all the lovely nerndess

Two of the guys in the subgroup arranged a party last night, mostly because Hakan was visiting from his post docing abroad, and had requested one. It turned out really well, they even decorated, and the cooking was not bad at all. A nice little bar in the corner and a lot of us showed up. I think the new guy from Stockholm was flirting, I'm not sure though, since I'm really dim at stuff like that, *and* rusty. Talking a lot, eye contact, even across room, touching arm while talking, little joking remarks all the time, could be flirting right?
Ha ha..he's nice enough, but it could have been all innocently meant, and besides..I swore not to get involved with a society guy again, too messy when you break up (hm..it *is* worrisome that I use the word *when* in this sentence)
Besides, us all being nerds (even though we may look as totally normal ppl) helps a little to prohibit any heat rising...I just started discussing how the Rohan culture was captured and described in The Two Towers, and we were all into that for hours..haha..
I'm so in the right spot culture wise. When I was a girl of 11 and was ill for a good deal or a whole summer, I was forced to spend a lot of time indoors and thus read the trilogy. I *so* wanted to be a rider of Rohan then, they were just the coolest! (although I did identify myself closer with the hobbits when it came to feeling).
If I feel nerdy enough some day I might just write a little essay on the Rohan culture in the film and in the books.

A good poem

I've read this in polish and swedish, and now I read it in english, and the translation is actually really good.
Wislawa belongs to the witty, talkative eastern european poetic shool, she was a journalist for many years before she won the nobel prize.

A few words on the soul...

We have a soul at times.
No one's got it non-stop,
for keeps.

Day after day,
year after year
may pass without it.

Sometimes,
it will settle for a while,
only in childhood's fears and raptures.
Sometimes only in astonishments
that we are old.

It rarely lends a hand
in uphill tasks,
like moving furniture,
or lifting luggage,
or going miles in shoes that pinch.

It usually steps out
whenever meat needs chopping
or forms have to be filled.

For every thousand conversations
it participates in one,
if even that,
since it prefers silence

Just when our body goes from ache to
pain,
it slips off-duty.

It's picky:
It doesn't like seeing us in crowds,
our hustlings for a dubious advantage
and creaky machinations make it sick.

Joy and sorrow
aren't two different feelings for it.
It attends us,
only when the two are joined.

We can count on it
when we're sure of nothing
and curious about everything.

Among the material objects
it favors clocks with pendulums
and mirrors, which keep on working
even when no one is looking.

It won't say where it comes from
or when it's taking off again,
though it's clearly expecting such questions.

We need it,
but apparently,
it needs us,
for some reason.

-Wislawa Szymborska (transl. by Stanislaw Baranczak and Clare Cavanagh)

(no subject)

oh god...I started to clean up for the party tomorrow, and was looking at the beautiful cloak/coat that plastic sister sew for me, from cloth that Anders bought (so I won't get cold this winter, as they said)...and I found the envelope that I got from the old grand lady and grand guy. An obscene amount of money as it seemed to me (2000 crowns). When I got home to Boman and the others christmas eve and opened the envelope, I guess I was just too chocked about all the money, I didn't see the little letter from the old lady. Now I found it.
"Be well, I will not forget you. It is sad what's happened, but it must be this way, as I understand it. Many best wishes." /-Ruth

I do not like crying, and I really don't do it often, it gives me a headache. I wish I'd talked to her more. I will never forget when she showed me her special little room and all the photos...She will be 92 this spring. I may never see her again.
I don't know what I feel, some kind of loss, sadness and a little guilt I suppose, and other things not readable.

(no subject)

sorry, posted twice as it seems..