I'm just going to come out and say it...
...Marvin Gaye is, by all possible definitions, a god. I don't think I ever envisioned myself saying that.
The definition of irony: Standing in the middle of deserted train tracks, nothing in sight but a never ending parallel ladder of rust and the luminous glow of a red cross suspended above the town hospital, sirens blaring through my music, chain smoking, blood crawling down my arm, shaking from, quite possibly, a quasi-hypothermic state, nothing in my system for the past two days but weak coffee and curls of smoke. Teaching the fundamentals of the English language to children while I end my sentences with prepositions. Staring strangers in the eyes while simultaneously unable to look at my closest friends for more than a few seconds. Spending my days and nights in virtual silence, devoid of human contact, craving conversation, yet failing miserably at late night phone calls.
You can probably guess, or at least assume, that hiking through the Shamanist hillside in Korea was one of those moments I'll never forget...thankfully, because I talk about it ad nauseum...and you're probably ready to strangle me. I was reviewing the past few years, chronologically, in my head (that's the only place I go as of late) and realized that there are more unforgettable moments in my memory than simply hiking with monks and falling on my ass. Some even parallel...I know, crazy. I'll give you one:
My twenty-first birthday Emiliah, Sarah, Cassie and I made the short trip from Sevilla to Cordoba with the express purpose of visiting La Mezquita. Now, living in Europe is expensive, depending on the city, especially when you have a slight obsession with museums and traveling...therefore funds were depleted, all around, and Em wasn't quite sure it'd be in her best interest to pay yet another entrance fee. But how could you not? So we forced her, and when we stepped through the waiting area to the tiled temple floor, saw the endless red and white arcs, marble statues, inconsistencies in design from century to century as presented in the varying architectural layouts, she admitted to wanting to cry. Those were my sentiments exactly. You realize how small you are, how long history has existed without you, built itself upon a world you'll never explore, yet here you are, absorbing centuries of life indirectly through echoing footsteps in a winding Muslim world.
The definition of irony: Standing in the middle of deserted train tracks, nothing in sight but a never ending parallel ladder of rust and the luminous glow of a red cross suspended above the town hospital, sirens blaring through my music, chain smoking, blood crawling down my arm, shaking from, quite possibly, a quasi-hypothermic state, nothing in my system for the past two days but weak coffee and curls of smoke. Teaching the fundamentals of the English language to children while I end my sentences with prepositions. Staring strangers in the eyes while simultaneously unable to look at my closest friends for more than a few seconds. Spending my days and nights in virtual silence, devoid of human contact, craving conversation, yet failing miserably at late night phone calls.
You can probably guess, or at least assume, that hiking through the Shamanist hillside in Korea was one of those moments I'll never forget...thankfully, because I talk about it ad nauseum...and you're probably ready to strangle me. I was reviewing the past few years, chronologically, in my head (that's the only place I go as of late) and realized that there are more unforgettable moments in my memory than simply hiking with monks and falling on my ass. Some even parallel...I know, crazy. I'll give you one:
My twenty-first birthday Emiliah, Sarah, Cassie and I made the short trip from Sevilla to Cordoba with the express purpose of visiting La Mezquita. Now, living in Europe is expensive, depending on the city, especially when you have a slight obsession with museums and traveling...therefore funds were depleted, all around, and Em wasn't quite sure it'd be in her best interest to pay yet another entrance fee. But how could you not? So we forced her, and when we stepped through the waiting area to the tiled temple floor, saw the endless red and white arcs, marble statues, inconsistencies in design from century to century as presented in the varying architectural layouts, she admitted to wanting to cry. Those were my sentiments exactly. You realize how small you are, how long history has existed without you, built itself upon a world you'll never explore, yet here you are, absorbing centuries of life indirectly through echoing footsteps in a winding Muslim world.
posted by Chishiki Lauren at 6:31 PM
4 Comments:
http://www.freep.com/motownat40/archives/040884mo.htm
Hey you have a blog! now words can go with the pictures.....
uh oh...now you're in for a treat.
And don’t worry too much about where you put your prepositions. That rule, like many others, was promoted by eighteenth- and nineteenth-century grammarians trying to artificially create an English grammar based on classical Latin and Greek models (the same lot that said you shouldn’t split an infinitive, as I just did). Better to end a sentence with a preposition than produce an awkward and pretentious sentence in order to avoid breaking some archaic rule. Oh hell, look at me, you talking about the sublime beauty of the places you've experienced and me responding with rants about grammar because I can’t actually verbalise the things I really want to say ...
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