After an overnight drive down from chilly Massachusetts, I am back in North Carolina for a week, and oh my goodness it is lovely. Not just because the weather right now is comparable to a warm summer day in Scotland, but to be back among the trees at what must be their most beautiful time of year. I've written at (possibly excessive) length, in ( Read more... )

UK packaged food labelling has recently started to have these little "traffic light" guides on it, where foods will be categorized as 'green', 'amber', or 'red' based on healthiness. Sometimes these are subdivided into different categories -- as on my box of cereal, which says it is 'green' for fat content but 'red' for sugar content (heh ( Read more... )

Growing up, the idea of this holiday always bothered me. Something about a day of feasting devoted, even according to its own mythology, to celebrating the initial generosity of a group of people who were later systematically exploited by the very people they'd helped just never sat quite right with me ( Read more... )

I am female. This means that for as long as I can remember, people have inquired about my intention to procreate. I recall being asked at the age of about four how many children I intended to have, and being encouraged to seriously contemplate the question. And I did, too, as did my sister ( Read more... )

I came to a realisation today, cycling to town in the bright autumn of penetrating sunshine and dazzling cold: this is not my place.

This time three years ago, I was so happy to finally be out of the US that I fell utterly in love with Scotland, and was sure that I would want to live here forever. For most of the last three years I hadn't even ( Read more... )

It's eight o'clock, which, being 3 hours after the end of my last exam, was supposed to be start-working-on-logic-again time. But I really need to write this down; as if by publishing it on the internet, maybe I can make myself believe it all.Frazer's workshop last week was about positive thinking, as applied to focus, study and exams. It was ( Read more... )

Logic was always my favourite thing, academically. The 'logic puzzle' worksheets we sometimes got in elementary school were my favourite of all our take-home work, and when I took my first introductory logic course in high school, I was literally bouncing with excitement over it. It was so fun, and it was easy. Maybe that was the problem: it was ( Read more... )

O My Readers, I've neglected you again. It's been ages since I've written, and even longer since I've written anything I've been really proud to share with you. I've just looked, and it's all ramblings about bees and eyelashes and the Apocalypse. Yeesh. (Though despite all the mentions of The Apocalypse, The Revolution, etc, please never think ( Read more... )

Granddaddy's funeral was on Saturday. The house is still covered in food and flowers. I'm staying here until Thursday, mostly because, well, those were the flights I could get. Most of the family has gone back to their respective homes by now, except for my uncle from the Virgin Islands and my aunt and her boyfriend from California. The reality ( Read more... )