Refraction

I’m back at school now after a year-long hiatus in the working world.

I’d forgotten the things about school that I like (fun profs; learning things; seeing old friends) but there are also things that I don’t miss (midterms; buying books; bureaucracy; competition).

It’ll be an interesting term, to say the least :3

I miss my former co-workers.

(Happy New Year!)

Do these two sentences mean the same thing?

1) I wonder if X isn’t better than Y.
2) I wonder if X is better than Y.

On the surface, it’s a basic kind of statement (“I am comparing X and Y; X may be better, but I’m still thinking about it”) and they seem identical. At least superficially.

I think the sentences imply different things, though. 1) is something I would say after having already chosen Y, and then re-evaluating X. 2) can be said either before or after a choice is made, but seems slightly more natural to say before.

Then again, maybe sentence 1) is not quite Standard English and I’m just making all this up.

(As an aside: I do not like titles for my weblog posts. If I wrote a blog on a topic as opposed to using my blog as an online diary, then they would be useful; as it is, the title is just kind of a formality. Do you title entries in handwritten journals? I don’t. [Yes, I keep one of those, too.])

I feel lately that life has become perfunctory. It’s especially bad around Christmas/New Year’s, as I always seem to be doing the same kinds of things:

• Clean … somewhat
• Consumerist buying spree
• Have coffee/tea with friends
• Listen to wintery songs
• Eat chocolate
• Worry about school
• Avoid the MJ at family gatherings

I suppose the argument could be made that these are traditions, but–when you’ve been doing this for the last week, it’s nothing but routine. Boring routine, at that.

it’s never.

Never even brought it up. Afraid and muddied and worried and just not wanting to blow it more than I already had…

And yet at the same time just wanting to enjoy what was there, no expectations, no promises; just to live for the moment and not look ahead to the anguish of suddenly being strangers again…

I feel like I’ve been waiting forever.

And yet it’s now or never (as D—- so helpfully pointed out).

I have a feeling it’ll probably be never.

I got something to say you know
But nothing comes
— “Silent All These Years”, Tori Amos

Oh, let me be fooled

avant que je ne tombe….

Oh wait, it’s a little late for that, isn’t it?

(Is “crypticness” even a word?)

it’s so beautiful here, she says, this moment now. and this moment, now.
….
there’s a reason not to want this but I forgot.
….
oh words like rain, how sweet the sound.

On the edge of the bell curve? Yes, perhaps. Keep telling yourself that.