Had an appointment with the dentist today. All’s well as far as the old teeth go. Rather alarmingly, I found myself feeling quite relaxed and could easily have fallen asleep during the clean and polish procedure. Don’t people normally have the opposite reaction when visiting the dentist?
I’m helping RGW (previously identified as RW) with marking his lot of St Lucia assignments. Boring boring boring. But must be done, I suppose. I finished the Ipswich lot on Wednesday. I took twenty-odd assignments from RGW’s pile, so we’ll both end up having marked sixty each.
In other news, KMH submitted her thesis today! Yay! Woohoo! etc! I’m sure acceptance is just a formality, so she will soon be Dr KMH! Well done, but I still say the first version of your Acknowledgements section was cooler. ;)
AG’s back from her USA/Guatemala trip. She says she learned quite a bit of Spanish whilst she was in Guatemala. Excellent! I bet, after spending only a couple of months in Guatemala, she speaks more Spanish than I do. Immersion is everything when it comes to learning another language, and that’s what I’m lacking. Anyway, completely jealous. Whilst in the USA, she wrote a Red Book for IBM. Something to do with XML stuff I believe.
In somewhat sadder news, a whole bunch of people were laid off from the DSTC today. That really, really sucks. It was strange: I caught the ferry to uni with one of the people who later found out that he’d been fired. And he was a really great guy, too. If anything, this just provides me with more incentive to get away from here!
A few days ago SU sent me a poem that she really likes. I reproduce it here because I like it too. Perhaps it resonates with something that I’ve always held to be true, and in the last year or so has been shown to be true beyond any shadow of a doubt. Of course, the mention of God doesn’t make the poem any less appealing, and nor should it (a note for regular readers of this blog :). Anyway, here is the poem:
The Silk and the Moonlight
God made the illusion look like the real, and He made the real look as if it does not exist.
He covered the sea, but showed the foam. He concealed the wind from sight but manifested the dust.This world is an old sorcerer who sells you the moonlight as silk;
in return he gets from you the gold and silver of your life.
When you come to yourself you see there are no silk clothes, but instead you have spent your gold and silver pieces. And your purse is empty.From this magic market you can take refuge in nothing but Truth.
— The Tale of the Reed Pipe, Massud Farzan
E. P. Dutton, 1974
It must be dinner time, because I smell something gooood and my tummy is grumbling!
