In a Lull

The past couple weeks have been filled with writing papers and taking tests. I've finally got a little bit of work to do but it is a lot harder to crack down because I haven't had it for so long. No more classes after today! I have a chemical oceanography lab to do before I leave for Norway on Monday, but besides that I'll have four exams keeping me from home. Studying is called revising and doing any homework (revising essays) is called work. I've noticed that I've started to say words like rubbish, bin, and fancy. Nothing too exciting has happened recently. I've been missing good friends back home and have started getting too much of the people here. It's nice to have different groups of friends though, it's kept me alive.

Last weekend was St. Patricks day, and a lot of the international students went up to Dublin, Ireland to have the real experience. I had two essays due on the next monday, so I opted to stay in Lancaster. We did manage to get to an Irish pub which was good fun. There were a bunch of big happy Irishmen and women jumping to Irish music.

I've been on a couple more climbing outings, and I've been hanging out with the climbing club quite a bit. I've been climbing probably 5 times a week of 2.5 hour sessions, and my shoes are getting holes in the toes. My hands are constantly dry from the chalk, and my hands feel like two big callas'. Also, today I momentarily dislocated my wrist, but it's fine now. I'm missing things like baking cookies, going on night bike rides, doing homework with goofs at the co-op, and just being able to walk around town. It's good that I'm missing my uni back home I guess. I wouldn't know that I appreciate it so without leaving.

I'm getting really excited to go to Norway! I leave so soon. I've been looking up trains, planes, and ferry's in order to make my way up to the Lofoten islands. It's supposed to be a place that people never forget after visiting. I'll have exactly one week there, and I'm hoping to just take a break and be with myself. I need to train for the half-marathon while I'm there, and it's the #2 spot for climbing in Norway. There's also skiing, so which ever is cheaper I will hopefully get to do. I haven't really set up where I'm going to be staying or where exactly I'll be going, but I'm hoping to meet people in a hostel and go where the wind takes me. I'm really excited to be traveling alone. Never in my life have I been responsible or strong enough to travel alone, in a country I've never been to, for an entire week, and feel excited for the experience. And never in my life will I be able to travel without feeling like I've left a friend or obligation behind, I'm in a pretty free stage in life.

I've decided that I would like to take an EMT course next summer! I really want to get into medicine more, and with my current lab job I'm getting nowhere. With an EMT certificate I'm hoping to be able to work part time Senior year and gain some experience.

Well I still need to finish my lab, pack, do laundry, and print out 2 tickets for my trip, but I'll let you know how it goes! I can't wait!

Here's a couple poems I really like right now by Mary Oliver:

The Sun

Have you ever seen
anything
in your life
more wonderful

than the way the sun,
every evening,
relaxed and easy,
floats toward the horizon

and into the clouds or the hills,
or the rumpled sea,
and is gone--
and how it slides again

out of the blackness,
every morning,
on the other side of the world,
like a red flower

streaming upward on its heavenly oils,
say, on a morning in early summer,
at its perfect imperial distance--
and have you ever felt for anything
such wild love--
do you think there is anywhere, in any language,
a word billowing enough
for the pleasure

that fills you,
as the sun
reaches out,
as it warms you

as you stand there,
empty-handed--
or have you too
turned from this world--

or have you too
gone crazy
for power,
for things?




Sleeping in the Forest

I thought the earth remembered me,
she took me back so tenderly,
arranging her dark skirts, her pockets
full of lichens and seeds.
I slept as never before, a stone on the river bed,
nothing between me and the white fire of the stars
but my thoughts, and they floated light as moths
among the branches of the perfect trees.
All night I heard the small kingdoms
breathing around me, the insects,
and the birds who do their work in the darkness.
All night I rose and fell, as if in water,
grappling with a luminous doom. By morning
I had vanished at least a dozen times
into something better.