December 2011
2 posts
2 tags
What I learned during my first semester of grad...
Dear Self,
It’s been a rough couple of months, but you’re almost there! Just one more exam and you’ll be good to go, free to enjoy a whole month of family, friends, wholesome food, and just-for-fun reading.
I know you’re worried about your grades, but they’re probably going to be fine. Realistic worst-case scenario, maybe you’ll get a warning to do better next...
4 tags
November 2011
3 posts
3 tags
2 tags
Grad student fantasies
acheiropoietos:
can this be the start of a love story in which i really need the books this library has on early church architecture in constantinople but it seems someone has checked all of them out and somehow i track them down and we arrange to meet somewhere and fall in love immediately and grow up and get married and visit ancient churches together
6 tags
October 2011
12 posts
2 tags
“You know what’s sad about reading books? It’s that you fall in love with the...”
– Hunger Games (via katyjean)
This is the way I feel about all great stories, whether they’re told in novels, movies, history books, or on television. Sometimes I almost feel like an addict — I just can’t let the really engrossing ones go!
2 tags
5 tags
3 tags
2 tags
4 tags
Jonathan Jones on why this new Van Gogh book is... →
…[T]he truly misleading thing here is the idea that it makes much difference to how we see Van Gogh. I am not disputing the fascination of his biography, but it is much, much more than a dramatic series of violent incidents.
Amen. I’ve been hearing a lot about this story over the last few days and struggling to put my reaction into words (well, words more eloquent than “so...
7 tags
“So once again I am obliged to speak to you about yourself. I must do my best to...”
– Baudelaire, consoling Édouard Manet after the reception of his Olympia in the 1865 Paris Salon. (Quoted in T. J. Clark’s The Painting of Modern Life: Paris in the Art of Manet and His Followers.)
This made me LOL so hard. I’m going to have to remember to read this the next time I let...
5 tags
'Living' buildings could inhale city carbon... →
What if buildings had lungs that could absorb carbon emissions from the city and convert them into something useful? What if they had skin that could control their temperature without the need for radiators or air-conditioning? What if buildings could come “alive?”
Science fiction?
“Not as such,” claims Dr Rachel Armstrong…
First thought: COOL!
Second...
2 tags
6 tags
4 tags
“There may be no greater tribute to Steve’s success than the fact that much of...”
– President Obama on the death of Steve Jobs. (via thedailyfeed)
4 tags
September 2011
3 posts
6 tags
Morocco's Extraordinary Donkeys →
tetw:
By Susan Orlean
The donkey I couldn’t forget was coming around a corner in the walled city of Fez, Morocco, with six color televisions strapped to his back. If I could tell you the exact intersection where I saw him, I would do so, but pinpointing a location in Fez is a formidable challenge, a little like noting GPS coordinates in a spider web. I might be able to be more precise...
4 tags
2 tags
August 2011
12 posts
6 tags
6 tags
4 tags
“A good painter has two chief objects to paint — man and the intention of his...”
– Leonardo da Vinci (via porziuncola)
caravaggista asked: Hey! Are you focusing on French art for your M.A.? :)
5 tags
3 tags
The truth about Game of Thrones
Me: You weren't kidding about Game of Thrones! I loved the TV show so much that I bought the books on my Kindle, and so far the first one's pretty good for a fantasy novel. I just hate that there are so many characters with weird names -- it makes it hard to remember who they all are.
Little Bro: LOL, don't worry... he only introduces so many characters so he has more people to kill off.
5 tags
“I have, I know, but few and small claims upon Divine Providence, but something...”
– Sullivan Ballou to his wife, Sarah, July 14, 1861.
He was killed one week later in the first Battle of Bull Run.
As you may know (or maybe not, unless you’re American), this spring marked the 150th anniversary of the beginning of the American Civil War, a four-year conflict that killed over...
3 tags
“To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.”
– Oscar Wilde (via thenocturnals)
3 tags
“There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at the type writer and...”
– Ernest Hemmingway (via faeriefables)
2 tags
tumblrbot asked: WHAT IS YOUR EARLIEST HUMAN MEMORY?
4 tags
5 tags
July 2011
7 posts
4 tags
5 tags
2 tags
5 tags
Strasbourg Reunion in North Carolina
After my reunion with UVA friends in Charlottesville on Monday, I spent the rest of the week in North Carolina with some friends from Strasbourg.
We stayed at Leah’s mother’s house in a very small “town” (by which I think they’re referring to three farms in a row on a gravel road) outside of Greensboro. The whole area was really beautiful and quiet, and really...
7 tags
Back in Cville again
It felt great to get back to Charlottesville for twenty-four hours this week! I stopped by overnight on my way down to North Carolina and had a little reunion with some old friends.
On Sunday night, I met up with the summer SotL crew (my old theater group). We walked down to the Corner and had a round of beers at Mellow Mushroom, one of my old favorite hangouts. Then, after a stop at...
5 tags
Family reunion in Ocean City
Last week, my brother and I drove up to Ocean City, New Jersey for our annual week at the beach with my mom’s side of the family.
Sure, there are more exciting places in the world, but Ocean City is probably my favorite family tradition. How else could nine siblings and twenty-one grandchildren spread out across eight states and three countries possibly keep up with each other? (Well, aside...
6 tags
5 tags
5 tags
June 2011
6 posts
5 tags
5 tags
4 tags
7 tags
May 2011
6 posts
4 tags
Thoughts on my never-ending struggle with French
Learning a language, as it turns out, is nothing at all like riding a bike.
It’s not easy. You can’t just pick up where you left off after taking a break. Most frustratingly, there’s no end point, ever. There’s no box to check when it’s suddenly over, and BAM, you’ve put in the required hours and acquired that skill and are now officially fluent.
Instead… you just have to keep plugging away....
5 tags
4 tags
A Day in the Life
Have you ever had a day when every single detail jumps out at you to remind you how different your life is now than it was before?
Saturday was surreal like that for me. I woke up for the first time at 5 a.m. to say goodbye to Laura, who was flying back to the U.S. with some of our other friends via Iceland. (A few hours after they arrived, the volcano erupted… we’re still waiting to hear whether...
6 tags
6 tags
A Bavarian Weekend
What’s the upside to canceling one trip at the last minute? Taking a different one instead! (Oh, what lives we lead…)
We had been planning our Istanbul trip for months. We had non-refundable plane tickets, hostel reservations, lists of things to do, bus tours down the coast of Turkey that we wanted to investigate… and then came the news, on the morning we were supposed to...