Catherine

OMFG!!!!!!!!!

I JUST GOT A JOB OFFER!!!!!

ME!!!!!!!!!

WOW!!!!!!!!

I HATED THE PLACE BUT STILL!!!

:D

I posted this privately about a year ago... but this time it seems that it's going to stick.

I hope that it isn't too much of a religious transgression to recite the Mourner's Kaddish for a relationship... but I think that the demise of four and a half years' worth of love, hopes and desires is far from trivial.

As my ancestors would have said, "The Lord has given, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the Lord."

I broke up with Jay last Thursday. Well, I suppose it was more of a mutual breakup--it just wasn't working for me and we could not change that. There is no anger in this on my side, no bitterness or hatred. It's somehow even sadder to break up when neither person really wants to than when only one is still in love. I miss him... I miss him holding me, and kissing my hair, and snuggling with him in his big armchair while watching Beck, having him tell me I'm beautiful and special and smart.

That can never return.

But I also miss talking to him, laughing at his jokes and having him as a friend.

Hopefully we can preserve that, at least once the initial shock is over.

For any who might be concerned with how I'm doing--I'm actually kind of surprised at how well I'm taking it. I think that somewhere deep inside I must have known for a long time that this would happen... and while the destruction of hopes that things might be different is hard, and the destruction of the dreams I had for our future is even harder... there is also a sense of relief at not having to worry about whether he loves me or not and whether it will work out, whether he sees us going in the same direction...

I suppose sometimes any sort of finality is preferable to limbo.

I'd like to say, for this last time--I love you, Jay. It will diminish, it will (hopefully, I guess) someday be, for the most part, supplanted, and I will never say it to you in a way beyond a friendly love again, but you will always have been the first.

Yet oh, how a finality can hurt...

We interrupt our regularly scheduled programming (i.e. CS285) to provide you with a critique of a recent article:

Masked Gunmen Briefly Take Over EU Office

By IBRAHIM BARZAK, Associated Press Writer
Mon Jan 30, 9:21 AM ET

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - Masked gunmen on Monday briefly took over a
European Union office to protest a Danish newspaper's publication of cartoons deemed insulting to Islam's Prophet Muhammad, the latest in a wave of violent denunciations of the caricatures across the Islamic world.

Is it as insulting, as, say, forcing women to wear burkas, forbidding them to have jobs and get an education and beating them?

Oh, I forgot, women aren't holy though, are they. My bad.

The gunmen demanded an apology from Denmark and Norway, and said citizens of the two countries would be prevented from entering the
Gaza Strip.

ZOMG OH NO!!!!!!@!@!!!@!!>> U SUK!!! NOT BEING ABLE TO ENTER THE GAZA STRIP!!!!

"We are calling on the citizens of the two countries to take this threat seriously because our cells are ready to implement this all over Gaza," one militant said.

See above.

The 12 drawings — published in September by the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten and republished in a Norwegian paper this month — included an image of the prophet wearing a turban shaped as a bomb with a burning fuse. Islamic tradition bars any depiction of the prophet, even respectful ones, out of concern that such images could lead to idolatry.

And idolatry, as we all know, is a really terrible thing. It could lead to, say, killing people for no good reason... lead people to distort the teachings of the prophet... it must be kept from contaminating true Islam.

The cartoons have touched off protests, flag burnings and boycotts of Danish products throughout the Muslim world. On Sunday, Palestinian protesters burned Danish flags in two West Bank towns.

I'm wondering where they got the Danish flags. I hope they were made in Denmark.

In Monday's violence, the gunmen burst into the EU office, then withdrew several minutes later. A group of about 15 masked men, armed with hand grenades, automatic weapons and anti-tank launchers, remained outside, keeping the offices closed. No shots were fired, and there were no reports of injuries.

The gunmen left the building after about half an hour.

Their persistence is a thing of beauty. ADD, anyone? Not that that's a bad thing, in this case.

The Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, a violent group linked to Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah Party, claimed responsibility. Al Aqsa has been involved in much of the recent chaos plaguing Gaza.

Jyllands-Posten has refused to apologize for the drawings, citing freedom of speech. The drawings were reprinted on Jan. 10 by Norwegian evangelical newspaper Magazinet in the name of defending free expression, renewing Muslim anger.

MOMMYYYYY!!!! THE WESTERNERS MADE FUN OF ME!!!!! :(:(:(:(:( I WANNA KILL THEM CAN I CAN I CAN I??!?!?!?!????

We now return to our regularly scheduled broadcast. This has been your mockery of ridiculousness for today.

I am so sick of rejection. :(

"High Flight"

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds - and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of - wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there,
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue
I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or even eagle flew -
And, while with silent lifting mind I've trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand and touched the face of God.

John Gillespie Magee, Jr.

I remember sending this once to Jeremy, when we first met and I found out that he likes flying planes. His reaction was basically ridiculing the "delirious burning blue" line. Psht.

The Destruction Of Sennacherib
George Gordon Lord Byron

The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold,
And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold;
And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea,
When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee.

Like the leaves of the forest when summer is green,
That host with their banners at sunset were seen:
Like the leaves of the forest when autumn hath blown,
That host on the morrow lay withered and strown.

For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast,
And breathed in the face of the foe as he passed:
And the eyes of the sleepers waxed deadly and chill,
And their hearts but once heaved, and for ever grew still!

And there lay the steed with his nostrils all wide,
But through it there rolled not the breath of his pride:
And the foam of his gasping lay white on the turf,
And cold as the spray of the rock-beating surf.

And there lay the rider distorted and pale,
With the dew on his brow and the rust on his mail;
And the tents were all silent, the banners alone,
The lances unlifted, the trumpet unblown.

And the widows of Ashur are loud in their wail,
And the idols are broke in the temple of Baal;
And the might of the Gentile, unsmote by the sword,
Hath melted like snow in the glance of the Lord!

Makes chills run down my spine.

And would it have been worth it, after all,
After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,
Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,
Would it have been worth while,
To have bitten off the matter with a smile,
To have squeezed the universe into a ball
To roll it toward some overwhelming question,
To say: “I am Lazarus, come from the dead,
Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all”—
If one, settling a pillow by her head,
Should say: “That is not what I meant at all.
That is not it, at all.”

And would it have been worth it, after all,
Would it have been worth while,
After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets,
After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor—
And this, and so much more?—
It is impossible to say just what I mean!
But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen:
Would it have been worth while
If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl,
And turning toward the window, should say:
“That is not it at all,
That is not what I meant, at all.”

Considering the high on which I was earlier, I am on such an incredible low right now.

And I really wish I weren't all alone. Maybe I should go watch an episode of Star Trek or two on those DVDs...

:(

Feelin' lonely... and nobody to talk to :(

I should go study math :P

GreatMIB1: ho
GreatMIB1 returned at 5:19:59 PM.
GreatMIB1: no it doesnt
Lepida Puella: Takes one to know one.

She's sitting right behind me... she's not REALLY psychic.

We had the fire department come out here today because our building manager is a dipstick and doesn't know how to operate the fire alarms. They parked in the middle of the street--right after I joked about them doing that. Excitment. Boo yah.