October at last!
Well, my favorite month is here, and today we finally got our autumn weather. What a relief. Something about fall, especially in New England, is really special to me. It’s the one thing I really will miss if and when I do end up moving back to California. The air smells so sweet: the decaying leaves and the ripening apples and things. The colors are yet to come, and they're wonderful, but it really is the air I love most.
I couldn't bear to stay inside, so went to the cemetery to read. It was my favorite kind of cemetery: old, weathered stones of different shapes and sizes, with old-fashioned spellings. A little black squirrel came up to me while I was there, just watching me in silence. I watched him back. I’d never seen a black squirrel in my life. All the other ones running around the graveyard were grey. I wondered where he came from.
A lot of people either think I like cemeteries because I’m a morbid emo kid, or because I’m an archaeologist. Neither of those really covers it. I just think they’re really beautiful, peaceful places, but also, so full of time. They make me feel small and young and ephemeral, in the most satisfying, liberating way. All the people behind the stonecarved names had little worries like mine once, and now, the world has forgotten those anxieties. Nothing that seems pressing in life actually matters, because before we know it, we too will be stonecarved names. And every year for centuries, white-pink blossoms will blow over our bones, and every year green leaves, and then gold, and then snow. The world is breathing calmly all the while. And the names and bones remain, and the autumn and the spring return, and the little inconveniences evaporate. In the end they will not stay with us. So why pay attention to them now? Things like autumn air, like songs, like gold-leaved trees and sunbeams - those things are the true things, the eternal things. That’s what we go back to in the end.
As for the present, classes are going fine. They’re no more frustrating than the ones I had in college. My cohort of three has really bonded over our mutual disgust with certain aspects of the program. Last night we finished a whole bottle of butterscotch schnapps comisserating over our ridiculous futures. Nothing brings people together like mutual hatred. But honestly, there are a lot of good things. I love having my own office space. I’m excited to start work on my lab project. The other students are awesome. And Cambridge, especially in the fall, is just a delight. I'm coping pretty well after two weeks. I chose the Japan seminar and I love it! I'm seriously considering the possibility of writing my term paper on anime and manga. It kind of fits the themes the course touches on, so it might be worth asking! ^_^
I couldn't bear to stay inside, so went to the cemetery to read. It was my favorite kind of cemetery: old, weathered stones of different shapes and sizes, with old-fashioned spellings. A little black squirrel came up to me while I was there, just watching me in silence. I watched him back. I’d never seen a black squirrel in my life. All the other ones running around the graveyard were grey. I wondered where he came from.
A lot of people either think I like cemeteries because I’m a morbid emo kid, or because I’m an archaeologist. Neither of those really covers it. I just think they’re really beautiful, peaceful places, but also, so full of time. They make me feel small and young and ephemeral, in the most satisfying, liberating way. All the people behind the stonecarved names had little worries like mine once, and now, the world has forgotten those anxieties. Nothing that seems pressing in life actually matters, because before we know it, we too will be stonecarved names. And every year for centuries, white-pink blossoms will blow over our bones, and every year green leaves, and then gold, and then snow. The world is breathing calmly all the while. And the names and bones remain, and the autumn and the spring return, and the little inconveniences evaporate. In the end they will not stay with us. So why pay attention to them now? Things like autumn air, like songs, like gold-leaved trees and sunbeams - those things are the true things, the eternal things. That’s what we go back to in the end.
As for the present, classes are going fine. They’re no more frustrating than the ones I had in college. My cohort of three has really bonded over our mutual disgust with certain aspects of the program. Last night we finished a whole bottle of butterscotch schnapps comisserating over our ridiculous futures. Nothing brings people together like mutual hatred. But honestly, there are a lot of good things. I love having my own office space. I’m excited to start work on my lab project. The other students are awesome. And Cambridge, especially in the fall, is just a delight. I'm coping pretty well after two weeks. I chose the Japan seminar and I love it! I'm seriously considering the possibility of writing my term paper on anime and manga. It kind of fits the themes the course touches on, so it might be worth asking! ^_^