dang it...

i just realized i posted this to the wrong blog.

i HATE it when that happens.

i think i've mostly officially closed this blog...

go here... this is where the relevant stuff should be.

i'm back

well... mostly anyway.

i am back in the states, and have been for the last 2 months or so.

i suppose i'm also back to blogging, though i never really left. of course, i don't suppose i was really ever terribly here to begin with.

i have loads of good intentions (and photos...) when it comes down to it... but that just makes for a mediocre blog.

what i really lack is initiative.

perhaps this is due to having too many classes/other things to deal with and think about. therefore, being too caught up in things that are important and matter, i get distracted from blogging.

this seems unlikely.

whatever it is, i'll try to get better and provide more meaningful content to the readership... which last i check is like 2 1/2 of y'all. ;)

from the papers...

this is a most amazing poem. by the US poet laureate (2001-2003). we'll just pretend that i'm posting this with permission. :)

Billy Collins - On Turning Ten

The whole idea of it makes me feel
like I'm coming down with something,
something worse than any stomach ache
or the headaches I get from reading in bad light--
a kind of measles of the spirit,
a mumps of the psyche,
a disfiguring chicken pox of the soul.

You tell me it is too early to be looking back,
but that is because you have forgotten
the perfect simplicity of being one
and the beautiful complexity introduced by two.
But I can lie on my bed and remember every digit.
At four I was an Arabian wizard.
I could make myself invisible
by drinking a glass of milk a certain way.
At seven I was a soldier, at nine a prince.

But now I am mostly at the window
watching the late afternoon light.
Back then it never fell so solemnly
against the side of my tree house,
and my bicycle never leaned against the garage
as it does today,
all the dark blue speed drained out of it.

This is the beginning of sadness, I say to myself,
as I walk through the universe in my sneakers.
It is time to say good-bye to my imaginary friends,
time to turn the first big number.

It seems only yesterday I used to believe
there was nothing under my skin but light.
If you cut me I could shine.
But now when I fall upon the sidewalks of life,
I skin my knees. I bleed.

i'm not dead... i promise...

it's just that i don't have enough time to sleep, let alone breath, eat, blog and other important things like that.

i'm trying to work out my schedule so that i am able to have free time to get all the things done during the day that i need to--this being a manifestation of that attempt:

(all the pretty colors!)

so, i'm gonna try to do better... but i don't make any concrete promises at this time. i mean... i've got posts that go back to like... heck, i don't know. since within a week of whenever the last time i seriously posted was.

just know that i haven't forgotten y'all (like the 5 of you that read this...) and that i have every intention of reviving this sad little pigeon from the ashes...

funny

it's amazing the weird looks you'll get from people when you walk down the street in a wool coat, scarf, gloves... and flip-flops.