A Humane Turtle

And now the final frame:

Yes, it is the typical tirade
The trouble letting go

No more Melody, or dreams of D
No more Home outside of me

While I cherished what we tried to make
I never got the flow

Ah, heck, I wish I could just turn my back
And leave it all behind

The bad, the good, the dearth of time
The things I couldn’t find

No more masquerades, no fait accompli
No closets with no room for me

The irony in all of this:
While having what is most alike
Myself I could but miss

I really like Christmas
It’s sentimental, I know, but I just really like it
I am hardly religious
I’d rather break bread with Dawkins than Desmond Tutu, to be honest

And yes, I have all of the usual objections
To consumerism, the commercialisation of an ancient religion
To the westernisation of a dead Palestinian
Press-ganged into selling Playstations and beer
But I still really like it

I’m looking forward to Christmas
Though I’m not expecting a visit from Jesus

I’ll be seeing my dad
My brother and sisters, my gran and my mum
They’ll be drinking white wine in the sun
I’ll be seeing my dad
My brother and sisters, my gran and my mum
They’ll be drinking white wine in the sun

I don’t go in for ancient wisdom
I don’t believe just ‘cos ideas are tenacious it means they are worthy
I get freaked out by churches
Some of the hymns that they sing have nice chords but the lyrics are dodgy

And yes I have all of the usual objections
To the miseducation of children who, in tax-exempt institutions,
Are taught to externalise blame
And to feel ashamed and to judge things as plain right and wrong
But I quite like the songs

I’m not expecting big presents
The old combination of socks, jocks and chocolate is just fine by me

Cos I’ll be seeing my dad
My brother and sisters, my gran and my mum
They’ll be drinking white wine in the sun
I’ll be seeing my dad
My brother and sisters, my gran and my mum
They’ll be drinking white wine in the sun

And you, my baby girl
My jetlagged infant daughter
You’ll be handed round the room
Like a puppy at a primary school
And you won’t understand
But you will learn someday
That wherever you are and whatever you face
These are the people who’ll make you feel safe in this world
My sweet blue-eyed girl

And if, my baby girl
When you’re twenty-one or thirty-one
And Christmas comes around
And you find yourself nine thousand miles from home
You’ll know what ever comes
Your brother and sisters and me and your Mum
Will be waiting for you in the sun
Whenever you come
Your brothers and sisters, your aunts and your uncles
Your grandparents, cousins and me and your mum
We’ll be waiting for you in the sun
Drinking white wine in the sun
Darling, when Christmas comes
We’ll be waiting for you in the sun
Drinking white wine in the sun
Waiting for you in the sun
Waiting for you…
Waiting…

I really like Christmas
It’s sentimental, I know…

Tim Minchin, “White Wine In The Sun”

There is a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in.

Leonard Cohen – Anthem

Expansion, a sculpture by Paige Bradley

Three balls of yarn:
They make the tiresome transaction
into a crocheted cute construction

Oh no, I gasp, that isn’t it!
It isn’t right, it doesn’t fit!

And so the stiches have to go
Back to their neverland of whoe
Within three balls of yarn.

My thoughts are with the victims and their families.

(by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow)

When I compare
What I have lost with what I have gained,
What I have missed with what attained,
Little room do I find for pride.

I am aware
How many days have been idly spent;
How like an arrow the good intent
Has fallen short or been turned aside.

But who shall dare
To measure loss and gain in this wise?
Defeat may be victory in disguise;
The lowest ebb is the turn of the tide.

The last couple of months were quite stressful. I tried to combine a lot of things into limited time. Working full time, taking two courses at university (a full-time student would take three), singing in a band, an opera choir, taking singing and occasional dancing lessons, attending conferences.

In the beginning of June, I expected, I would be very happy and a little proud of myself: I would have managed to do it all, I would have successfully completed my uni courses. Times of little sleep would would be over – or at least more sparse. I would no longer be called a visitor in my own home.

Joy is always in the forecast.

Turned out that I was a bit too much/little perfect(ionist) to be happy.

1. I got a B in one of the exams, not necessarily because I didn’t know the matter, but because I wasn’t focused and talked about structure rather than content, mainly.  So I was unhappy about the B, rather than happy about finishing. Also because the teachers said they’d expected more from me.
2. The teachers saw my frustration and called me in again, offering me to raise an objection. They meant I could argue that, at the exam, I wasn’t able to show what I can. In the end I agreed to re-take the exam. Which was in itself frustrating, because I couldn’t let go, and despite being tired and exhausted, I would have to study for another week. This time I would make sure not to make a fool of myself.
3. The exam was supposed to be this morning. Yesterday afternoon I got an email from my teacher that she had found out that raising an objection isn’t possible in my case, re-taking the exam wasn’t an option.

Expectations just didn’t meet outcomes.

On a side note, if anyone needs flash cards with summaries of papers on CSCW, let me know..

• The prospect of meeting my family soon.
• The surprising sight of newly fallen snow on the way out of Oslo.
• Noticing, right after the airport security check, that I still had a half-full bottle of water with me.
• Discovering a magazine I had liked before (‘samtiden’), and buying it.
• Starting to read that magazine and, again, being delighted by its quality.
• A pear, an apple, and raw cashew nuts.
• A sunbath for face and mind on the plane, for two hours straight.
• The sense that, landing in Salzburg, I understood what my singing teacher had talked about: the deep feeling of coming home (as expressed, in his case, by the song ‘Ved Rundarne’).

So I went to the movies last night, without any expectations whatsoever. I only went along with the usual crowd, without having seen any trailer. I didn’t even remember what the title of the movie was when I arrived, only that it was supposed to be a good movie (judged by its IMDB rating, at least).

So I watched ‘Shutter Island’ last night.

The movie targets these questions: What is real? Which reality is the real one? Who is sick, who is trying to help, and who isn’t?  I find these questions highly interesting. My problem is just that they aren’t only interesting to me, I feel connected to them in a deeply emotional way.

When I was in my early teenage years, a close family member was diagnosed with Schizophrenia – and is still living with it today. It’s a fascinating condition in so many ways. First of all, you’re not supposed to talk about it: everybody knows, nobody talks. Second, the patients don’t necessarily agree to having it. It’s a mental disease after all. And third, both treating and not treating it will have an impact on the patients’ state of mind, but treating it might mean taking away power from them – something everybody of us would try to avoid at (almost) all cost. It’s a thin line really: when does a situation justify to take away powers of an otherwise free person, to do something to them that – despite the good will – isn’t what they want? How do we know that what we are trying to do is really any good? And who tells us, the involved outsiders, that we have the real reality on our side? Do we just think we do because our reality is close enough to average?

A lot of these thoughts and feelings I can sometimes only handle by locking them away in some shady corner of myself. The movie yesterday managed to break those locks. I’m not sure if that was good or bad.