So I figured I'd just start pasting my mass e-mails into my livejournal, a la Alex. This way, anybody who's not on my e-mail list can still keep up with developments in Scotland (and those who didn't even know I was here until they read this can pretend that I care about them...OH, SNAP!). Besides, my livejournal won't pass into its 6th or 8th ( Read more... )

It's odd to have not written for so long. It's not as though writing has ever been a truly constitutive part of who I am. It used to be cathartic to sit here, palms resting on the sloped plastic casing of my laptop untlil they left wet yet clearly distinguishable palmprints, marks of my presence, creases and lines that were completely, irrevocably ( Read more... )

Maybe I'll write more later, but I just want to mention finishing For Whom the Bell Tolls. Jesus christ, Hemingway is amazing. The way that he uses such simple, controlled language to describe infinitely complex actions and emotions is incredible. It's also deeply affecting when he writes about the contradictory complexity of love and war and death ( Read more... )

So, I finally got around to adding photos to my long-empty photobucket account. It took all evening, but I filled up the account to about 80% of capacity. Which is, needless to say, a helluvalot of photos--which you should all considering zipping over to http://photobucket.com/albums/y146/ryan1029/ to check out.

Last year on father's day, I wrote an entry on the first anniversary of my dad moving to Phoenix. The memory of that cold, numb morning when I choked down stale cereal to try to subdue the lump that had arisen in the back of my throat since I had seen my father emerge from his room at the top of the steps with two black suitcases and a twitch at ( Read more... )

I was just browsing the iTunes music store music videos, and I found The Shins' "New Slang." I really like the song, it's quiet and mellow and it reminds me of Garden State, the beautiful cinematography and the romanticized, idealized rediscovery of home and what it is to fall in love; it was just one of those movies that made me think about what I ( Read more... )

So...wow. It's been a while since I've posted. Something close to a month, I think. It's just that, all the time I would use to spend posting is instead used to keep up my mandatory Field Work journal. I'd post that stuff, because I've had such an amazing experience working with the ESL kids, but the entries are long, they're in Spanish, and I'm ( Read more... )

I've got a meeting with a teacher at Poughkeepsie High School tomorrow morning to discuss my field work--translating for Spanish speaking students in ESL classes--at 7:45 AM. Tomorrow--Friday--morning. In my entire college career, I have never gotten out of bed before 10:30 on a Friday morning. In fact, like most other students, I explicitly try to ( Read more... )

Michael Chabon spoke at the Students' Center tonight. He read an essay about the process of writing a novel--his first novel, The Mysteries of Pittsburgh--likening it to a Frankenstein-esque monster that the author releases on the world, hoping for a bloody rampage but often being left with an inhuman beast lying prone on a cold steel lab table, ( Read more... )

I really wanted to write something pretty for "girl," but just when I had started to formulate something in my mind, a story about a man stumbling upon a picture of a girl while packing his stuff up to move away (to where I'd figure out later), I had to get on a plane and fly back to Poughkeepsie ( Read more... )