:: shining like the sun ::

All is well in Edmonton

2010-11-30T06:19:00.002+13:00

Hi Jen,

I am doing well even though I got a case of Thrush. Yeast infection for the throat. MM fun. I also had another infection under the thrush that I am now just getting rid of. On a good note my appetite is back with a vengeance so I am eating up a storm. Well sort of my stomach has shrunk so what is a storm to me is just a snack to you I think. Codi keeps tapping me to say hello to you. So MEAOW to you from Codi.

I am so glad to hear that you had a good visit to Alexandria. I wish that I could be with you this trip. 2013 here we come! I talked to my Dr. and she said that once I am declared clear of cancer then there should be no problem with travel insurance. Made me very happy to hear.

I still have my hair but I have been told it will start this week to fall out. Mike shaved his head last week and I love it. He says he looks goofy but I think it is sexy.

Have to run now but just wanted to say that I love you and I am fine.

Love Weezie

Soaring

2010-01-20T09:03:00.003+13:00

I'm in Robarts, in carrel 12031, and I should be writing, but instead what I've been doing is listening to the 2nd movement (Allegretto) of Beethoven's 7th Symphony over and over again. I wish I could load it to this page for you to hear, but I suppose that's a 'myspace' kind of thing to do, really. Anyway, the whole thing is sublime, but there is a short section in the middle when the theme swells with a full orchestra playing, and it suddenly feels like I could fly, just by opening my arms wide to the sky and listening. It is truly enough to make me cry with laughter and joy. Only Beethoven does that for me. Bach is for peace and stillness, but Beethoven is for joy and running as fast as I can down a hill. Please, please listen to it, either again or for the first time, and perhaps you might feel the same way. It will make your day immeasurably better.

So many thoughts on my time in Toronto, which will end in 3 and something weeks. Mostly, I seem to have been awake to things regarding my parents that I've been missing for my entire life. Things like exactly how courtly my father is, and how much fun he is to have a conversation with, and how funny my mother is, and how much I love teasing her because she responds and it just tickles my funny bone like nothing else. But that's not all I've woken to. I've loved being in this city, with all its possibilities, and I've loved staying with my brother and his family, with all the inherent chaos of a family with small children. There is nothing, NOTHING, better than waking in the morning to the sound of childrens' laughter. I've become aware, too, that while I still love Toronto, I won't miss it in the same way as I have for the past 6 years. It's out of my system now. What isn't out of my system, though, are the people associated with Toronto, both family and friends (and hot dogs, but those don't require nurturing). They remain one of the most important parts of my life. People are, and that is something that surprises me a little. I know myself for a relatively solitary person, someone who manages quite well on her own, but I've found can only do that if I know that I am surrounded by family and friends. That discovery has made me reach out in ways I haven't before. The difference inside me is almost seismic, it is so radical, regarding this. I'm still learning, but at the risk of being trite, life is nothing but a continual process, right?

Movies I've seen lately. "Sherlock Holmes" (x2 - the 2nd time included me falling asleep 3 times, so maybe it's really only x 1.5), "Avatar", "The Brothers Bloom", "Moon" (again), "War, Inc." (kind of a mess, but one with its heart firmly in the right place). I've noticed that anything Robert Downey, Jr does stays with me for really long periods of time. There is such depth to his acting, layer upon layer upon layer. It's intellectually stimulating to watch him perform, and I really like that. See, if you can, "The Brothers Bloom" because it is a profound look at the way families are or can be. The way siblings are, in particular. And it's really funny in parts. Look out for the kitten in the roller skate at the beginning. "Moon" is also a film that is densely layered. Beautifully filmed and acted. Sam Rockwell deserves an award - not an Oscar because they mean nothing, but an award that is given only for the very best performances in mainstream and in indie cinema (are there any awards like that?). Brilliant work.

Music I've been listening to lately. Above-mentioned Beethoven, Icelandic composer Ólafur Arnalds, Åsne Valland, Kate Rusby, Seth Lakeman, Nigel Kennedy and the Kroke Band, Robert Plant and Allison Krauss... A mix, as usual. Oh, and Tom Waits, goes without saying (so why say it, I asks myself), and Nick Cave "Dig Lazarus Dig". Builds mind-castles and heals all wounds. Or is that wounds all heals? Time for me to go, as it's just descending into silliness now.

Talking to Murphy

2009-07-04T17:22:00.006+12:00

Hey. So, the days are growing darker later, the opposite of Canada. It doesn't feel like it's halfway through winter down here, though - it feels like we've got months and months left to go. The winters are indeed easier to bear, although they are soggier. The bright days of sun we get are glorious and remind me piercingly of beautiful autumn days in Alberta and Ontario.

Not finished with the marking yet, but it's coming along. It has to be done by July 9, and that's not so far off, so it'll be done by then. Still haven't heard from those who have my 'continuation' application. I'm not even sure if it's been sent off yet. It's making me twitchy. I want to start looking at flights and fares and things and I can't until I find out if I have continuation or not. I can't lock myself into paying for fares if I don't have the money to pay for them from the university.

I've been listening to Tinariwen and Hanggai. The first's a 'desert' group from North Africa (Algeria, I think), and the second is a Mongolian group. Jaysus, I LOVE music. Fills my soul. Keeps my brain active. Sounds kind of stupid saying that, I realise, but it truly does. It is so important. I'm saving for a pair of really, really good earphones, called Ultimate Ears. They're expensive, $900 USD, but they're made to order and specifically for your ear canals. It'll take a while to get the dosh together, but it will be so worth it, I reckon.

I'm taking my camera out of isolation. I've seen so many things that I want to shoot. A couple of them are for Tim - one's a photo of the AA Liquor Store by me, and the other's a shot of the logo of a company here that is primarily building maintenance, but they also have abseiling. ? Either they're taking the piss or abseiling means something else when you're a company that maintains buildings. Does it maybe mean abseiling for washing windows? Seems a pretty intensive process, if that's the case. You'd only get one swipe at the windows as you go down, and then you'd have to go back up again. And is BASEjumping illegal anyway? What do I know. Nothing, clearly, as is brought home to me time and again.

The Mother

2009-06-12T15:54:00.005+12:00

This is not, as you might think, Mom, about my mother. It's about a movie called "The Mother". ... I just flipped away to read, on www.rottentomatoes.com, reviews about this. Most thought it was powerful and searingly honest, some thought it was puerile and exploitative. I thought it was so emotionally powerful and honest that it was almost unbearable. I've been left in this muted state, which I get from all the movies that move me beyond something I've felt before. I found it truly, in some parts, impossible to watch. I had to turn the television off, or fast-forward through what I hoped were shorter bits. It's the story of a woman whose husband has died while they are visiting their children in London. She become enamoured of a handyman working in her son's house, and they have an affair. He is half her age. It sounds kind of titillating, doesn't it? Anne Reid plays the woman, and Daniel Craig the handyman. But oh my, there is nothing titillating about the story as it unfolds. It is multi-layered and the characters are real enough to be embarrassing, and I don't mean the sex of the May/December affair. Watch it. Let me know.

This picture, not taken by me but by my mother, is my favourite picture of my brother. As he says, you'd recognise those knees anywhere. Not to mention the saggy nappy...

I'm pretty tired of depression. It's exhausting, living with it. The up times are so fucking precious, and the down times arrive with such depressing regularity. I don't want to feel the blood start to slow down in my veins, as happens with every blue period. I don't want to feel the world around me begin to go brown and flat and colorless anymore to signal the start of another descent. There isn't even the notion that it's like banging your head against a brick wall (feels so good when it stops) because those moments of feeling good are so brief, so ephemeral that they aren't worth sticking around for. This contemplation of depression has been brought around by the movie above - I have been avoiding anything that ticks the emotional boxes lately because I've been wary of falling again. I should have known with this one. I'll go home soon and put something stupid on, like Hot Fuzz, or something intellectual, like Our Mutual Friend. Anything that doesn't cut like a razor. I hate this manouvering that is so necessary to my mental health, this constant fear that another dark time is just around the corner. I hate it and I want it to end, but it won't, I know. It's locked into my body's chemistry and it's there for good. Meds help, but they don't remove it. I wish it was funny. I wish I could laugh at it. But I can only see the humour when I'm relatively stable; when I'm not, the world is simply black. And that's it.

It's the end of the semester, and my leave should start soon. I say 'should' because I still have to go through the process of continuation, in which I have to be interviewed and examined to make sure I've been contributing to the life of the university and the students. It's nerve-wracking because it's inherently a dangling kind of thing. Can't be otherwise, but it's definitely not the quickest of procedures. And the university can say no, we don't want you.

The house is a tip because I've finally got everything I own out of storage. It's largely unpacked, but there are copious amounts of packing materials that need to be thrown away, and that has to be done judiciously, because there is only so much room in our recycle bins and they have to be used by the entire complex. So I have to get rid of a little here, a little more there... It takes time, but it has to be done by the time my new-to-me furniture arrives next week. And it's not fair to make my flatmate live in such a mess. So I'll do that, too, when I get home. While I'm watching the silly or intellectual thing to make my mind turn from that dark corner. Physical work always helps.

It's getting late in the afternoon, and the sun has already gone down. I shall head home to feed Bill and get my share of kneads. He has taken to sleeping on my lap, which I LOVE. I've been feeding him raw meat, as his favourite flavour, indeed the only flavour he'll eat, of the packaged food has gone walkabout almost everywhere I've looked, and he is so pleased with the raw beef that he races around the house like a kitten. Lovely. It makes me laugh. What could be more precious than that?

The size of NZ vs Canada

2009-03-06T16:04:00.003+13:00

So I've heard the size of NZ vs Canada is a difference of 34x, with Canada, needless to say, being the larger. Thanks very much for the information, those who wrote. My point still stands, and 34x is quite a big difference, enough to make you feel it in the bones, anyway.

Some pictures and an incoherent post

2008-12-27T12:37:00.004+13:00

The picture above is from Hot Water Beach. I kept thinking that the stone was trying to get home, in some way. Over-fanciful, I know.

From Taputaputa, up near Cape Reinga. Carrie noted that I take quite a few pictures of anomalies in the landscape. An example of that, I think, and so's the first picture.

The cids trying to keep their pants out of the water, again at Taputaputa. Poor Owen was quite ill, but Finnie had loads of fun.

Billy and his uncle, Batia, in the family shop in the souk in Luxor, called Aladdin's Cave. Owned by 5 brothers, whose names all begin with B, as do the brothers' sons and daughters. They're running out of B-names, apparently. The youngest brother married a Scottish woman, lovely woman, and Billy is their youngest with a brother, Bruce.

Kids who crowded around the balloon as it come to earth in a farmer's field on the West Bank at Luxor.

The beach of the last bit of salt water around the Fayuum from the great inland sea that once covered the area. You'd think it was a calm place, but just out of the picture are hordes of vacationers from Cairo. Noisy and not such a nice place, really.

From the left, Josh Emmitt and Ben Earle at Ibn Tulun in Cairo. Josh took about 18,000 pictures, most of which are crap (he says), and it was Ben's first time in an airplane coming to Egypt, much less his first time overseas.

Here are a schmozzle of images, and they're not all particularly good. I'm not really happy with most of them, but I'm learning. I do like the one of the cids.

I've been thinking a lot about about something Tim noted as he was leaving NZ. He said that he thought NZ could do a lot more with what they have; that they weren't making full use of their potential. It's made me think about the difference between North America and here. See, I used to feel the same way. I used to find this a very small country, particularly when compared to the vastness of Canada. I'm sure the land area of NZ could fit into Canada about 100 times, without exaggeration. Probably more. It took me ages to come to terms with that - that and the feeling that I was far from the centre of the world. It felt to me that I had been relegated to the ends of the earth, with no contact, no sense of belonging to the world anymore. I feel very differently now. The notion of potential is one to grapple with, I think. I wonder if it isn't a peculiarly North American concept, and that Canada has picked it up from proximity to the States. What is the potential of NZ? It has only 4 million people in it. A large number of those are in agriculture and animal husbandry. I think it has the best dairy products in the world, and its beef is certainly equal to Alberta beef, if it doesn't surpass it. Its arts community is vivid and vibrant, constantly active with shows and sales and exhibitions. The number of 'craft' stores (and I mean that in the best possible way) far outnumbers those (per capita) in Canada, I think. You see some of the same stuff in stores from Kaitaia to Christchurch (the furthest south I've been), but you see regional crafts, too, and some of it is of surpassing beauty, like the gorgeous bone whale pendant I bought in Kaikoura. Local artist. It doesn't have a huge international market, but does it need to have one? Is it not enough to do well enough in one's own country? Is it absolutely necessary for growth and personal fulfillment to have the world at one's feet? I'm not sure it's necessary to have the latest of everything. Tim found the internet connections here to be very slow, and they are indeed very slow. But they're faster than they are in Egypt. It's hugely frustrating coming from North America to have to slow one's pace, particularly, as in Tim's case, when you're an IT professional and used to the latest developments and fastest speeds. I'm not saying for a second that his observations aren't valid, because they are, and I think it might be a good idea for NZ to have faster internet connections. They are the result of having one company holding a monopoly and are a case study for why monopolies are crap. Once you get used to the slower download speeds, the different ways of doing things, though, you forget the speed of North America, and you become slower in expectations, too. Am I just getting older? The world moves so fast now that it is easy, indeed usual, to become so stressed that one's health is adversely and permanently affected. My job as a lecturer is stressful enough and gives me enough stress-related health issues as it is that I'm grateful I'm in NZ. I can only imagine the stress levels in North America.

Anyway. I'm just trying, in this blog, to work out why I immediately became defensive, and why I instinctively thought Tim was right and wrong at the same time. If I've offended, or made someone feel persecuted (Tim?), I'll make amends. I meant no harm.

I've been reminded...

2008-06-28T17:31:00.005+12:00

Okay, so pictures from the balloon trip in Luxor last year. The top one is for the colour that is somehow silent and ancient. Or maybe it's just me that sees that. The middle one, for the Nile in the early morning. Peaceful and serene in a way it really really isn't when you're on the ground. And finally, it's weird but the last one is one of my favourites. The focus on the rope is accidental, but that's why I love it. It's disorienting, and the first time I saw it on a computer, it almost made me physically ill, the disorientation. Interesting.

I've been reminded that it's been a while since last I wrote, and indeed it has. It's 5:30 pm here on Saturday night. The weather (a continuing theme, and could I call myself Canadian if I didn't mention it at least once?) has been a series of storms so fierce and wild I seriously thought, last night, the roof of number 7 was going to come off. Today has been a little better, but we've still had storm after storm with hail and crazy winds and rain in sheets. It's been so bad that the PhD students' room opposite has had a wicked flood, the water coming through cracks in the windows. Bill is most put out, poor little beggar. He sees rain and suchlike precipitation as a conspiracy by humans to annoy him, I think, and he is very vocal about not liking to be wet. It seems to put quite a bit of the old Nick into him, as well - he gets wild-eyed and furry and seems to move with a kind of kinetic energy up and down walls and furniture and me. Silly boy.

Enough weather. It's been a relatively good semester, this one has. I felt moderately in control, although I made some ridiculous errors in testing the language students. I do feel remarkably incompetent most of the time. But the semester is over, the marking is done, and I can focus on doing my own research. I'm giving a talk ("The King in the Cannibal Hymn") in 8 days at the annual Society for Biblical Literature in Auckland. I mean the meeting is annually, not that it's in Auckland annually. Heaven knows why it's here, but here it is, and they asked me to speak, I'm sure as a courtesy because I have no way of connecting the Cannibal Hymn with Biblical literature in any way whatsoever. I'm also working on a paper from a chapter of my PhD dissertation. On the Pyramid Texts again, yes. I seem caught in their spell. I worry about that sometimes, but the material is there and mostly adequately written in the diss, so why not use it? Still, it feels lazy in a scholarly way, to me. I'll find something else soon, I'm sure.

I have a prized new possesion - a quintessential New Zealand garment, a Swanndri. It's a woolen jacket, in plaid. This one is old-ish but I don't know how old - anywhere from the 1940s to the 1980s, perhaps. It's blue and brown plaid - sounds yuck I know, but it's really great. Warm as, and stylish, too. For what more could one ask?

Okay, that's it for now. It's pitch black out and I've got to get home to feed Bill. And myself.

Vile weather

2008-02-10T16:18:00.000+13:00

The weather today is simply, unutterably vile. It's hot and very humid, one of the worst days, weatherwise, I can remember here, in my admittedly short time. I went into Borders and just stood under an air-conditioning vent, trying to cool down and dry off, to no real avail. My office is not terribly hot, which is a blessing, and the fan is marvellous.

I don't think I've mentioned before but around this time of year, every year, there seems to be an influx of American college students into Mt Albert. I hear the accents on the bus and the street. I have no idea why they're here or what they're studying. They speak of 'host families' and seem to be from various areas in the States. They appear to hang out in groups of other American students - they don't talk to anyone else, on the bus at least. They're an annual puzzle.

I should have gone to a movie today, if only to beat the heat. I took my Canadian cell phone in to a cell phone shop to have it unlocked from the Canadian network - they have to keep it over night because it's a newer model and it is an apparently quite complicated procedure. It'll cost $40, but I'll pay it gladly if I can use the phone.

Insomnia has stricken me lately. I hate it - it makes such a mess of the day. I feel logey all day long and only really feel animated in the evening. The weather might have something to do with it, as might the flu from which I'm recovering, slowly but surely and perceptibly. I'm tempted to go into the doctor and ask for some sleeping pills if it doesn't resolve itself relatively soon. I don't like sleeping pills, but I don't like insomnia worse, so...

The picture at the top - the spinkus, of course, and in the background, Khufu's pyramid. Those birds on the head of the sphinx are causing it serious damage. Chunks have been falling off the face due to them. How, exactly, it was not explained - I would think that their guano would be so acidic that it would melt the limestone, but possibly they're burrowers or something. I don't know.

Beautiful day

2008-02-07T16:53:00.000+13:00

Hey all. It's a gorgeous day down here - the cicadas are buzzing up a storm and it's not terribly humid and the sky is blue as blue. Beautiful.

You'll notice the parents. We were taking a walk around the subdivisions. Mom's waving madly, in imitation of Benson. The memory of this walk is stored in my 'happy places' file - you know the file, the one you go to when you need to go to your happy place. Marvellous day. Perfectly cold.

What else? Not much, really. My throat is still giving me problems, so I went to the doctor today to get some antibiotics and a throat gargle. I don't have a chest infection, which is great, but I still don't feel like eating much. Except for Lipton's Onion Soup mixed in with light sour cream and carrots, for some reason. Odd, really, that urge. I only have one package of the soup mix left, so when it's gone, it's gone. Unless someone wants to send me some? The doctor says that the tiredness I feel from being ill will take a couple of weeks to go away. Unbelievable. I've already been sick for two and a half weeks, and now I have to wait for another couple of weeks before I feel up to snuff? That truly sucks. I'll be teaching before this is over and done with, damn it.

Mag, David, and I went to a really great little restaurant on the morning of Waitangi Day, called Voila. It's in Sandringham. We'll have to go, whoever visits next. It's friendly and has a really lovely ambience. It's a French/Mediterranean place, so we had crepes. They also bake bread and other tempting things. Very good.

Egypt pictures follow. The first three are from our visit to Karanis, in the Fayuum. The last two are from our best and bloody wonderful balloon trip. More will be posted at another date.

Whew!!

2008-02-05T16:49:00.000+13:00

Hello all. I'm back on this blog, instead of the other one, although I'll probably just have to email everyone, all six of you who read this, to let you know that I'm back. I should be going home, but I just wanted to let you all know that I finally got the second bag from Emirates. I can't even begin to tell you all what it means. It arrived today at around 3:30 or so, and I can hardly believe that it's actually here. I keep turning around to look at it, as if it's ephemeral and will only be with me a couple of hours. Very weird sensation. So you all will get your presents. Hopefully before next Christmas.

So, news. Well, the flu is just hanging on with a vengeance. I don't feel sick enough to stay at home, but every day I come in to work makes me feel as if I've taken a number of steps backwards, health-wise. Not sure what to do, except I just can't take any more time off work. So I'm trying to take it a little easy. Tomorrow, Wednesday, is Waitangi Day down here, which commemorates the signing of the treaty between the Maori and the Pakeha at Waitangi up north in the late 19th century. It's a day off, so David's coming up from Thames, and we're going out to late morning tea, either at Triniti or at a new place in Sandringham. We'll see. I'll probably take the rest of that day off, just lounging. I've recently discovered that I don't have to teach the undergrad religion course until next semester, which gives me plenty of time for writing it up. Thank heavens for that.

And I'm probably doing another Egypt trip this year, because of the sabbatical next year. I've already got at least two people interested in it, and I'll mention it in classes and see if we get enough people to go. I'm only taking 10 this time, as students, but both Wayne and Caleb want to come along as aides, so I'll take them and their partners as well.

Well, that's it for today. Not too long, but it's something. I'll write again soon.

Loooong time

2008-01-06T16:46:00.000+13:00

Hey, to whoever's reading this. January 5. I'm in Canada. When I arrived here from Dubai, both of my bags were missing. I thought they'd never made it onto the plane, but it turns out they were in Toronto the whole time. I have one, but I am still bereft of the other. It's the first time, in all my travelling, that this has happened to me. I guess I should feel lucky, somehow, that it hasn't happened before, but I don't. I feel like complete crap about it. And the bag that came didn't arrive until after Christmas. Now that just sounds like moaning, doesn't it? I feel moany, so I'm leaving it in.

What not to feel moany about? Well, the fact that I am once again in a country that lives with snow. In a much earlier post, I seem to remember having gone on about the lack of snow in NZ at Christmas, and how much it didn't feel like Christmas as a result. I won't pick up that thread again, never fear. I got a fabulous iPod stereo set for Christmas, which is tiny but has wonderful speakers, and is very portable. I've been reading some lovely Patricia McKillip, who is not available downunderNZ, except for the obvious Riddlemaster of Hed. Got it, read it about 74 years ago, and want to read new stuff.

Oh, some very moany stuff, but truly sad and doleful, is the news of Terry Pratchett's early onset Alzheimer's. This confirms my notions of god (note the small 'g'). Pratchett remains positive, but I need a little time to take this news in. It's fair to say he's written a number of books. Lots and lots of books. Nearly 30, I reckon. More than 25, anyway. I don't want there to be a limit to them, ever. I stamp my feet on the floor and create a ruckus. Damn it. Damn it x 700. I'm pissed off. Puh.

Anyway. I feel kind of all over the place, due to the missing luggage. Utterly ridiculous, but there it is. I am bereft. And fucking Emirates won't talk to me about it. If anyone every catches me even talking about flying with them again, please give me a huge kick up the backside with hobnailed boots, because my mind will have stopped and that could be the only thing that will get it working again. Unless, she thinks thoughtfully, it was never there in the first place...

An old quote, but a goodie, is what I leave you with:

I'm very brave generally, only today I happen to have a headache. - Tweedledum

2007-11-09T20:54:00.000+13:00

I've got a stomach-ache. It's about 9 pm, my birthday, and I slept most of the day. Had breakfast, had brunch, then slept. The tickets for Egypt were supposed to come in today and they didn't. Then I got up and ate some pizza from yesterday and now I've got a stomach-ache. Is this supposed to happen on my birthday? Is it the pizza or is it the thought of all those students relying on me in Egypt? Okay, but when I think about it logically, what are they relying on me for? For the Arabic, perhaps, and they're going to be disappointed. For feeling normal in situations that will be stranger than most of them will have ever encountered. I shouldn't be worrying. I know that. I'll stop.

I saw Atonement yesterday. Beautifully made, complex, layered, and the music... It works its way into the plot and the characters in a way that is really astonishing. Hugely recommend this. Has a kick, though, I'll warn you. Kept me up last night.

Also saw Eastern Promises, but the day before. Beautifully made, complex, layered, and the lack of music... The thing I love about Cronenberg's movies is the utter lack, the complete and utter lack, of sentimentality. He doesn't include much music, and I think that may be the beginning of the lack of sentimentality for me. This whole movie is a kick. I was talking about movies with friends yesterday, and I worked out that movies are the only time my mind isn't working on work. Maybe that's why I love them so much. They provide downtime. TV does, in hour segments, but it's TV, you know? It's got sentimentality in every single little line - unless it's British cop shows. Movies ... they're the thing. And world music, that's the thing, too. Music, generally, I guess, but world music, in particular. It keeps my brain active, keeps me out of that stupid work box, along with movies.

Okay, that's it.

Raining like stink, thanks, and your weather?

2007-10-01T15:22:00.000+13:00

Hey, all. It's raining like stink down here today. It's not terribly cold (high of +18) but the deluge is slightly off-putting. I'm done with teaching today, and I'm going to be settling down into marking soon.

I'm surprised at how much I feel I need to recover from the recent 3-week cold. Maybe it's just me, feeling like death in a cheap suit most of the time anyway, but I feel somewhat weaker. Is this what getting older is like? It truly sucks, I have to say. I found a great button - "I may have Alzheimer's but at least I don't have Alzheimer's." It's what I feel like most of the time, I have to say. It could be that it's part of teaching, too, feeling like you don't know your ass from a hole in the ground. Do other PhDs feel like they're frantically treading water, trying desperately to keep the airways full of oxygen and not water? Part of that feeling is, I know, all this fucking weight I've gained. I am unable, when in a depression, to do anything that is beneficial for myself, so for such a long time physical exercise was out of the question. And then came the stupid cold, so I haven't gone to aikido for ages and I feel out of touch with it again. I'll go tomorrow, if I have to hold myself at gunpoint, but, well, just bleah, I guess. Bleah and bleah and bleah again.

I've been terribly worried about what to do with Bill while I'm in Egypt. We've kind of got it all sorted out, I hope, but it means relying on people for major help with it, and you all know how much I like asking for help. Not that people have been unwilling to help - quite the opposite, for which I am enormously grateful. Just he asking part. So very difficult.

Just 3 weeks left until the end of school. It really does fly, although in the middle of getting lectures ready, it feels like it's never going to end. And very soon, Egypt. Big breath and then leap in. Everyone has paid, all arrangements have been arranged, and I'm mentally gearing myself up for the thing. Everyone on the thing is lovely, everyone, so it will be fun. And interesting. We're going to Deir el Gebrawi, Beni Hasan, Tell ed-Daba - all places I haven't been - along with all the usual places. Have I talked about this tons? This anticipation is the hard part. Once we're on our way, I'll be less stressed about it.

Okay, I've got to run and put together the final exam for the Early Egypt paper. Still raining like stink. It even thundered and lightninged, which is relatively unusual for Auckland. Lots of rain but hardly ever the sound and light show to go with it. Is that what happens when you live on an isthmus?

Printers and other appliances of the devil

2007-08-22T16:36:00.000+12:00

Me again. Can you believe it - nearly three blogs in a row? What's up with that? I have no idea, and really, don't count on it to continue. You know me.

Someone in our little house/part of the department used 4 reams of paper photocopying something over the weekend. We don't know who (although I have a sneaking suspicion) and we don't know what, but it's a hell of a lot of paper to go through in one weekend. As a result, I think, we're having to change printers, and print through a photocopier, which can tell 'those that be' who is doing what printing. Unfortunately, the Mac IT guy is away for the next two weeks, and no-one seems able to attach me to the photocopier, so I have to put my stuff on my memory stick, take it into another building for the secretary to print, interrupt her work and ask her to print it off. She's been just lovely about it, so I'm not complaining about her (never would, because she just IS lovely). I'm moaning, more, about the bleeding inconvenience of it all. I want to hit something with a big stick. Aikido's not until tomorrow, more's the pity. Ah well, I shall 'let a smile be my umbrella', although, I've always thought a smile and a big stick held behind my back works best.

I've been reading a number of things lately, Raymond Chandler, Rose Tremain, Kate Atkinson, Michael Chabon. And, of course, Terry Pratchett. I am forever grateful to Sid for introducing me to him. Pratchett's so bright and funny and pertinent and pointed and subtle and bloody marvellous. Thanks with enormous hugs and pink elephants in tutus, Sid. I think of you every time I fall into the Discworld. Raymond Chandler I've loved since forever. He says the loveliest things in the sparest language -

"At the back of the hallway a screen-door and in the alley beyond it four tall battered garbage pails in a line, with a dance of flies in the sunlit air above them." - from The High Window.

Read it out loud and just listen to the way the words create a picture, without a verb, without hyperbole, just plain description. Beautiful. He is unmatched, really, in that hard-boiled crime style of writing. Better than Hammett, although I love Hammett, too. Pure and clean language. I couldn't do better than to imitate that style, should I feel the need for a change. I feel positively frilly next to them.

I've done putting together the test for the language class on Friday - it's a take-home test, first one down here. I hope they do well - I'm a little nervous about it and them and the results. I've also done the test for the early Egypt class, also on Friday, but that one is to be written in class time. I think they're good questions - we'll see. On Monday of next week, Chris and Abigail and I are getting together at my place for a day-long BBC adaptation fest - we're going to be watching 4 hours of Jane Eyre and 2 (or so) hours of Persuasion. The one with Ciaran Hinds and Amanda Root in it. And we'll do food, probably scones and jam and cream and tea. Sustenance. I'll let you know how it goes.

Can't sleep

2007-08-20T00:31:00.000+12:00

I can't sleep. It's 12:30 am or so, and I have to finish writing my lecture for tomorrow, so I have to get up at 6 am, but that has not stopped insomnia from kicking in. Not that it ever stops it, more likely it fosters it, but I just wish, one day, I had control of my sleep cycle. So I figure, 'what the hell. I'll just shock the shit out of everyone and write a blog two days in a row. Hit them with the unexpected and continue to be, as my brother says I am, predictably unpredictable.'

I think part of the reason I can't sleep, the other reason being the stress of an unfinished lecture hanging over me like a scythe, is I went to a workshop of a martial art called Cheng Hsin. 'cheng shin' - pronunciation, although why 'hs' is 'sh' in transliteration from the Chinese, I cannot fathom. Doesn't matter. This martial art is called an 'internal martial art'. It's fascinating, uses terms (jargon?) like 'effortless power' which mean nothing until suddenly you feel effortless power. It doesn't mean 'powerfully effortless', if you know what I mean, but using the power inherent in things, or intrinsic to things. There's a much longer workshop with the founder, Peter Ralston, in January, after I get back, but you have to reserve a space by September 1, and it's bloody expensive for me, just at the moment, so I am reluctantly giving it a miss. Very reluctantly. It is really the coolest thing. As good as aikido, and more interesting.

I also went out last night to a concert of Russian music. Tchaikowsky, Katchaturian (although, is he Russian? The name doesn't sound Russian to me, more Armenian, but what do I know from borscht?), Rachmaninov, and Liadov. It was lovely, both the music and the chance to get out and do something else. I am, slowly but surely, creating a life for myself down here. I know that soon I will feel as at home here as I do in Toronto. Which I miss with a sullen kind of ache now. Utterly ridiculous to miss a city as much as I miss Toronto. There you go, the strange attachment to things on a large scale. If I could only fold it into a little box and carry it with me wherever I went ...

Hey, did I tell you I've been videocamming with Alison in Halifax? We've talked twice, and it's so nice to see her. Last time, Fiona was visiting and I got two, count them two, for the price of ... well, nothing, really, but I felt doubly blest.

Bill is off on the rantan, doing god knows what, but I'm sure it involves killing birds.

Okay, I've been on for about 15 minutes now, so maybe I'll try again. I've just had a cup of sweet Earl Grey tea, too, which acts as a soporific for me. Tea does, you know. It's not like coffee. Coffee is the drink of the devil. It's true.

Take good care, youse. You'll be rising soon enough. Tim, you're probably already awake and on your way to work. There is another post below this one that you haven't read, I don't think, just in case you didn't know...

Back again

2007-08-18T14:46:00.000+12:00

Hi all. Back again. It's such a long wait between times, I know, but writing this depends so strongly on my moods.

So I've started up aikido again. Most of you know that. I feel like I'm inventing the wheel a little, but Christ, it feels so good to DO something. The month I took off when Hilary was here was actually a really good break - it allowed my body to repair itself and when I went back, I didn't feel like death warmed over. The group is really good, and I'm meeting new people. One of the best things I've done down here for myself.

What prompted me to renew acquaintance again with the art was the sudden realisation that I was out of that black miasma I'd been in since I came down here. My back is straight when I walk, and I feel like looking up. I feel energetic for the first time since landing, and I feel light, if that makes sense. I once again feel possible, as a person.

And the travel preparations for the trip to Egypt are moving along relatively smoothly. There was a little bump just this week due to fluctuating money exchange rates, which meant that we're now paying $200 more than the original quote, but I still think we're getting a good deal, with the students paying about $5000 NZD for a month in the country. We're going tons of places I haven't been before - I'm completely stoked (as they say down here) about that. The down side is my stupid camera has bit the dust, and it's looking like it'll cost as much as a new one to get it fixed. So I'll get a new one. Puh. And I'll be getting an iPod, mostly for downloading the camera and saving space, but also because I can't imagine a month without music. And, come to think of it, I can't imagine a month without somewhere quiet and private to go, something that the iPod would give me, even on a illusory basis.

Bill has decided to take orders in the Catholic Church. He's changing his name to Fra Billio, and hopes in relatively short order to become the first feline pope. Whenever I do something he doesn't like, which is relatively frequently despite the lovely sheepskin rug that I bought him and that he regularly kneads until he's in a stupor, he threatens to have me exorcised by his good friends in the Inquisition. I haven't had the heart to let him know that the Inquisition doesn't exist anymore.

Okay, I have to go now. Work to do, concerts to go to. Bye.

Love from me.

I want to be Tom Waits when I grow up

2007-04-08T16:12:00.000+12:00

Hello all. This particular posting is going to be about Tom Waits. I bought a book in a genre that I rarely, if ever, buy, having to do with pop culture, in this case "Innocent When You Dream - Tom Waits: The Collected Interviews". In case you don't know, and I'm assuming at least one of you doesn't, Mom, Tom Waits is perhaps the most interesting musician working in the world today, as far as I'm concerned, and I'm using that word 'world' advisedly. His work consistently inspires and astonishes. It is complex and uses parts of my brain that lie dormant most of the time. One of those really marvellous creative people who inspire you to get out there and be creative on your own hook. 'Course, in my case, it's me shooting for a moon so distant I can't even see it, but the point is to try, right? not to get there. Like Cavafi's road to Ithaca. So anyway. This book is wonderful. It's hilarious, as Waits often is, and it's thoughtful and thought-provoking, and it's full of the most outrageous lies. They're so outrageous, these lies, they aren't even really lies - they're fabrications of the highest order, like Menocchio's notion of the universe as rotting cheese and God and the angels (and us) like worms that crawl in and out of it. Where do these ideas come from? I'm not saying Waits believes his bloody wonderful fabrications, because he doesn't, although Menocchio firmly believed his theory, enough to be burned at the stake for heresy in the 16th century. It's the ideas, they tantalize. And in those ideas are some of the best evidence of putting words together in the most interesting way that I know of. To bandmates on how to play one of his songs: Play it like your hair's on fire. A stray lyric: Take the spokes from your wheelchair and a magpie's wings and tie 'em to your shoulders and your feet. I'll steal a hacksaw from my dad and cut the braces off your legs and we'll bury them tonight in the cornfield. (Point of interest, to me anyway: Waits' best friend, when he was a kid, had polio.) On the reason for a six-year delay between albums: "I was caught in traffic." If I had a hero, and I'm not saying I don't, Tom Waits would be one of mine. Along with Menocchio and other rabble-rousers and shit-disturbers and clear-thinkers and people who live as completely and as fully as they can. Like great Roman candles, streaking across the sky (thank you, Jack Kerouac). And that's it. Read the book. Seriously. A more interesting mind you'll be hard put to find.

Half-way through...almost

2007-03-27T10:44:00.000+12:00

Hey all. It's Tuesday and Friday week (in Kiwi-speak, this means not this Friday but next - this bit of New Zealand English is a particular favourite of mine, I have to say) is Easter. I've just finished teaching the Egyptian history class - this class, with its almost-200 students stresses me out hugely. Every time I stand in front of that class, I'm aware that I am not teaching it effectively, and it embarrasses me enough that I lose my place when I'm teaching. The content of the course is difficult, and the last thing the students need is a confused, embarrassed lecturer. I've investigated courses that you can take from the 'Centre for Professional Development' here (paid for through the department), but the kind of advice they give is generally geared toward a smaller class, and cannot really be adapted for a much larger class. I can't, for example, have them sit in groups and do their own work, without losing too much working time. That's been tried and it's disastrous. I'm going to talk with other teachers of large classes and see what they do to get the points across while being, at the same time, even moderately entertaining. Our department has a problem with student retention into the 2nd year - we may have upwards of 200 students in the first year classes, but only 20 or 30 of them continue on with the subject, and when our departmental budget depends on student numbers, it's a real worry. So creating and maintaining interest is vital. An ongoing thing, I guess, a work in progress is what the class will have to be. The heart of the problem is that there is simply too much material to cover in 22 hours (which is less than a day, when you think about it).

We're slowly moving into autumn here, but the humidity has yet truly to let up.

This year is going to be incredibly busy. An exhibition of a 'very old' (i.e. only about 2500 years old, Ptolemaic at best) mummy is coming to the Auckland Museum (technically, the Auckland War Museum) along with a bunch of funerary things (all from the Netherlands), and I've been asked to give 2 talks. Hilary will be here when that happens, so she'll be able to tell you how it goes. Then the trip to Egypt, and home for Christmas. And of course, Hilary's visit, about which I am as excited as the students are to go to Egypt. Egypt now is a kind of ho-hum thing (how absolutely appalling of me to say that, hm?) - I love it but it doesn't have that excitement quotient that people coming to stay with me does. Oh, and I've got to finish the the index, etc. by June 4. Before that, regarding the book, I've got to correct proofs and whatever other hoops I need to jump. It's hard to keep it all in my head, so I've been maintaining my iCalendar assiduously.

Saw a lovely, lovely movie called The Science of Sleep. I HIGHLY recommend it - French new wave, in that lovely weird way of Amelie. For those of you who know who he is, Gael Garcia Bernal is in it, and is absolutely marvellous. What an intelligent actor.

One other thing. Sid, absolutely bloody marvellous to hear from you. Please please write again with an email address so we can communicate. It really was lovely to get a message after such a long time.

Blather

2007-03-12T15:42:00.000+13:00

Hey, all. School is in full swing now. In three and a bit weeks, we'll have Easter and the intrasemester break, which will be lovely, because it lasts for two and a bit weeks. I forget, each and every year, how tiring it is to teach. My schedule this semester is particularly difficult - today, Monday, my first class is at 5 pm to 6 pm. Then tomorrow, I've got one from 9-10 am, then another one from 5-6 pm; nothing Wednesday, then 5-6 pm on Thursday, then 9-10 am, 10-12 noon. Lots of space during the day to get sleepy in, which is usually what happens. Until students drop by, which they usually do in droves. My office is a complete tip, so I suppose I could usefully pass the time on one day tidying it up. Books left all over, bits of paper here and there, piled on my ugly pink couch, and every other available space. But, Mom, you will remember that I've never really been the tidiest of people. I do try to be clean, but tidy seems to be something that is forever out of my grasp.

What else? Oh yes. I've been watching a lovely series on TV from Britain called "Doc Martin", about a severely socially-dysfunctional surgeon from London, who suddenly develops a phobia about blood (in the middle of surgery, no less). He pulls up his stakes and moves to Cornwall, where he has an aunt, and becomes the town doctor in a lovely little Cornish village called Portwenn. He's incredibly rude and off-putting, but a brilliant doctor, so they put up with him, until they can't take it any more, at which time they give him a verbal lambasting. It finished last night. The doctor is played by Martin Clunes, who has a decidedly odd face, with huge ears and weirdly flat and enormous lips. He's been in tons of other things, like "Saving Grace", in which he played a perpetually stoned doctor. "Doc Martin" is funny and quirky, and the Cornish accents are music.

I have a really lovely language class, the one at 5 pm. They remind me of last year's class, kind of mouthy and not at all shy about yelling answers out. My kind of students. Speaking of last year's class, we're busy arranging the ****TRIP**** to Egypt. It still has to pass one final person in the administration before it can be offered as a summer course, but hopefully, that will not be too large an obstacle. Apparently, they have to offer the course with a fee of $6000 NZD or something, to include expenses, which seems to be to be ridiculous, because a 'study abroad' course implies plane fares, etc., doesn't it? Maybe I'm taking innate intelligence too much for granted, who knows. The itinerary is being ironed out, and we've been having discussions on the kind of accommodations in which people would like to stay. We'll probably have a stay in a good-ish hotel in Aswan, in the middle of the trip, and in Cairo, but stay in some of those nice, clean, un-air-conditioned cheaper places inbetween. The students are getting really excited about it - you can almost hear them humming with it, like electrical towers. Things can get out of hand, in terms of noise, when we all get together. It's so lovely to see. Please don't think this is a complaint. I love it.

I've run out of my phone card, and won't be able to get another one until Thursday, so please bear with me, and be patient, if I don't call.

Tim told me about a website called www.jpg.com. It's a web-zine, which also publishes a dead tree edition. Anyone can put their pictures up on it, and some of them are brilliant, so fucking good, you gasp, but others, well... I spent hours yesterday (Sunday) browsing through a lot of them, and I was surprised by two things. First of all, by how ordinary most of them are, and second, by how many of them are pictures of precisely the same image, or at least, very, very similar images. A ton of rusting car photos, that, in the end, began to look alike; female nudes up the wazoo, and maybe one of them was interesting; landscapes, intimate and grand, that had no 'reason', if you know what I mean. It was a lesson to me, concerning how very hard it is to get a truly original photo. Or even to take a photo of something that has the potential to be cliched without falling into that trap. I found the problem with most of the pictures that I thought were ordinary (one woman's opinion) was lighting and composition. I should say that I consider most of the pictures I take to be ordinary, so I am critiquing myself, along with all the others.

I believe that's all I have to say. The weather's still humid, but it's getting cooler, thank heavens. Oh, and I've heard from the people who are printing the book - in India! I can hardly wait until it's done. I've already started on an index of a sort, and it seems to be an absolutely enormous undertaking, particularly the indexing of ideas, because that entails rereading the whole thing, basically, and taking careful notes. Talk about time-consuming. Sheesh. I do wish I could hire Bill to do it, but his paws are just not built for the job, much as he seems willing. And now I really am done.

School

2007-02-21T14:29:00.000+13:00

Hey all. I've been meaning to put this into the blog for a while, and I just keep forgetting, so I'll do it right now, although it doesn't have anything to do with school, really. In finishing the book, the last chapter is basically on the relevance of the pyramids today, and in researching that, I looked up the UNESCO World Heritage website. What a great thing. It's fascinating, and absolutely chockful of information. I decided I'd like to make it a list of places to visit, all the ones on their list. The URL is http://whc.unesco.org/en/35, and one of the coolest things is, if you register (free) for the site, you get a free world map with all the places on the list on it. It's plasticized, so it's a keeper. Cool, hm?

I just had lunch with Anne, and it was nice. We talked about what to do now I'm done with the book, and talked about how to handle graduate students who get sidetracked with other stuff to do, and other things. She's on leave, but school is gearing up for the new year starting on Monday. My first class on Monday is at 5 pm, until 6 pm. It's the language, and it was a choice of either 8 am or 5 pm. I tried 8 am last year and we all had difficulties focusing at that hour of the morning, particularly as some of them had to come from over an hour and a half's transit drive away. So we'll see how 5 pm works. Might have the same problem. Dunno. The other classes are the history (sigh), and a graduate course in the religion. I'm really looking forward to the last one. There are only 4 students in it, so there will be time for lots of seminar presentations and discussions, and of course, the talking head (me) going on about what the religion was and how it worked.

The weather sucks. It's humid and hot and I feel like one of those rollers you use to get lint off fabric, all sticky and like I'm covered in fuzz, although I'm not really because they don't have poplars here with the fuzz in the spring. But still, fuzzy is what I feel like.

Don't think I don't know it's Tim's birthday soon. Don't you think that.

It's partly the weather, in which I languish rather than live, and partly school starting soon, and partly just missing people who have fallen away lately. Was it the right thing to come down here? I'm blessed to have a job, and this really is a beautiful place to live, and the people have largely been marvellous (with the exception of the bozos who write vitriolic and unnecessarily harsh evaluations), but I am getting tired of feeling like an alien. I always feel like a mini-alien most of the time, but it's a full-blown condition down here. I know I complain about this all the time. I apologize to all who read this. I have a feeling that I think it's just that if I can find the words that express it perfectly, the feeling will go away. Obviously it hasn't happened yet. And I have a really deep-seated fear that it's just who I am, to never be content and never feel at ease.

I'm off to Pots of Ponsonby with Mag this afternoon. We're meeting outside the library in about 50 minutes. I've been listening to Jose Gonzalez and Paul McLaney, both lovely with calming 'choons'. I need a shower. Love to you all.

Done

2007-02-10T17:45:00.000+13:00

Hey everyone. I'm finished. i just went off the last edits of the book, consecutively paginated, PLUS sent off the captions for the photo essay. I think I'm really, really done. Just in time for school, although I will still have to do an index, and I'll have to do the proofs. I'm a little stunned.

Dodes and I are going out to dinner tonight at the Canton (I think it's called). It's in Kingsland and it's a terrific Chinese restaurant. I can hardly wait.

The weather sucks - very humid, which means I'm sweaty and yucky. I'm always reminded in weather like this of a line from "To Kill A Mockingbird", about the ladies in the town who sweat during the hot weather and powder themselves to keep themselves from shining, and end up looking like little frosted teacakes. That's what I feel like right now. Although perhaps not quite so food-like, or sweet.

I've just finished such a marvellous book. "Behind the Scenes at the Museum" by Kate Atkinson. What a wonderful story! And funny and brilliantly written. Please, you must all read it. About a family, told by the smallest daughter, Ruby Lennox, through her time in the womb to the death of the last living parent. It is beautifully done, and as moving as hell. A first book, and who'd have thought anyone could write such polished, knowing prose for their first book? I have hope, now, that anything is possible. It is not self-conscious in the way first books seem usually to be. This is a story of how it's possible to rise above almost anything and become a whole person, with carefully packed and unobtrusive baggage. I found myself wishing Ruby were a real person - she would have been lovely and strong and funny and difficult. What more could one ask in a friend?

Food calls. Bye.

Again back again

2007-02-05T15:55:00.000+13:00

Hey. ... I remember seeing that word used for the first time as a greeting in a short story by Eudora Welty. "Why I Live at the P.O.". One of the best, funniest stories in the world. I love it. HIGHLY recommend it. But I wasn't going to write about books this time.

This suddenly having more money is a terribly strange feeling. I keep thinking it's all a huge mistake, that someone will take it away from me next month. They have savings accounts down here that charge you $5.00 for any withdrawal after the first one, so I've opened one of them ... I'm sorry, my mind isn't on my money really. It's on my family. I have the most glorious picture of O and F up. February in a calendar sent by T and C. The kidderns are wearing red bug glasses and looking very seriously into the camera. I HATE that I can't just ring up and hear their voices or hug them like a kodiak bear, but them's the breaks, I reckon. I hate that I can't do that with all of my family. I can, I suppose, ring them up, but the time differential is weird, and phoning them from work feels like skiving, to me, so I don't as often as I'd like. I feel separated from my life down here. My mind is almost always with family. I think about them constantly, and miss them even more often. My dad says that I ought to concentrate on the 'now'. He's right, but it is very difficult to ignore the elephant in the room with the signboard that says, "I miss home" on it in neon letters.

My hair is long now, in tons of curls. It's more riotous than anything else, but perhaps that jibes with my personality.

Time to go.

I'm back

2007-02-04T16:08:00.000+13:00

Hey all. Been a very long time. Y'all know what's been up with me, so I'm not going to rehash it again, although good news never goes amiss, does it? Except you've all congratulated me up the yin-yang, so I'm gonna let it go. I thought I might talk, instead, about The Road by Cormac McCarthy. I've said it before but, like good news, it deserves to be said again: Cormac McCarthy is the finest writer in America today, and I believe he will be seen as the finest American writer period, in times to come. His latest is The Road. It's set in post-apocalyptic America (one presumes, although the location is never named), the journey of a man and his son through a hellish landscape to a coast. All the land has been blasted into death. Nothing grows, cannibalism is the only way to get protein, forests have been reduced to ashy ruins, and the sky is never other than gray with pollution from whatever caused the complete destruction of the earth.The world has been divided between good guys and bad guys, and the bad guys are cannabilistic horrors of human beings, and the good guys are few and far between. There are moments of reprieve throughout the book, moments that shine like muddy emeralds, and these mitigate all the rest of the appalling moments. In this way, it is like life cut to the bare minimum, the stray moments of calm and serenity divided from each other by heaps of ennui and fear and sadness. The love between the man and his son is the story, really, and when, in the end, the boy must move on, the leavetaking is transcendent of the surroundings. It is tempting to say that the story is about the power of the human spirit in the face of adversity, but it is too hopeless a narrative. There is nothing but continued existence, existence which is brought to the level of sleeping, eating, and everchanging shelter, to the level of black and white, good guys and bad guys, living and dying. My god, this book is a powerful statement about the road down which humanity seems to be headed, both in terms of the environment and in terms of our own selves. There is no resolution, just the end of the road.

A film with a similar message is Children of Men. The film has a slightly more hopeful ending, although neither the book nor the film end with arms raised in hallelujah.

I suddenly, today, came up with an idea about how to insert this extra 2000 words that is necessary for the book to be finally done. I will put little bits into each chapter, rather than write a huge piece on the tombs surrounding the pyramids. The place and art and architecture will each be put into the chapter that is most similar in content. Sounds like a no-brainer, I know, but sometimes, well, that's how I operate, with no brain. Close study has shown exactly how the tombs were decorated, with plaster, then red lines, then black, sometimes corrective, lines, then cutting the background back and smoothing it with an abrasive, then a wash, then painting. Only I've got to say that in considerably more wordage. It'll happen. Except for me, all the rest is done and finished. This feeling of lightness is astounding. Of course, we start the teaching year on Feb. 26, and I need to put a ton more work into my new class, the graduate class on Egyptian religion. And I've got to get working on the trip to Egypt. And the Early Egypt class for 2nd and 3rd years. And start researching writing stuff that is more germane to my fields of interest. Christ, it all sounds so bloody boring, doesn't it? 'Fields of interest' - for Pete's sake. I desperately do not want to fall into the 'defend at all costs the tiny bailiwick which I have carved for myself' syndrome. It's hard, sometimes, in the rush and constant pressure to keep up, to remember that really, it all comes down to breathing in and out.

2006-07-02T13:47:00.000+12:00

So Obeloe likes squishy things between his fingers? Is that true, Owen? Me, too, I have to confess. My all-time favourite thing used to be dunking my hand into my mom's tub of hand moisturizer and squishing the stuff through my fingers and fist. Truth be told I still like doing that. What kind of squishy things are you going to grab onto, Bubbles, in the Biodome? What you can do here all year round is squish sand through your fingers on the beaches. And there are live sand dollars, which I'd never seen before. And live sea urchins. And the water, especially in summer, is warm and the bluest blue. Almost as blue as the Red Sea. One day, Mr. Bobelow, we'll go to all the beaches together and squish things. And play with the seaweed on the beaches, and we'll send Sarah postcards of everything. Want to?

Someone else I haven't said hello to in a very long time is Sarah. I've had some beautiful cards from her and I have been horribly remiss and haven't replied to one, and I LOVE them. They mean so very much to me. Next time I'm home, I'll be sure to drop by No. 32 and see you, Sarah. I have missed you very much.

It is absolutely beautiful weather down here. It's cool and completely clear. Gorgeous weather. I demand visitors. Kiwis keep saying how awful June and July are, but really, for me it's the best time of the year. Perfect time to visit.

Term is over and I've been marking and writing. The stupid book HAS to be finished for early in July, so I've got to finish it toot sweet. Workin' hard. But I went out yesterday morning for breakfast crepes at a little place in Kingsland (a suburb of Auckland near Mt Albert) called Bouchon, and they were so blessedly good. And really, I've done little else. There was a sort-of scare at the Grove last night. A drunk guy got into the complex, as the gate is broken, and he was causing quite a ruckus, broke someone's glass front door (punched it in). It all got worked out, though, when the police came and took him away. Poor guy - really, he just wanted some company.

Someone ages ago asked me who Harry and Smoots were, and I've been neglectful of answering. I've finally got a picture of them, so here they are.

That's all for today. I'll write again when I'm done with the book. Love to all at 32 and other points in the Great White North.

Just blither

2006-06-09T15:47:00.000+12:00

I must say I feel like absolute crap today - slightly feverish, sniffly, bleah. It's kind of a bleah day out today, too. I've been reading a PhD dissertation from Poland, in English, thank heavens. On the royal reliefwork from the Old Kingdom mortuary complexes. It ties in directly with the stuff I'm doing for the pyramids book, so it's goal-oriented, but it's interesting, nonetheless. As I was reading it, imagining these temples and causeways as they must have looked when they were in use, it occurred to me that I do something that is reasonably esoteric. I don't imagine a lot of people would find it interesting, and it's only by peopling the places, adding noises and smells in my imagination that I can feel as if I have a grasp on things. I consider it a fault in my intellect, really, because I simply cannot grasp what I can't picture. It must spur some kind of response in my mind, or it kind of slides off and out as soon as it's read. I imagine it sometimes like whisps of smoke leaving my ears. Hopeless, really.

I bought a dvd copy of The Lion in Winter for $10 yesterday (those of you in the northern hemisphere have no idea what kind of a coup that is, but it's big, trust me). I watched it last night, and was reminded how bloody good it is. The sparring and the use of language is breathtakingly brilliant. It's wickedly funny and spiteful and sarcastic and honest and so human. Beautiful. Such a terrific film. Go watch it, and watch it again. It will never get stale.

We're reading Wuthering Heights for bookclub. One of the rare occasions we're all reading the same thing. Perhaps I ought to have said, 'we're rereading' the book because nearly everyone's read it, if not very recently. I was going to rabbit on about how the book is so visual and there hasn't been a decent film version when I decided to check Amazon first to see if I was right. I wasn't. There have been at least 5 versions, one in French (1985) which is apparently appalling. One is a Masterpiece Theatre version (1998) which is apparently very good, one is the 1939 Laurence Olivier and Merle Oberon version, one has Timothy Dalton as Heathcliff (brooding good looks but from 1970 which automatically means it's a product of its time, unfortunately), and one with Ralph Fiennes as Heathcliff and Juliette Binoche as Cathy (1992). I must say, though, that if the approximately 672 versions of Jane Eyre are anything to go by, the gothic-ness of the Bronte sisters is, for all intents and purposes, unfilmable. Mind you, I never thought it would be possible to film The Lord of the Rings successfully either, so there you go.

I'm tired and so I'm going to go home now. After I go to the library and pick up some Jane Gardam and The Gnostic Gospels for Mag, who's ill with the same stupid cold, I imagine, although isn't it that no cold is the same which is the reason they'll never discover a cure for them?

Moonbeam skirmish

2006-06-07T17:02:00.000+12:00

This is a picture that I think I've put up before, but I miss the serenity of Ibn Tulun quite often, and look at these photos to remind myself.

You know how you get those weird spam e-mails that have a random bunch of words either in the subject or in the bulk of the message, generally at the bottom? Well, the title of today's blog came from one of those. I was immediately enchanted by it. A moonbeam skirmish. Is that a skirmish of moonbeams or a skirmish in the moonbeams? How would moonbeams skirmish anyhow? Would the noise be like the zing of light sabres? A skirmish IN the moonbeams isn't quite as intriguing, but it is equally visual, I think.

So. End of the first semester. I'm relatively caught up, and I've begun researching the art section of the pyramids book. The last one, for those of you counting. It's lovely to get down to stuff I really enjoy doing again. I love teaching, but it sure sucks the energy, like a vacuum. It's coolish weather, almost real winter down here, and it's nice to shiver. The other morning, not realizing I was quite chilled, I stepped into a hot shower and it knocked the breath out of me. It was absolutely lovely. I've got to get started on getting fingerprints done to send to the RCMP for a criminal record check for a new visa. It'll last 3 years again, but I hope to start proceedings for residency (no landed immigrants here) in the new year, so I won't have to worry about visas after that. I do have to say that I'm more than a little wary of having my fingerprints in the system. It's nothing to do with criminal propensities (she says, hopefully), but I don't really like the idea of the government knowing about me. I have pipedreams of living in the forest somewhere, completely off the grid. I don't think I'm paranoid, just private and shy. Besides, you know what they say - just because you're paranoid, doesn't mean they aren't out to get you.

Home to Hell Pizza (you know what I'm talking about, Ma and Hil, hm? - delish!) and reading. I spent the weekend in bed with a cold, and although I feel much better, it's still making its presence felt. Perhaps some red wine with the pizza...

End of the semester

2006-05-24T14:03:00.000+12:00

The view out a window in the back lab at Abydos.

It's very near the end of the semester, just one more week left of classes and that's that for about six weeks, until the next semester rolls around. It means the pressure is on for marking, and students are a little more frenetic. I'm happily surprised that a number of the essays I've had to mark for the Egyptian history course are actually quite good. The tutors have had some doozies, and have had to hand out a number of zeros for plagiarism. This kind of thing is so disheartening. I want to be able to reach every single student, to inspire every single student to do their best, despite knowing that such a desire on my part is ridiculous and in no way possible. I remember not really giving a damn about marks, and letting my interests take the lead. This had the effect of making me very good in some areas and absolute crap in others. I didn't understand the value of working hard at everything - that education is always holistic and that what you learn in one course can be applied to all the other courses you're taking, no matter the subject. Enough of THAT tirade.

A very good thing is that we get a 4.5% pay raise, retroactive to May, 2006. Okay, so it's only less than a month back, but still, it will mean more money in the bank tomorrow. And not a lot, but every little bit helps, said the mouse as he peed in the Pacific.

Nothing much else to say, or rather, nothing much else that can be put onto the web for the world to read. Perhaps it's enough to say that karma appears to be biting the right ass.

I'm listening to Harmonie Universelle, and it is such glorious music. And I really can't think of anything else to say. Bye.

Remiss AGAIN

2006-05-12T13:57:00.000+12:00

Hey all. So, down here we have something called an evidence portfolio for the 2006 Performance Based Research Funding Quality Evaluation. It's basically a list of everything you've done during the year that is research (which includes publishing, field work, peer esteem, etc.), and it is the most incredibly complicated thing to fill out. I've had mine sent back (apparently, almost everyone has had theirs sent back). They said, "promising early career EP (evidence portfolio)" but I need to plump it up a bit, fill in the spaces. Nice to be told I'm promising. It feels like a gigantic hoop to jump through, but the key words are "Performance Based Research Funding", and that's what it says - we get funding based on our research outputs as a department. This year, the amount we received was miniscule comparatively. We're a small department, so we can't compete with the larger, generally science-based departments, which is part of the reason for the smallish amount of money we got this year. Watch out for next year.

Typical Auckland autumn weather - wet and not and wet and not.

I have a confession to make, one that might make me seem a huge geek. Which indeed I may be without knowing it, but if so, damn it, I'm proud. I have, for the past year or so, been playing a board game with some graduate students in the department. It's called Settlers of Catan, and it's loads of fun (she says defiantly). It's relatively simply, and we're trying to play once a week. It's not a role-playing game (not THAT much of a geek, I guess), it's a 'civilisation' or 'culture-building' game. I've won once. Last week. It was glorious, and I got to do a little dance. We're playing again tonight, but I don't hold out much hope for the likelihood of another win. I mostly play for fun and to mock other players.

I've read the most wonderfully eccentric book - Five Boys by Mick Jackson. He also wrote The Underground Man. It's beautifully written, about the movement of London children into the rural areas to keep them away from the bombing during WWII. It's funny and odd, as only the British can be, and I want everyone to rush out immediately and buy and copy, read it, and write me telling me how much they love it.

Bill has begun sleeping on my bed again, the little boy. Purry and soft and lovely. I think that's the most important bit of news I have to relate today, so I'll just end it there.

Back, at last

2006-05-01T11:27:00.000+12:00

I've been quite incredibly remiss, haven't I? Haven't been putting anything up at all. Well, here I is now, raring to go. Sort of. I'm listening to Jose Gonzalez, 'Veneer'. Fabulous. Argentinian Swede. TV watchers in the audience might recognize the use of his song by Sony in a Bravia advertisement. Ethereal. Highly, highly recommended.

It's autumn, moving into fall, down here in the southern hemisphere. It means that the air is dryer and the days, when not filled with rain falling torrentially, are crystal clear, cool in the shade, warm in the sun, and blue blue blue. Perfect weather. Chilly nights, the best for sleeping.

I've been reading Mick Jackson "Five Boys". WWII, London children sent out to the country because it was safer. Lyrical, so beautifully written. Much like his first book "The Underground Man", which was just lovely. Although I do love Dickens and the lush writing of the Victorian period, I think the writing I seek most to emulate is the spare prose of Hemingway. It has, somehow, the greatest emotional impact. I am too verbose, though, too wordy. Sometimes I like to experiment with the possibilities of no adjectives or adverbs. It's bloody hard. Try it. Manipulating the sentences so they are as spare as possible, yet creating a depth of feeling that verges on poignant melancholia. I love the way words sound, the way they look, the way they fit together, particularly when they are used in unexpected ways and combinations. Sometimes writing is like making music, as if using the typing keyboard is somehow akin to using a piano keyboard. I feel the rhythm of the language in my hands and sometimes catch myself swaying as I write. It hums and sings its way along the contours of the words, providing a background of which only I am aware, of which only I can hear and feel. The challenge, for me, is to see if I can get that sensation into the words in such a way that it becomes available to whomever reads the words. I don't think I'm successful but it is something I so love to practice that secretly I hope it doesn't ever work. As with so much, the journey is the point.

That's it for now. Bye.

Karma and other stuff

2006-03-24T10:38:00.000+12:00

Dad in February, 2005.

Went to see 'Brokeback Mountain' which I loved. It had, actually, quite a profound effect on me, and I couldn't really work out why. I thought it was the love story, but I've become generally immune to those of late, cynical even. This one was more about loss of love, though, and I thought maybe it was that. But I think it's that it was filmed in Alberta, and is that most prosaic of longings, the one for home. New Zealand is surely beautiful, and the South Island has elements of the southern Alberta short-grass prairie that has always felt like my personal landscape. Mag said about New Zealand that she loved it in her bones, and I knew exactly what she meant, but about Alberta and Canada in a larger sense. I would like to know why this has happened now, whether it has lain dormant and only has become an issue due to the movie, or whether it's time for me to move back home. I'll see if I can ride it out. I miss my country.

Enough wallowing. I've been thinking about karma, 'what goes around, comes around'. I do believe in that firmly. Not in a sense of 'fate' but in a sense of reaping what one sows, and that one cannot live one's life without regard for others and not have that come around to bite one in the ass, hard. I'm muttering about my colleague again. Someone commented on my last post that karma would take care of things, and I do honestly think that it's so, it will take care of things, but, and I mean no offense to any gods who may be reading this, it's not happening fast enough. Part of the joy of karma, for me, is watching its evolution, so I'm usually more than prepared to let it take its course and trust that it will happen, even if I'm not there to see it, but in this case, I want to be in on it. I want to be holding the other end of the tripwire. Will this desire come back to bite ME on the ass, hard? Wouldn't be surprised. Karma doesn't play favourites.

Okay, okay

2006-03-20T11:38:00.000+12:00

This should be 'News from the Homefront' or something. I'm in the middle of a huge anger directed toward someone I work with, and it's making me feel impotent and frustrated and wall-kickingly angry. It sounds a little ridiculous, but I need to find the space inside myself that allows me to watch what is happening and not feel I have to get involved, because I can do absolutely nothing. It feels so terribly wrong to stand by and watch someone act in a completely vile, disrespectful, and dishonest manner to someone of a lower standing, and yet anything I do will make the situation muddier and more difficult. This co-worker is a vile, vile person, and unrepentantly so. I need to pet Bill or something.

The weather is humid and yuck, despite the blue skies and warm temperatures. My hair never dries, all the livelong day; it's either wet from a shower or wet from sweat. Bill was very loving last night and slept on my face. He's a little furnace, that boy, and it was the sweating that woke me up, not the lack of oxygen.

Okay, okay, so what's better news that this above what I've written? I watched "Little Britain" from Mag's dvds yesterday, and fell off the couch (literally) laughing. It's a BBC production, a series of short skits done by two men with some of the most sublime comedic characters, like Anne, the nutter, and Lou and Andy, the co-dependent worker and his wheelchair-bound charge. I cannot recommend this highly enough - it's available from amazon.com, so I'll bet it's in rental places up in the Great White North. The skits are short enough (only 1 or 2 minutes long), Newcastleites, that you can watch one at a time inbetween feedings and changings and puttings to bed.

Been reading Elizabeth Knox, an NZ writer. Lovely, lovely stuff, vaguely magic realism, but completely down-to-earth. Highly recommended.

Oh, and a wonderful surprise - I'm loving teaching this year. I have a huge history class - 211 people in it - but they seem really interested and lively about their interest. An absolute joy to teach when things are like that, and I think I'm a much better teacher as a result. PLUS I've been revamping my Powerpoints and having fun with pictures from the field of mummified body parts and other wonderful stuff. The language class is fun, too, at least partially because so many of the students are familiar to me. Thus far, and from my point of view, we've been having fun.

And that's it for today. I realize I haven't posted a picture of Harry and Smoots - it's been a matter of co-ordination of the two of them and me with a digital camera. Soon enough. Wait for it... And no, these two guys are not Harry and Smoots. They're Taher and Ayman.

Back at school

2006-02-27T11:49:00.000+13:00

So, first day of classes. Already I've made several errors in fact - one of them eliminated the Greeks from Egyptian history, so that's all right. ... Suddenly realized how that sounds - if any Greeks or people of Greek extraction read this, I am merely taking the piss. It is meant in jest and not in reality. The Ptolemies were very important in the course of Egyptian history. ... Class went all right, I think, despite the mistakes. No nasty phone calls or 'you stink' e-mails. I shall, of course, rectify my mistakes for the next class. I must admit I'm terrified of teaching this particular class. I'm not sure if I'll be able to put that terror to work for me, but I really should do my best to do that.

Just back from the language class, in which I feel much easier, mostly because there are only 25 in the class. 204 in the history class. It's been only a marginally stressful day, really. Again, my personal habit of vastly overestimating the difficulties of the day before me has paid off, and I'm relatively stress-free...except for the meeting with the Pak'n Save manager about the possibility of an upgrade for Mom's flight to business class and the beds therein for her ankle. That could be stressful. Thank heavens for Harry and Smoots. Pictures of them tomorrow. The picture above is the one I like best of Mom and Bill conferring on photographic problems.

The travel

2006-02-17T20:26:00.000+13:00

The South Island is beautiful, like southern Alberta. Dry, mountainous, spare. No sea in southern Alberta, but aside from that.... It's been so lovely travelling with Bill, Cis, and Mom. Wonderful travelling companions. We're in Kaikoura tonight, and last night, as well. Lovely little town. Mom and I went whale-watching today, and saw tons of dolphins!! We also saw 2 sperm whales, although my picture of the first of the sperm whales leaves MUCH to the imagination. I do have a lovely little movie of the dolphins, though. Dusky dolphins, by name. They were swimming alongside the boat, doing somersaults in the air, back flips, splashing us by whomping down just ahead of the boat. It was so wonderful. The whales were enormous. Bigger than it's possible for me to imagine, really. We also saw albatrosses, which were wonderful, and little seal heads poking out of the water, looking at us.

We're on to Christchurch tomorrow. Mom and I will spend one night with a friend, while Bill and Cis spend a night with a friend of theirs, then we all spend one further night in a backpackers, then it's home. Our ferry booking to the North Island is on the 21st of Feb. On the way down, we stayed in Napier, which was hit by a devastating earthquake in the 30's. They rebuilt as quickly as possible and nearly all in Art Deco style. It's internationally recognized as an important Art Deco living monument (I guess is what you'd call it), and it's just gorgeous. I LOVED it and wish like hell they taught Egyptology there. No university, but I could just give ad hoc classes. If we go back that way, I'll take some more pictures, and put them up. Not sure where we're going, though, only that we'll be back in Auckland on the early evening of the 23rd so I can go to work on the 24th. Classes start on the 27th.

New fans and other delights

2006-02-01T15:21:00.000+13:00

The Coromandel Peninsula, south of Auckland. Same place, opposite directions. Winter, when Hilary was here.

Just got a new fan for my office. Chrome, so it looks cool, and it works, so it IS cool. I KNOW the humidity is much, much worse in other places I've been, like Thailand and Toronto, but it feels worse here. Sticky bleahness.

I know I've said this already, but this book, Building in Egypt, is so damned interesting. Maybe it's just my love of the subject, but I can hear the noise of the building projects in my mind as I read it and imagine the diagrams at work. Absolutely fascinating, and building, particularly stone masonry, has never really interested me before as a subject. I always though, 'yeah, yeah, put them up, tons of corvée workers, dust, heat, death and hideous injuries', but having read this, it all seems so much more possible. Not that I ever thought (GOD FORBID!) that the pyramids, etc. were built by other than human labourers, but they were just too big for me to care how they were built. That's it, isn't it? Bringing it down to human terms is how we interest people in the ancient past. The shoes, the wigs, the underwear (a whole boxful in Tut's tomb, none of it stained, as far as I know [I know, I know - 'Jen!!']), the tools, the pots with fingerprints baked into them, the working lives, the religious lives...and when excavating, the skeletons that indicate how they died, the murder victims, the tiny children's bones in pots, the toddler's bones that have such awful pathologies you know, with sorrow, that the life they had was physical pain from beginning to end. How to present stuff like that to 200 mainly disinterested students at a time? I know they expect Indiana Jones and constant brilliant insights. I have a hard time making the history of kings interesting, I confess.

Mom, Bill, and Cicely arrive next Tuesday. I'm going to wash the car, or at least get the spiderwebs off of it. Sounds like I never use it, doesn't it? Couldn't be more wrong - I use it all the time. The spiderwebs are on everyone's cars. I'm going to vacuum it out, get it spic and span, buy a South Island town map book, and then wait impatiently, foot tapping, for them to arrive. Then we're off.

Ah, Egypt

2006-01-28T17:38:00.000+13:00

Egypt is so full of chaos and busy-ness that it is difficult, sometimes, to see the small beautiful things. You have to sit quietly, and sometimes, that's impossible, because you are immediately surrounded by curious people, the moment you stop to rest. It's an exercise in finding the place inside yourself that is quiet and not bothered by the chatter, the arm-pulling, the questions, the proximity. Once you do that, Egypt is an indescribably surprising place.

Not quite so sorrowful

2006-01-26T17:25:00.000+13:00

The window of the train from Balliyana to Cairo. Second class.

Work on the morning of Oct. 28, 2004

So, I went this morning to get the data from Ursula's harddrive put onto a disk and came back with everything I've been missing since Ursula went crook. Pictures from last season at Abydos, pictures from last visit to Canada, pictures from the Coromandel Peninsula, files for teaching and writing and fooling around. I'm as happy as I can be without actually having the machine. This has lightened my mood considerably, I must say. I've missed the pictures in particular.

I've been reading Building in Egypt: Pharaonic Stone Masonry. You'd think it would be a snoozer, hm? but to my surprise, I'm fascinated by it. I think because it's about how humans built things, not necessarily about a technique or style of work. It's like looking at ancient shoes, or clothing, or toilet articles or wigs. Things people used and touched.

After quite a while of having been off the straight and narrow, in my head, and having felt at the whim of whatever emotion struck me, I am now solid again. I have managed to soothe myself and come to terms with things, and my heart is lighter than it has been in a long time. I am puzzled, however, that I am unable to feel as if I am in New Zealand, and not floating above it in some way. Sounds peculiar, I know. Perhaps it's an expat thing. It's as if the moment I admit I'm here, living here for ever and ever amen, I lose something, some connection with Canada, some intrinsic understanding of myself. As if I won't know who I am. I've been prodding this feeling a little to see what happens, but so far I've run screaming into the desert at the thought of acknowledging myself as in New Zealand. I'll let it rest, I think, and prod it some more a little further down the track in time. This all sounds so silly, but I'm puzzled by it a little. I should hasten to add that it has absolutely nothing with being here. I love it here. I love Mag and David, and I love my job. It's something else.

Sorrowful

2006-01-24T13:03:00.000+13:00

My computer, my laptop, my Ursula, is dead. Took it into Wired Dog, excellent computer guys in Takapuna, over the Harbour Bridge, and Martin said that it isn't economically viable to fix it. They're removing the hard drive and getting the information off for me, putting it onto a dual-layer dvd, so that's a blessing, but my baby is dead. I feel so sorrowful. She was a good little machine. No problems, except for this HUGE problem. Oh, dear, I'm going to miss her. Thank heavens I've got an office computer. Saving for a new one is now paramount.

It's raining like absolute stink here today, pouring down without letup. I must say that traversing the Harbour Bridge in gale-force winds was a treat in Peabody. She withstood the pressure, though, and battled her way over. Another good little machine.

I've been plugging away, fruitfully, at the book. It WILL get done soon, and that makes me so happy. What else? Been reading Barchester Towers, which is quite lovely. Funny and light. Not quite as...um...solid as Dickens, and that's really a good thing. I LOVE Dickens, my all-time favourite Victorian author, and maybe even all-time favourite author period. His social conscience and his humanity are part of what makes him so marvellous, but I just love his stories, too. He can be a little solid, though, and it takes time to work through his books. It's a different kind of reading. Modern reading is sometimes flippy, if you know what I mean. Easy and light. Not all of it, by any means - I certainly wouldn't call Cormac McCarthy flippy in any of his work - but a lot of it is. It takes practice, I find, to read Dickens and co.

Breathing under water

2006-01-14T15:58:00.000+13:00

David Legge, Mag's partner, and a cemetery and the sea

Oh, today is so hot and humid. My office, which gets no sun until about 4 pm and then only slashes across my desk, is generally quite cool, even in the midst of summer; today, however, I'm sweating as I type. It's a fucking sauna. Both windows and door are open, but it makes little difference.

The past few days have been nothing days. I found out that I'm teaching the second half of the language class in the second semester at 8 am. I was told this by a student, and very firmly told her no, that she must have made a mistake, that Tony was the one who didn't mind getting up at sparrow's fart to teach, that I was certain the times for the language for ME had stayed the same - 10 am, MF, both semesters. The student was very gracious in showing me that I was wrong. It's not really so bad for me but poor Julia, who will tutor the class and who lives a fair ways away, will have to be on the bus at 6 am to get here in time. I'll only have to get up by 6 am, on the bus by 7 am to get here by about 7:20 or 7:30 am.

Remember a while ago I said there wasn't any Canadian tv on down here? What a lie that was. The Maori TV channel, sort of the equivalent of APTN in Canada, has loads of really interesting First Nations programming from Canada, like North of 60, but better and completely First Nations. And one of the channels, can't remember which one, has The Trailer Park Boys. I never watched that in Canada, but I do here every once in a while, and is it a peculiar show. Good, but odd.

I'm listening right now to Charles Aznavour sing Quand Tu M'Aimes. Great song.

Time to get back to work.

Ice cream and other matters

2006-01-06T15:32:00.000+13:00

Nothing, and I mean nothing, has been happening here. The weather is wayward, rain falling from bright blue sky (how DOES that work, anyway?). Hottest December in years - and that just feels so very, very wrong to say. I cannot get used to the Christmas holidays occurring in summer. Part of my depression this year (the annual Christmas blues - so prosaic) was the desire that came from my guts to hear footsteps crunching on snow.

On the Mr. Whippy front, I've been told that there is an ice cream company down south on the North Island in Napier or some other town called Snow Boy or something very similar. The tag line is 'Always licked, never beaten'. Jesus. Either this is the purest country in the world, in which these things simply don't have any other meaning than the one meant originally, or it's the filthiest, and it's all on purpose. I do hope it's the latter.

Don't really have much else to say. Book work is coming along quite steadily, and I'm pleased with the progress, although it could be going faster, of course. I'm waiting with bated breath for Mom, Bill, and Cicely to come down - we spent a little time on the phone talking about scheduling and things. Most fun.

Speaking of bating one's breath, I discovered something that surprised me concerning the meaning of the word 'bate'. I always thought it meant to hold one's breath, but it actually means to slow one's breathing down, until it's soft and gentle. Odd, hm? Makes more sense, really, but I find it hard to wrap my mind around the true meaning, having sort-of intrinsically understood my own meaning. There's a terrific site on the web - http://www.worldwidewords.org - that discusses the meanings of words and phrases. REALLY interesting. He sends out a free newsletter once a week, too.

Okay, time to get back to writing. I'm off to Turkish this evening with Tasha, Bex, and Julia. Julia's heading to Taiwan to visit family with her mother soon, for a month or 6 weeks or something, so we're celebrating her trip. The place is owned by Iranians, so perhaps we should call it going for Iranian, but it's called The Little Turkish Café. Doesn't matter - food's good and cheap, and they have shiisha. Bliss.

Well, New Year and here we are

2006-01-02T13:22:00.000+13:00

New Year's Eve was surprisingly quiet here, at least around my neck of the woods. Mag says it was riotous in Thames with people yelling and talking and laughing and setting off firecrackers until about 3 am. The people behind us had a fire in a oil barrel and quietly laughed and talked and had what seemed to be a very nice time. A few firecrackers, but nothing too much.

It's been getting cooler and less sunny the past few days. Fine with me, except the humidity hasn't retreated much. My office doesn't smell too painty, which is lovely, and I'm able to work quite well. Getting a handle on the book has been almost delicious. I've been reading Neil Gaiman's Anansi Boys and, of course, enjoying it immensely. He does write such good stuff. I have yet to find a copy of Barchester Towers, our next bookclub book. I'll have to haunt the second-hand bookstores here, I think. Neither Borders nor Dymock's nor Whitcoull's had a copy. Had other Trollope stuff, just not that. Second-hand books are so much better anyway. They've got softer covers and they're ... just better. I've also been reading The Witch of Cologne by Tobsha Learner. About Jews in 15th century Holland. Good, not fantastic. Interesting. Makes me want to see The Governess again, although that's Victorian in period. The exotic nature of Jewish culture and life in the hidebound Victorian world fascinates me, like hearing Arabic (or Hebrew) spoken in a whitebread neighbourhood. Makes your ear perk up...'What's that?"

I rented Layer Cake and loved it. British crime movie, which they do better than anyone else. They don't feel the need to spell out every little thing, and they're not afraid to have astonishing things in them. Michael Gambon is quite amazingly good, although why 'amazingly' I don't know. Perhaps 'quite bloody good'. I'd really like to see The Singing Detective again, the original British version. They have it for rent here - I'll have to look into it. I think I'll marry Gambon when I grow up.

Okay, back to work. I hope everyone's New Year's was good.

Ya know ... stuff

2005-12-26T14:35:00.000+13:00

Firth of Thames, Nov. 9, 2005, sunset.

I had a lovely and quiet Christmas.

Did I mention that my office is getting painted? Who knows what colour, probably industrial something (if it's that high school green, I'm going to poke my eyes out with a fork). This is ostensibly going on tomorrow, but I won't hold my breath. I should really take stuff down. The Bubba-Hotep poster has, of course, fallen down AGAIN for 497th time. Something must be done about that. Shouldn't be allowed.

What to say, what to say, what to say. Have I said how much I like the television down here? Some American stuff, usually the best stuff, although there are anomalies, like 'Oprah'; very little Canadian stuff (in fact, I don't think I've seen any after one episode of DaVinci's Inquest a couple of years ago); tons of British stuff, which is so far and away the best. Even the shows I wouldn't usually watch, like car shows, are terrific, like 'Top Gear'. No baseball on non-cable TV which is a shame, but understandable. If I want to watch men hitting balls with bats, I could watch cricket, but despite some very good and patient instruction, I have no idea how the game works. The terminology alone stymies me, and the scoring ....

What else, specifically, do I love about New Zealand? It's hard to say. Other places in the world I've lived - Norway, Egypt, States, Thailand (for a short while) - I've always felt like some kind of visitor, even when I stayed for a long time. Norway was like that, but at 17, on my own, and considerably less than mature, I'm not sure I was prepared to feel anything other than out of place. Egypt - well, they kind of go out of their way to make single white women feel out of place. Thailand - nothing like Egypt for determination by the Thais, but still, out of place due to size, hair colour, skin colour .... States - see, you'd think that coming from Canada with all the American TV we get, and all the American friends I have, that I'd have felt right at home, but I felt more out of place there than anywhere else, really. I've been thinking it all comes down to expectations. I'm never going to fit into Egyptian culture, Thai culture, or even Norwegian culture (much as I love my relatives there) because I guess I don't want to, I don't really expect to. I'd rather be the expat in those countries, and others. I like being the person outside looking in on what's going on, to be the most myself as a result of no perceived cultural expectations. The States, I have no desire whatsoever to fit in there. None. I think the Horatio Alger culture there is poisonous. Here, though, in New Zealand, it reminds me so much of Canada that I don't have the desire to be an expat. I just want to live here. That's all. Maybe I'm growing up.

LATER

Just went to Broken Flowers. Jim Jarmusch. It seems to me that all his movies are about one thing - trips to nowhere in which nothing is discovered and no-one learns anything. Perhaps with the exception of Roberto in Down By Law. He gets the girl. Bill Murray is tremendous, as always. One expects nothing less from him, and generally gets nothing less than that. Good movie, but weirdly pointless. Ends with a man standing in the middle of a crossroads. Isn't that imagery just a little obvious? It's amusing, though. A weirdly pointless comedy, sort of. Not a laugh a minute, but those laugh a minute comedies are even less full of something than this was.

One of the things I like best about New Zealand is the fact that their national ice cream treat company, a la Dairy Queen in North America, is Mr. Whippy, which is funny enough in itself. What amuses me even more, though, is that fact that no-one else thinks it's funny.

Merry Christmas

2005-12-23T14:30:00.000+13:00

This is a building in Thames, behind Sola Cafe. I took it on my birthday, having spent the day with David wandering around the town taking pictures of architecture. The picture yesterday was taken on the same day, around noon. St. Peter's Church.

It's the 23rd here. Sunday's going to be Christmas with tons of people over, many of them I know, some I don't. Mag and I restricted ourselves to $10 per gift, a restriction which has worked rather well. There are some lovely tumblers (drinking glasses) from France at Sabato, the local fine foods shop, with bees around the rim, and we're giving each other those.

I have trouble during this season. I prefer to spend it quietly, going to ground. In the past years, I have gone to movies on Christmas Day (this year, Christmas Eve day) alone. It is a tentative time, a period in which I have to wrap myself tightly, in order not to fall to pieces. Without question, the loneliest time of the year and a time that I dread more every year. It is particularly difficult here. Sleep is the best option. And making damned sure my meds don't run out.

Oh, for heaven's sake, bah humbug to that last paragraph. I won't take it out, because it's the truth, but let's not think about it. Let's think, instead, how pleased Mag and I are with our tumblers (each less than $10), how pleased I am to see Bill come running full tilt toward me every day I come home from work, meowing as if we haven't seen each other for years, and how pleased I am to have a permanent, soon-to-be full-time job. How much I enjoy the friends I have here. That's better.

Have a wonderful Christmas, everyone. You are all in my thoughts.

With love and angels and snow and tinsel and krumkaker and kringle and sirupsnipper and lefse and pagan celebrations of the equinox and everything that makes Christmas what it is, but most of all thoughts of peace and compassion, Jen.

Meandering and buskers

2005-12-22T16:02:00.000+13:00

Something I've been missing from Toronto is the busking activity. Some of the buskers were (are) pretty pathetic, I'll admit, like that old guy on Bloor who just puffed in and out of a recorder and the duo of accordion and sousaphone at St. Clair West, but most of them were terrific. Today, walking down Queen St., just meandering around, sort of looking for a copy of Barchester Towers, our next bookclub read, and I noticed that suddenly, there are buskers in abundance. One guy playing guitar, one of the best buskers I've ever heard. He was fantastic. REALLY bloody good. He had some CDs for sale - I think I'll get one. A female trio of carol-singers, another guy singing and playing a guitar, one of the brothers who are making money to help send their sister to ballet school in England...it was a plethora of wonderful music. It even drowned out that tinny crap that comes from Sound Plus or whatever the name of that crap record store is. Made me feel light as air, walking around. Good feeling. Didn't find Barchester Towers, though. I think I'll hunt through the second hand shops. Probably a better chance of finding it there. In a nice, worn copy, too, if I'm lucky.

Change of name

2005-12-21T09:13:00.000+13:00

Hey all, I decided I didn't like the last name, so I've changed it. From a quote from Thomas Merton, in one of the entries below.

Guess what? Brasilia the hedgehog has returned. I saw her yesterday waddling down our little pathway, then under a fence and into the neighbour's hedge. Where, of course, she belongs, being a hog for that hedge, so to speak. Mag and I were talking about putting stuff out to feed her, but we figured it would attract all the cats in the neighbourhood, and that would not be a good thing, really. They already seem to troop through our living room to get to Bill's cat food, which annoys us'ns who pay for it, and perplexes Bill, who can't seem to make up his mind to do something about it. Jillie, the cat two units down, black and white, gorgeous little thing with whom Bill is in love (another story), was watching Brasilia very carefully, following her around. I find it heartening that such a small little thing can have such good defenses that she's not worried about the bigger four-legged things with teeth that could rip and tear flesh from its bone. Very heartening, indeed.

What to do, what to do

2005-12-20T12:25:00.000+13:00

Meet Bill, the magnificent (photo by David). I think he thinks I'm a strange-looking cat. He talks to me, gets fed up with me, is patient with me, brings me occasional food. We make up stories about him and how he's going to join the French Foreign Legion, wearing his little hat with the backflap, marching up and down in the sand, bayonet over his shoulder, watching for marauders and danger. I wonder if he makes up stories about us.

I've been wondering lately about honesty and what it means. It's both subjective and objective, seems to me. And there is fact and non-fact. Fact: I am living in New Zealand. Non-fact: I am not living in New Zealand. Easy-peasy. But how do we reconcile honesties? In relationships, my honesty is not someone else's, and likewise, their's is not mine. Sounds unnecessarily convoluted. How do I explain this? Is honesty the straight facts? or is it also moral, ethical, and emotional honesty? I think of honesty as being straight, as straight as possible. It doesn't mean blurting out things as you see them, but not involving others in manipulative or emotional game-playing. Say I'm tired of dealing with emotional dishonesty. Say I've decided that only emotionally honest people need apply to be my friend, and I'll just have to use my own pretty well-developed, finely-honed shit detector. That just makes their emotional honesty subject to my subjectiveness. Doesn't get less convoluted, does it?

Haven't been sleeping that well, and I feel quite drowsy today. I've got an APR (Academic Performance Review) today at 2 pm, and then I think I'll head home for a snooze. I'm beginning work on a new chapter - how and why the pyramids were built - so I'll take some reading material home with me, and start reading. The funnest part of the job, really, is the reading bit. Oh, and Kath and Kim is on tonight, a Christmas special. Y'all up north probably won't know about Kath and Kim - satirical and utterly hilarious Australian programme about a mother, Kath, and her daughter, Kim, in suburbia. At times, shrinkingly embarrassing, as the best satire is, but also fall-off-the-chair hilarious.

Slow Sunday

2005-12-18T15:29:00.000+13:00

These vertebrae come from a skeleton I dug up a couple of years at Abydos. He was murdered. See the notches in the lower vertebra? From a knife, and there were tons more all over the tibias, ulnae, and ribs. Someone really wanted this guy (and he was a guy) dead. I imagine blood splashed all over, creating trails and fans across the sand.

Hey all, it's a beautiful day here. The past couple have been rainy and coolish, but today's sunny, blue sky. I got Mom's e-mail about the annual meeting up of Spriggses. I'm sorry to have to miss it. Not only for financial reasons, but it's school time. Two weeks before the second semester break.

Ya know, missing people is the shits. It's like they live inside you, in a special kind of green room of the mind, all chatting away with each other, having tea together, doing stuff, and all I can do is watch. Sucks. I've always been entranced by the fact that everything you dream is you, even if it wears another face. Can't be otherwise, really, if you think about it, but everyone in a dream feels like someone else. But they aren't. I love that. And having all the people in my cranial green room makes me wonder if they are all bits of me or if they'll all themselves filmed and kept on tape to replay over and over. Stupid bittersweetness.

The waywardness of memory - would be better to excise it, I think, although I'd keep somethings, like Owen's quiet little voice saying uh-huh when I asked if he wanted me to keep rubbing his back. Makes me miss him - can almost taste that pungent, poignant feeling of missing him. I even have a sensory memory of his smooth, cool baby skin under my hand. That was before I...when? left for New Zealand? left for Egypt? One of those times Tim and Carrie took me in, looked after me, took care of me. Thanks for those times, guys. I wish so much I could return that favour. Memories are so bound up with emotion. Emotion - maybe THAT's the thing that should be excised.

Okay, enough of THAT crap. I'm going to make myself a cup of tea, actually do some work.

BREAKING NEWS ON THE JOB FRONT!!!

2005-12-15T16:50:00.000+13:00

I have a memo from the Dean of Arts that I will be full-time permanent in 2007. For 2006, I am half-time permanent. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. I bow to the four corners of the world, to my parents, to my siblings, to friends in Canada, the US, and New Zealand, to Bill, and last, but never least, the old man up north.

Brasilia Brush

2005-12-15T15:07:00.000+13:00

Last night, or late yesterday afternoon, Mag and I found a little hedgehog wandering around the Grove. I had always wanted to see a hedgehog, but they aren't really plentiful in Canada, so my desire had thwarted, until yesterday. They are the cutest things (forgive the girly gush, but they are). We decided to name him Basil Brush, but honestly, how did we know whether he was a boy or she was a girl? So we named her Brasilia Brush instead. I took pictures but the light was not sufficient unto the task and so the pictures are out of focus. You only saw Brasilia's bum anyway, so no great loss. We cut a hole in a box and put catnuts in it, which she ate with gusto (the catnuts, not the box). Mag put out a dish of water and she lapped that up, too. Then Mag put some chicken from the previous night's roast out and went off to the Chapel for some mince. I watched Brasilia snarf down the chicken - she got it stuck on the ends of her spines around her mouth, again the cutest thing. She seemed to have wandered off later, though, and I don't know if she's still in the garden. So ends the tale of this intrepid nature describer's first encounter with a hedgehog. Apparently they hold the diseases of the world in their tiny paws and spines, so actually adopting her was probably out of the question. Bill was puzzled by her. He sniffed her and then retreated a ways to look at her. He's a smart boy is our Bill.

What else? One of my graduate students has handed in her dissertation (unlike dissertations in North American universities, dissertations down here are a step below theses - it has taken me two and a half years to come to terms with the difference in terminology. I am a pathetically slow student sometimes). I have successfully shepherded my first student to completion, which is a coup. Looks good to the higher ups. Feels good for me and for the student, too, who is champing at the bit to have a well-deserved holiday.

I'm going to see "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe" this evening. I loved them, just like all well-read children, and continued loving them until "The Final Battle" and Susan not being allowed to go back to Narnia because she'd relinquished belief in Aslan. I remember that incensed me completely. I understood, suddenly, the Christian allegory of it all, and despised the self-righteousness inherent in any belief that judged people in such a manner. I'm over that now, but the feelings of betrayal are still quite vivid.

Untitled

2005-12-13T16:05:00.000+13:00

IT'S HOT DOWN HERE!!! Sweat drips off my face and onto the keyboard. Yuck. On a less bodily-functions note, I've been writing and editing and cleaning my office. I'm going to rearrange it this afternoon, I think, to take advantage of the wind blowing through my open windows.

I've been reading Augusten Burroughs' memoir "Running With Scissors". To call his childhood fractured would be such an understatement, I don't know what you could call it. His mother, who was truly crazy with a diagnosis and everything, gave him to her ultra-unorthodox psychiatrist, who became his legal guardian when he was 13. He lived with the psychiatrist's odd family in their house, which was squalid and falling down, furniture upended in the living room, dog shit everywhere, human shit under the piano... It seems unimaginable that educated, non-destitute people could live in such conditions. Despite this horror, the book is very funny. He has a wonderfully dark sense of humour, and is unflinching about setting down on paper the hidden things in his life. It's not the kind of humour that pounds home how very tragic this upbringing was, either, which is truly a blessing, but the kind of humour that acknowledges that it was horrific and at the same time, from a distance, extremely funny. Perhaps not everyone's cup of tea, but definitely mine. Highly recommended.

I have a Bubba-Hotep poster on my wall, ostensibly stuck up there with blue tac (well, green tac, if you want to be literal about it). The stuck part is only ostensible because every time I look at it, it falls down. How bloody annoying! I may get it framed just to stop the falling down. ANYway, I mention this because it has a tag line on the bottom that says "Nobody f***s with the King", the asterisks in f*** filled in with hieroglyphs. And I know they didn't intend this, but the hieroglyphs they chose are an Egyptian vulture (the letter 'aleph' or 'a'), an ankh, and a loaf of bread (the letter 't') and a sun with rays streaming down from it. As a result of this, every time I read that tag line, I read "Nobody farts with the King", which is definitely NOT what they intended, and not "Nobody fucks with the King", which is definitely what they DID intend. How absolutely random is it that one of the twenty (okay, say a hundred) people in the world who reads hieroglyphs would have a copy of this poster in their office and continually read their stupid hieroglyphs wrong because they're the wrong hieroglyphs in the first place? I'll bet the graphic artists didn't plan for that. If they'd asked me, I'd have said put in a quail chick (the letter 'w'), a basket with a handle (the letter 'k'), and a man wielding a mace over his head. Much better. I'll have to write to someone about it.

Friday

2005-12-09T15:26:00.000+13:00

Hey all, particularly Mom. It's humid down here. Not quite as bad as Toronto in August, but it IS perceptible.

I've been reading the Liveship Trader books by Robin Hobb. She writes so well. It is such a shame that genre authors are not accorded the kind of respect that fiction authors are. I'm thinking in particular of science fiction and fantasy; I'm not sure I've ever read a romance novel that was particularly well-written, unless you count the grandmother of all romance fiction, "Pride and Prejudice".

I've been thinking a lot about the way minds work, lately. Mostly thinking about how they can sabotage themselves. It's a seductive thing, self-analysis, and I don't ever really think it works. I'm attempting at the moment to break out of a trap of self-analysis, and I feel it IS a trap. It becomes addictive and in a strange way, ego-boosting and -deflating at the same time. One begins... I begin to think that I have the answer for everything, that I read everyone's reactions with 100% accuracy, that my interpretations are correct in an almost omniscient way. And because the pathways in my brain (like that museum, Carrie - I remember that book; you loaned it to me while you were still at Kent Road. Gotta be around somewhere) are the way they are, the negative interpretations, at least as regards me, are the only correct ones. I guess it all boils down to no sense of perspective. So. How does one find that perspective? If, intrinsically, one's mind is set concerning one's self, how does change happen with respect to a negative opinion that feels on every level to be true but in reality, can't be? Maybe cognitive psychiatry has the answer, although I do feel a great reluctance to admit that. Maybe it's just that the habit of opinion is too seductive and easy and comfortable.

Okay, on to other less gnarly topics, the chapter on the builders of the pyramids is almost done. A few hundred words left, and then I begin on another one, probably how and why the pyramids were built. I now know far more about pyramids in Egypt than I ever thought possible. The nitty-gritty is fascinating, but honestly, I can hardly wait to start mentally chewing on semiotics and the Pyramid Texts. Soon enough.

Thursday, almost Friday

2005-12-01T14:13:00.000+13:00

Honestly, I don't know what to write today. It's a beautiful day. I'm feeling hugely fat, orca-fat. I'm going to start work on the stupid pyramids book after this, but I want to keep the rhythm of writing in this every day, even if it's just a little bit, or something ridickidockle (reference, anyone?). William Carlos Williams wrote a poem called Thursday. He was a physician, did you know? He used to write poems between seeing patients, and wrote them so they'd fit onto his prescription pad. Why they're so wonderfully short and succinct, most of them. Anyway. Here's the poem:

I have had my dream - like others -
and it has come to nothing, so that
I remain now carelessly
with feet planted on the ground
and look up at the sky -
feeling my clothes about me, the
weight of my body in my shoes.
the rim of my hat, air passing in and out
at my nose - and decide to dream no more.

Sometimes when I read that, it's sad. Having a dream come to nothing is hard stuff, despite the slightly maudlin and weepy sentiment that phrase can evoke. Most of the time, though, I am awed by the ease with which he settles me back into my skin, at how he makes me feel the weight of my own body standing in my shoes, the feeling of breath moving through my lungs, making my ribs expand and contract. So few words he uses, and he places me perfectly in the moment. Language is pretty much a continuing gift.

I've kept things like that poem in a book that used to be called a 'commonplace book'. They were kept, at least as early as the Victorian period, by people as books of mementos with things stuck in them, like some people now save ticket stubbs and make collages out of them. Mine is only filled with things people have written down, in one form or another. Mostly, I record them for the way the words are put together, or the way they push my mind in a different direction than it's used to going.

More of them follow:

I have a word to say to you which is
the speech of wood and the whispering of the stone,
the talk of heaven with the earth,
the talk of the deep with the stars,
lightning so that the heavens may know
thunder so that mankind may know
and the multitudes of the earth may understand.
- Ba'al to Anat (Mesopotamia)

I wish to thank You, Ruler of the nations,
For all the earthly joys that I have had.
And now, mild God, I have most need that You
Should grant grace to my spirit, that my soul
May come to you, into Your power, O Prince
of angels, journey forth in peace. I pray
You will not let the devils harm my soul.
- Byrtnoth in 'The Battle of Maldon'

Consider how thin such fame is and how unimportant.
It is well known, and you have seen it demonstrated by
astronomers, that beside the extent of the heavens, the
circumference of the earth has the size of a point; that is
to say, compared with the magnitude of the celestial sphere,
it may be thought of as having no extent at all. The surface
of the world, then, is small enough, and of it, as you have
learned from the geographer, Ptolemy, approximately one
quarter is inhabited by living beings known to us. If from
this quarter you subtract in your mind all that is covered by
sea and marshes and the vast area of desert by lack of
moisture, then scarcely the smallest of regions is left for men
to live in. This is the tiny point within a point, shut in and
hedged about, in which you think of spreading your fame and
extending your renown.
- Boethius

Those who make private property of the gifts of God pretend in vain to
be innocent, for in thus retaining the subsistence of the poor, they are
the murderers of those who die every day for want of it.
- Pope St. Gregory the Great

Recipe for dissolving the impression of hideousness made by a thing:
Fix the attention upon the given object or situation so that the various
elements, all familiar, will regroup themselves. Frightfulness is never
more than an unfamiliar pattern.
- Paul Bowles

In the old days, no one got presents. There weren't any gods, just
good monsters that made things happen. The wicked queen said
no one could give presents. They stabbed the queen in the heart
and she died. They fought the king, and the monsters scratched
the king, and out came a piece of paper, and it said, "You can have
presents." And then they gave soldiers and things to the children,
and the grown-ups gave each other jackets. The queen got alive,
and she got good. Batman married her. The queen was dipped in
cottage cheese, but Batman saved her by punching the devil on the
chin. And that's the story of Christmas.
- Michael O'Flaherty, aged 4

And finally:

There is no way of telling people that they are all walking around shining like the sun.
- Thomas Merton

Bye for today.

A rant - you are forewarned

2005-11-30T10:28:00.000+13:00

Hey there, whoever's reading this. Odd I feel the need to write this TO someone. But there you are. I say it again, life is odd. I went to see The Constant Gardener yesterday. One of those films that fills some emotional 'thing', that makes you think about the world in the larger scale (something I seem to need on a regular basis and for which I am always grateful). I remember Dad asking me what I thought my PhD was good for, in the world - he meant, in a good way (I hope), what good it would do humanity. His was clear, and he felt good about that. Mine...a little more difficult. This film is about governmental acquiescence to using Africans as human guinea pigs to test drugs, and covering up the results that ended in fatality. It is beautiful, this film. Stunning and brilliant and heartbreaking. Oh my word, can Ralph Fiennes act. But in the end, it isn't about the acting or the beauty or the brilliant film-making that I want to rant (really, hardly a rant, that). It is about the amazing lack of humanity in the world. Even now, it makes me weep. How can the 'greats' of the world sleep, bombing Iraq under such patently, transparently false premises, when the Sudan is ignored? How can people treat each other in such ways? What on earth makes that all right? These words are not big enough. I can feel grief pushing at my skin, it is huge. I half expect to see blood draining from my pores to make room for this. The problem is I seriously want answers to these questions. I want them to tell me the truth, those fucking 'greats'. I want to stand in front of them and watch their eyes, watch their muscles tense and relax. I expect nothing from Dubya - he's far too retarded a human being. I expect the world from those who show faces of compassion and caring. I don't believe those faces. Why is it that Mammon overtakes human life at every opportunity? How do people like Dick Cheney come to the notion that the search for oil is more important than the world? And this is where my father's comment comes in - what good is my degree for humanity? And spare me the bullshit about finding beauty in the world. That airy-fairy kind of crap just infuriates me. I didn't become an archaeologist for that. My reasons are more solid, and involve real information. But the closest I come to feeling involved in my work with living humans and living culture is dealing with the workmen. It isn't enough. I have no skills to offer aid organisations, other than an ability to carry heavy boxes. Am I too old, too entrenched to offer even that minor assistance? I am so angry at the raiders who enter villages in the Sudan and kill indiscriminately; I am so angry at the 'greats' who have ignored this for so long, and are implicit, therefore, in its continuance. I am so angry at the men and women (fewer of those, but still) who understand self-righteous ideology to be more important than innocent human life, who see the world but don't see the people in it and are unable to understand that every innocent killed, every non-innocent killed counts against their faith. When did the unseen become more important than the person at your elbow?

Thus endeth the rant. It continues in my mind. Makes me feel incoherent with rage. All that above, and I haven't managed to say what I wanted to say. Haven't managed to convey to my own satisfaction the terrible anger I feel. Let that be a lesson to the little leaguers - never chew tobacco, and don't go to movies that make you cry with helplessness.

____________

"Thus, cases of injustice, and oppression, and tyranny, and the most extravagant bigotry, are in constant occurrence among us every day. It is the custom to trumpet forth much wonder and astonishment at the chief actors therein setting at defiance so completely the opinion of the world; but there is no greater fallacy; it is precisely because they do consult the opinion of their own little world that such things take place at all, and strike the great world dumb with amazement."
- Charles Dickens

Late nights

2005-11-29T14:09:00.000+13:00

Couldn't sleep last night - silly thoughts just raced around that track in my head. When I die, whenever that may be, it might be an idea to open the cranium and see if the track is visible, because it sure as hell is entrenched. And the most frustrating thing is not being able to remember whatever it was I was thinking about. I had the best blogs in the world, interesting and long, written in my head and now they're gone like ...well, I WAS going to say 'tears in the rain' but honestly, they're not that poetic or referential. Crikey. Or as Mag says, 'crikey dicks', which I much prefer, although I can't say why. ... I've spent the past ten minutes staring out the window trying to remember even the slightest little thing, but for naught. Brain like a sieve.

The picture is one taken by David of his and Mag's house in Thames. It's a lovely little house, and not really that little, either. Wonderful backyard that Mag spent ages and ages working on two weekends ago, transforming it. I can hardly wait to see it.

I got in to work late today, due in large part to the fact that I didn't get to sleep last night until late. I seem to need 9 hours of sleep at least, likely due to the stupid meds.

I figured maybe I should report on the state of the stupid pyramids book, just for Ma, because then she'll know what's what. I've written four of six 5000-word essays. I've got two more to write, and then a timeline, and tidying up things like the glossary and bibliography. Oh, and there are 20 biographies that have to be written. As it isn't possible, realistically, to write biographies of the people who were involved in building the pyramids, not even the kings from this period, I'll be writing biographies of the pyramids themselves. These are probably going to be short and filled with numbers and measurements. See? I'm really more than half done, and I WILL be done by the time visitors arrive in February, and I'll be able to travel the South Island with a free heart and empty head (how the empty head will differ from right now, I don't know, but I'm sure it will be so).

One of the things I miss most about my laptop is the picture file I had. Some terrific pictures on it, and now they're gone, at least until I get someone to pull all the stuff off it. I haven't taken it in for fixing, yet. The potential price scares me a little, but really, it needs to be done, and the sooner the better.

I've been reading other blogs and feeling more than a little incompetent at this. Should it be only about New Zealand? Should it be only about Egypt? This is somewhere between a diary and a newsletter. I will ponder and perhaps make changes. But perhaps not.

Family

2005-11-28T15:37:00.000+13:00

My oh my, it was lovely to talk to family today. It can be the loneliest thing to be so far away from every beloved person; how did they do it in the 19th century without computers and the internet? Must have been hard as nails, I reckon. I love seeing those little nuders running all over the room, round and round and round, waving at the camera as they passed. No, I lie a little - they waved at the computer, not the camera. I love the idea that they seem to believe that I can see them, the waving image of me in the computer waving at them waving at me. And the parents (unnamed, of course) - I do miss all you guys so fucking much sometimes.

I just had a lesson in flint. Sounds odd, hm? There you are. Life is odd. But really, it was fascinating. Learning about platforms, and point of impact bulbs and stuff. I still think it's a pity that archaeologists interested in the Neolithic don't have anything else to work with, but as a direct result of that, they know an incredible amount about flint technology. For those of you not up on the terminology, and that's everyone but Tim, I imagine, flints are stone tools. Learning about them is learning about recognizing them and identifying types and so on.

It's a nasty cold day out. I had my hair cut (yippeee!!!) but not super short. It's curly.

Bex just (2 weeks ago) came back from Egypt. I get all fired up when I talk about digging in Egypt, I must say. Just want to go back, wander in the desert looking for flints. And other stuff. Dead people. That kind of thing. The pictures above are Egypt pictures.

Whew

2005-11-18T13:50:00.000+13:00

Tough and distressing day yesterday. Work politics are never easy, wherever they are. I went home and had dinner with Mag and David and felt solace. Today is another day.

It's a beautiful day here today. Sun is shining brightly, hotly, and the shade is cool. I'm working on the book, doing administrative things, at which I am possibly the least organised person I know, and wishing I could be at one of Auckland's city beaches, watching waves roll in and out and in and out and ....

I wish, sometimes, I were a stronger person in some ways. In lots of ways, I'm a very strong person, but in others, I'm not. I thought I had all the softer spots sussed out, but every once in a while, and it happens down here more than it did up there, I get unpleasantly surprised by the emotions that are generated by certain situations. I can't even predict what they'll be, to protect myself, which really is the most difficult part. I'm sure that will come with time. Perhaps I should say I HOPE that will come with time.

I'm tired today, kind of groggy with sandy eyes and a brain that feels as if it's being pressed. Slept terribly last night - woke at 4 am, with that start you get sometimes and you cannot get back to sleep properly, but doze fitfully until the alarm rings. Mine didn't ring - I turned it off and as a result got up much later than I'd wanted to. Bill was with me - the sweetest boy in the world. Bites my nose in the mornings, gently, to let me know he's hungry. Purrs and chirrups.

Just for the record - I don't think cognitive therapy works. At least not for me. It's like playing a game, and I'm too smart for the game. All making charts and using coloured markers and tricking yourself into thinking another way. Doesn't help me at all. I emphasise that it's just me it doesn't help. I'm positive that it works for people who don't view it as a game.

On my own this weekend. Mag and David are in Thames. Veronica Mars and America's Next Top Model and who knows what else on the tv. Tomorrow work again, and then Sunday work again. Such is life right now.

2005-11-16T14:30:00.000+13:00

Okay, so what I want to know is how we are to suffer the slings and arrows? When do they start falling short or stopping being slung and sent at all? Not a great day, with pictures of the snows of Kilimanjaro now the mudslides. What I can't understand is big business, and I feel kind of proud of myself for that, I must say. How have people like the Bushes and Cheneys of the world so lost sight of the earth and the people living on the earth that the Kyoto Accord becomes something to be gotten around, rather than something that will save, quite literally, the planet? We are killing our world, our planet, and it seems irrelevant. Perhaps it got lost in the shuffle with killing fellow human beings in Iraq and Iran and London and Australia and elsewhere. My heart bleeds for the Muslims who are not fundamentalist, who do not believe that there is only one doctrinal faith. The Quran makes no mention of such a thing, talks, in fact, about the people of the book, Jews, Christians, and Muslims as being the three true faiths. There is so much to be sad about in this world. I struggle, sometimes, to find something to smile over. Less and less amuses me and the metaphysical weight on my shoulders gets heavier and heavier. Chemicals, I keep telling myself, all chemicals, but I am less convinced of that the heavier I feel. Perhaps it's just today. Had a mild anxiety attack yesterday, for what reason I don't know, and that disturbs me because the only way to prevent more of them and prevent their escalation into full-blown panic attacks is to do something about them. If I don't know what has caused it though... TV beckons. Easiest just to put it out of my mind. And one of the myriad of things I love about New Zealand is the wonderful British television we get. "Blackpool", "Wire in the Blood", "Coro Street" (although Mag refuses to watch it any longer - I am quite engrossed in the whole weird Steve-Karen-Tracey saga and thank Christ Karen's gone, although that damned Tracey's still there with her round-faced unattractive little girl, poor Steve), "Spooks" and all the others. It's such bloody good watching. Mini-movies. I know, I know, we only get the good stuff with the crap staying on English shores, but their good is so much better than American good, and even, although I bite my own tongue, Canadian good.

I'm completely stuck with this stupid pyramids book. It's probably as weighty as the lost snows of Kilimanjaro, to be honest. Just fucking do it, I keep telling myself, but I'm stuck. What I should do is just put this damned chapter aside and work on something else, come back to it at the end. It's not going anywhere and I'm tired of trying to pretend to congratulate myself on writing two sentences.

Well, I think it's time to go home. I'll stop by the Cathedral and pick up some food, then home to Bill. Lovely little boy he is.

Monday and thus it begins

2005-11-15T13:32:00.000+13:00

So, first post. I had a birthday party on Sunday. Mag and David gave me petanque boules. They're fabulous. It was really lovely, with Warwick and Trish, and a pancake/lemon curd cake that was mouth-watering. When I get a few pictures from David, I'll post 'em.

The first picture is one of David's - it's his favourite cornfield, and this is the best picture of it he's taken yet. Gorgeous, hm? The second picture is a sunset at Abydos. Look at those amazing clouds. Fuck, it's beautiful in the desert.

Every time I look at my pictures from Egypt, my heart longs to go back. I don't know. I do love it there - it's a second home, but I'm so tired of travelling. Christ, I hate planes. The smell, the crampedness (such a word?), the strangers surrounding you...it all stinks. It's the being there that I love, the stranger in a strange land thing.