Term ended two weeks ago and so I'm in the big middle of the vast expanse that is winter vacation. And I thought before all of this began that all I needed was unadulterated time to work through ideas to their eventual end points, to offer them the space enough to bud up from the bedrock, but now I find myself stuffing all the seedings into egg cartons so they have their own allocated location. From 9-11 I work on short stories (my new favorite genre again). From 11-12 languages (Urdu, Hindi, Farsi one a day) then to the Centre if only because I need some human contact by then because my interest certainly isn't yet research on this paper they've given us 6 whole weeks to write (not knowing I've got an undergraduate education in procrastination)...But at least I've set the shape of these things. You know, I wrote myself this very symbolic letter on my first train ride from London to Cambridge stating the exact ways in which I would live deliberately every day...but lately it's become so deliberate its hardly living...
But perhaps that's what life is after all.
It's taken some time but I've got leads on the writing workshops I wanted to set up, and some real potential for this rather exciting side project that I don't feel altogether comfortable setting off into the netherworld of the internet just yet...I suppose it has to stay something of the top secret sort for now although I've had an alright reception for it from professors here, though I know they think I'm getting a bit big for my britches...but that's the only way I know to be, and I'm tired of having to wait until I have authority (that unspoken undercurrent to academia) enough to set these things into motion.
I've always stood taller than I am.
So this time has been good although I don't know what I'll think of it in a few months. When term begins in January I'll only have my language classes to keep me occupied (which are hardly a commitment). But of course I'll probably find others to go to (the whole system is totally open here) and there are always all them ideas to work on...and anyway I want to make a song and anyway I want to make a movie. And sometimes I feel there's so much to be done it's impossible and sometimes I really can't remember why I jolt myself out of bed at 8am no matter what. But that whole thing about a life measured by the coffee spoon makes more sense to me than ever before.
