape I've studied
at length, in detail;
like a word I'm coming to understand;
like a pitcher I pour from at mealtime;
like my mother's face;
like a ship that carried me
when the waters raged.

-- Rainer Maria Rilke

Finished, Part I.

Just like that, the last class is over.

An anticlimactic end to two excessively painful years of attending lectures.

I went grocery shopping right after, and "accidentally" ended up in one of my favourite stationery shops "along the way" to the supermarket. (The car was parked on Level 1, the supermarket's on the ground floor and the stationery shop is on Level 3, but still I insist it was on the way.)

When the salesboy asked how I am today, instead of the usual "Good, thanks", I blurted out, "I just finished my Master's!"

Even though, technically, I won't actually finish until I've handed in those last two papers and completed 70 more clinical hours. I sheepishly added those details.

But still, I got a high-five and a spirited "Mazel tov!"

That'll do for now.

I think I should quickly wind up and go to sleep.

Part of my 3,000-word research report that I'm evidently typing faster than I can think:

"Evaluating the work of Singhal (2004) and Rastogi & Wampler (1999) in toto, it would appear that we're not in Kansas anymore."

Toto, Kansas, geddit?

Hopefully once I start sleeping more like a normal person again, I will be more like a normal person again.