New Year's Reflections

Lengthen My Days

• Do more with my free time; I want to do Salsa with a friend
• Get a lava lamp
• Join UWA gym
• Learn how to play acoustic guitar
• Continue to speak French to my Francophone friends
• Write letters to the friends I have made here
• Totally doing paintings for new appt: perhaps a nice, new easel would be useful to own
• Explore dress-making: I'm sure I could come up with some wonderful creations
• Less facebook
• Go on one of those bush-walking things (orienteering I think) that Caro and Linden do.

Planning Euro Trip

OMG.
Way too many decisions to make.

17th Feb 2012                                 11h00
Flight SQ333 Economy class
Aircraft: 388

18th Feb 2012                                  14h44
Arrival in Perth

Emailed Viktoria and Anne about staying with them in Berlin and Innsbruck, but yet to receive a response.

Was going to go to England, but decided that it was too difficult, what with changing currency and whatnot. Still England, England...

Going to Berlin, Nuremberg, Innsbruck.
More later...

William Blake

William Blake. 1757–1827

489. The Tiger

TIGER, tiger, burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
In what distant deeps or skies	5
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare seize the fire?
And what shoulder and what art
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?	10
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand and what dread feet?
What the hammer? what the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? What dread grasp	15
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?
When the stars threw down their spears,
And water'd heaven with their tears,
Did He smile His work to see?
Did He who made the lamb make thee?	20
Tiger, tiger, burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

T.S. Eliot

Since commencing literature studies here at Paris 3, I think I think differently.

I am different.

I am plus soutenue.

I am more aware of beauty.

The beauty of the written thought, of words and clever looks.

Marble, now has a heady attraction for me. I go to the Louvre as often as time permits me to trace the contours of these magnificent attestments to man's ability to imitate and create.

 I think that I'm more poetical: that my cup runneth over with expression and elegant weaving of words in the air like great clouds of the ever-intangible thought.

Feeling ever so poetical this evening, I thought that I would leave off with the elegant patter that is the words of T.S. Eliot.

Little Gidding

(No. 4 of 'Four Quartets), Part V

T.S. Eliot

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
Through the unknown, unremembered gate
When the last of earth left to discover
Is that which was the beginning;
At the source of the longest river
The voice of the hidden waterfall
And the children in the apple-tree
Not known, because not looked for
But heard, half-heard, in the stillness
Between two waves of the sea.
Quick now, here, now, always—
A condition of complete simplicity
(Costing not less than everything)
And all shall be well and
All manner of thing shall be well
When the tongues of flame are in-folded
Into the crowned knot of fire
And the fire and the rose are one.

Thoughts

I'm really trying to take advantage of everything here...like the musees!

Friday night, I went with Maria Elena to the Louvre and we did drawing of the Victoire de la Samothrace.

When we had just about finished, a cute boy with red headphones came up to us and asked if he could see our drawings and we gladly did so. Enterprising Maria swiftly asked him to take a photo of us with her fancy camera, one pretending to draw, the other displaying our creations.

It only occurred to me later that he was probably trying to flirt with us <3

As we had arrived late, we had scarcely any time after the first drawing to look around. Maria brought up the point that the French had stolen so many works from Italy- including peintures, sculptures and statues.

I begged her to teach me more Italian and she did so graciously: some words were much more rude than others !

Che fottuta puttana, troia, zoccola e baldracca! La BRUTTA!! Si, si Vittoria ha ragione!

I really hope to return to Italy next year, hopefully in January and see my lovely copines italiennes.

We had a quick look around but soon had to leave.

Had another look at the Chrissy Markets and then had a cup of Vanilla tea at Maria's.

Bliss!

Wishlizt=Mes Kiffes

WISHLIZT 

Mes Kiffes

(so much cooler with a zed)

1. Doc Martens: So Insanely cool. ALL the colours.

Je les convoite.

"Une paire en rose, s'il vous plait. Et jaune.

Et celle-ci en orange.

Ouais, je prendrai celle-la en vert pour completer mon look.

2. Red Lipstick: I didn't bring one to Paris! Silly girl!

Mais, qu'est-ce que tu dis!

Une belle, jeune femme ne doit pas jamais quitter la maison sans de la rouge a levres...

C'est mauvais pour la sante, Coucou...

3. Liquid Eyeliner
Lost mine...

Homesickness, December funsies

Dear Diary,

This might be too soon, but I want to make sweet, sloppy love to you.

Love Tori xx

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
But in all seriousness let's address the things running through my mind.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

So I've got until January 15th before I finish classes properly, two weeks afterwards in Paris until the rent finishes up and then after being kicked out, I'm going to Rome, Pompeii, Germany and England. I think.

I've yet to book anything. It's hard to make decisions about where to go!!
I need to ring Mummikins to ask her advice: a queen of travelling.

I was feeling a bit blue today. I will blame it on this crappy, crappy weather we have been having. Oh why did I ever complain about it being too hot?

I slept two hours on Tuesday night and hence went to bed at 6pm yesterday afternoon, a Wednesday. Was went to go to a "Seven Deadly Sins ou Les Sept Peches Capitaux" party but slept through it waking at half-past Midnight. Asleep again at nearly 6am and then up at 11am.

I spent the morning doing nothing except for quickly learning the Passe Simple (a written past tense that doesn't exist in English).

Went to Linguistics class and fell into a sullen and disinterested mood.
This could be due to:

• Not seeing friends enough 
• Hormones
• Rickety sleep patterns
• No exercise
• Unhealthy eating
• Cabin Fever, brought on by not enough hours (or any) of sunlight
• homesickness

While looking at a passage of Candide by Voltaire:
It was pretty funny when Prof. Brunner said that the classement of the lexical aspect of the verb "to have burned down a village" depended on whether you thought that it was an activity, an accomplishment or a finishing off of something.

When she further explained that it depended on whether you were considering how long it took to burn down a village the class roared with laughter.

I love linguistics.

Anyway the parentals are arriving in 10 days! Hurray for a home-cooked meal!