Nets

In A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, James Joyce has Stephen Dedalus famously say, about growing up in Ireland in the late 19th century, "When the soul of a man is born in this country there are nets flung at it to hold it back from flight. You talk to me of nationality, language, religion. I shall try to fly by those nets."
...
And most of all, don't play it safe. Resist the seductions of the cowardly values our society has come to prize so highly: comfort, convenience, security, predictability, control. These, too, are nets. Above all, resist the fear of failure. Yes, you will make mistakes. But they will be your mistakes, not someone else's. And you will survive them, and you will know yourself better for having made them, and you will be a fuller and a stronger person.

A Murder of Crows

Just in case "a group of crows" didn't sound ominous enough. Crows are probably just really maligned though. Such a bad rap just for being black and cawing ...

w00t?

Wandern

Okay I think I'm done wandering.

 

Maybe.

And unseen things that do not die

Kan ma kan / fi qadeem azzaman

We are creatures of air,
Our roots in dreams
And clouds, reborn
In flight.

After Democritus

By convention there is sweetness, by convention bitterness, by convention color, in reality only atoms and the void.
Foolish intellect! Do you seek to overthrow us, while it is from us that you take your evidence? Your victory is your defeat.

Kelle fiyatına hürriyet

Eserlik bedava / Bedava yaşıyoruz, bedava

Listen, Listen, Listen

If you have the patience, anyway.

豁然开朗

Most days, most of the time, you're going to be annoyed, frustrated, lost, lonely, and stressed half out of your mind. But then once in a while, when you least expect it, when you've just about hit bottom and then some, the skies will clear and you'll feel light. Happy. Possibly even experience the thrill of soaring in free but secure flight. And believe me, it's worth living for those moments alone. 

So Shiddy

At least, as it turns out, I guessed right. Okay back to work now.

Some Things that Make Me Unhappy.

Not giving enough time to the things that interest me, or the people whom I care about.
Brushing things or people off (but do I have to do this in order not to be forced into the first?)
Living life blind and unreflected.
Hypocrisy and hubris.

Some Things that Make Me Happy.

Food,

Friends,

Friends and food;

Visiting,

Travel,

The Sun. 

Serenity and laughter.

Music!

Being silly;

That cosy corner of the room; 

Being appreciated.

Puffins and complex analysis ...

Important Lessons in Life

The mean-value theorem doesn't apply to complex-valued functions.
You can't just discard summation signs, even when doing asymptotics.
If your blunt estimate didn't work, use more information!
You really didn't need to re-write that solution 8 times.
People take breaks for a reason, damnit.
Also, you should figure out what you're doing about Monday. Probably.

Wake up

Go to class
Take midterm
Go to class
Eat
Struggle with pset
Go to sleep
Repeat cycle
Pffft. Did someone say the words, "empty shell"?

You're special ... so what?

Somehow 特殊 or 特别 just doesn't carry the same set of positive connotations that "special" can in English. (Particularly American English and its descendants, I suppose.) The Chinese doesn't carry any particularly negative connotations, it's just ... not so special. Something is an exceptional case. Okay. No big deal.

Considering how all of those are [seem to be] born from similar etymologies, I guess it's probably a product of cultural and social attitudes more than a linguistic thing.

Listen.

What's really bugging you.

[in particular, at this point in time.]

1. Failure of Proposition K and wider ramifications.
2. Diversion of Senate resources during crunch period.
3. Morphine withdrawal.

The gloom of the world is but a shadow.

Behind it, yet within our reach, is joy. There is radiance and glory in the darkness, could we but see; and to see, we have only to look. Contessina, I beseech you to look 

.... 

Life is so full of meaning and of purpose, so full of beauty--beneath its covering--that you will find earth but cloaks your heaven. Courage, then, to claim it: that is all! But courage you have; and the knowledge that we are pilgrims together, wending, through unknown country, home.

Boston

The Athens of America was unhospitably cold when we visited: so cold the local weather forecasts passed on "clear" in favour of "frigid". It didn't help that we picked the coldest day of all to walk the Freedom Trail--the whole length of it starting from the Boston Commons, winding through Downtown and up the North Bay, and finally across the Charles River, ending at the Bunker Hill Monument.