See how Syria's internet disappeared. Also, the Pope is on Twitter.
Still feeling distinctly under the weather, but hoping that I will be better enough tomorrow to start exercising again; exercise deprivation has made me feel rather despondent. It is a very busy time of the work year, but I have had a few symptomatic bits of light reading around the edges: Benjamin Lorr's thoroughly engaging Hell-Bent: Obsession, Pain and the Search for Something Like Transcendence in Competitive Yoga and Sakyong Mipham's Running with the Mind of Meditation: Lessons for Training Body and Mind.
Showing posts with label meditation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label meditation. Show all posts
Monday, December 03, 2012
Thursday, October 18, 2012
Catch-up
Looking at my calendar is inducing a feeling of mild awe at the amount of stuff I have to do in the next couple weeks (i.e. before I leave Nov. 1 for some days with B.)! It includes recreational elements as well as just work (Tough Mudder this Saturday, tickets for the Adès Tempest at the Met next Saturday evening, a day-long meditation retreat the following day) but there is no doubt that the season of letters of recommendation is upon us....
Heard a fantastically good talk at lunchtime today at the Society of Fellows. David Russell on George Eliot's rage - excellent stuff!
Tyler Hamilton's book really is unbelievably gripping. I couldn't put it down. Strongly recommended.
Miscellaneous other links:
Swim to work!
Cupcake aversion therapy?
Heard a fantastically good talk at lunchtime today at the Society of Fellows. David Russell on George Eliot's rage - excellent stuff!
Tyler Hamilton's book really is unbelievably gripping. I couldn't put it down. Strongly recommended.
Miscellaneous other links:
Swim to work!
Cupcake aversion therapy?
Tuesday, August 28, 2012
Closing tabs redux
Wish I could see this.
Also rather wish I could go here! (Link via B., who got it here. Note to self: acquire camp chair?)
Great Oliver Sacks piece in last week's New Yorker, including an amazing description of the genesis of his vision of his writing vocation - online for subscribers only, but that podcast is open to all, I think.
Asad Raza's Wimbledon diary.
Rereading We Need To Talk About Kevin for a fuller discussion of Lionel Shriver as stylist in my style revision - but really I need to put that aside and get my syllabi finalized, course readers arranged, books checked on etc. Still have a bit more leeway time-wise, as my first classes don't meet till next Wednesday and then the following Monday, but can't seem to concentrate on the other with this still unresolved, so I think I'll take a few days this week to do that, return library books, etc.
I do have some good news that I think no longer needs to be secret - awaiting contract on the style book from Columbia University Press! Very excited about working with them on this, though there are a couple other editors I've mentally bookmarked as people I'm eager to collaborate with on future projects.
Got home from Cayman late Sunday night and had another endodontist appointment yesterday afternoon. Fingers crossed that this was the last one, though doctor says there is a ten percent chance a further procedure will be needed. Went to regular dentist this morning to get the temporary filling in the crown replaced with a permanent one. Devoutly hoping that this is it for this year's dental woes! It was certainly much less painful afterwards than the two prior sessions, though there is still some infection.
Also rather wish I could go here! (Link via B., who got it here. Note to self: acquire camp chair?)
Great Oliver Sacks piece in last week's New Yorker, including an amazing description of the genesis of his vision of his writing vocation - online for subscribers only, but that podcast is open to all, I think.
Asad Raza's Wimbledon diary.
Rereading We Need To Talk About Kevin for a fuller discussion of Lionel Shriver as stylist in my style revision - but really I need to put that aside and get my syllabi finalized, course readers arranged, books checked on etc. Still have a bit more leeway time-wise, as my first classes don't meet till next Wednesday and then the following Monday, but can't seem to concentrate on the other with this still unresolved, so I think I'll take a few days this week to do that, return library books, etc.
I do have some good news that I think no longer needs to be secret - awaiting contract on the style book from Columbia University Press! Very excited about working with them on this, though there are a couple other editors I've mentally bookmarked as people I'm eager to collaborate with on future projects.
Got home from Cayman late Sunday night and had another endodontist appointment yesterday afternoon. Fingers crossed that this was the last one, though doctor says there is a ten percent chance a further procedure will be needed. Went to regular dentist this morning to get the temporary filling in the crown replaced with a permanent one. Devoutly hoping that this is it for this year's dental woes! It was certainly much less painful afterwards than the two prior sessions, though there is still some infection.
Wednesday, July 18, 2012
Everything's coming up roses
Just a quick post to say that I started my first-person rewrite of BoMH part III on Monday night and I'm incredibly excited about it! It's totally turned around how I feel about the book: there's always been a claustrophobic hothouse-type aspect to the story that I have disliked, and this opens things up in a funny and interesting way that I am very much enjoying. Haven't been so interested and engaged by something I was writing since a day I stole in February to reimmerse myself in a piece I wrote a while ago about the 'minute particular' in life-writing and the novel. (It's one of my projects for August to get that out as a real article.)
I was unusually frenzied in my work life from December through May, and then in the aftermath of that I was uncharacteristically grumpy from May pretty much right up until now. I'm hoping this marks a real turning point.
I had one of those days yesterday where everything just seems to go right (clearly this follows in the psychological aftermath of near-magical Monday-night and Tuesday-morning writing sessions). I walked down a block I don't usually traverse and found myself in the amazing surrounds of the flower market, which is really like something out of a fairy story; I had an amazing lunch (best conversation ever!) with my editor at the hyper-palindromic Ilili (the space is beautiful and the food is very good; I recommend the prix fixe lunch - we shared grape leaves and hummus for appetizers, then I had the grilled chicken salad and the "Ilili candy bar" for dessert); I generally avoid crosstown buses, as they are often slower than walking, but heat changes the equation and the M23 - I had known this but somehow forgot it - actually goes all the way to Chelsea Piers; I had an enjoyable run workout on the indoor track at Chelsea Piers followed by a dip in the pool; then I took the M23 again to the first meeting of a mindfulness-based stress reduction class I found online and that seems exactly what I've been looking for.
I was unusually frenzied in my work life from December through May, and then in the aftermath of that I was uncharacteristically grumpy from May pretty much right up until now. I'm hoping this marks a real turning point.
I had one of those days yesterday where everything just seems to go right (clearly this follows in the psychological aftermath of near-magical Monday-night and Tuesday-morning writing sessions). I walked down a block I don't usually traverse and found myself in the amazing surrounds of the flower market, which is really like something out of a fairy story; I had an amazing lunch (best conversation ever!) with my editor at the hyper-palindromic Ilili (the space is beautiful and the food is very good; I recommend the prix fixe lunch - we shared grape leaves and hummus for appetizers, then I had the grilled chicken salad and the "Ilili candy bar" for dessert); I generally avoid crosstown buses, as they are often slower than walking, but heat changes the equation and the M23 - I had known this but somehow forgot it - actually goes all the way to Chelsea Piers; I had an enjoyable run workout on the indoor track at Chelsea Piers followed by a dip in the pool; then I took the M23 again to the first meeting of a mindfulness-based stress reduction class I found online and that seems exactly what I've been looking for.
Wednesday, April 04, 2012
Over the hump of the week?
Radio silence here largely due to the fact that I've been so frazzled that sharing was contraindicated! Really I have just been disastrously busy from mid-February to late March, and I always pay the price in terms of insomnia and stress. However I had a very useful day yesterday knocking things off a school-y to-do list; today's still busy with school stuff, but I then have four days completely clear of all obligations (Thursday-Sunday) and a lighter load than usual for next Monday, so I think I am finally going to be able to dig back in on the wretched novel, which has been fruitlessly calling for my attention in the face of an extremely demanding work schedule!
(Absolute priority once I clear this next bunch of deadlines and finish the teaching semester: lower stress levels!)
Miscellaneous light reading: Jonathan Mahler's Kindle Single Death Comes to Happy Valley: Penn State and the Tragic Legacy of Joe Paterno (a bit luridly written as well as titled, and not reported from interviews but more like a synopsis of published sources, but informative and worthwhile); Barry Graham's The Book of Man; Lewis Shiner's Dark Tangos.
Have also burned through most of the first two seasons of The Good Wife on the theory that it might be good if I spent evenings not just reading books so compulsively, but really good TV episodes are at least as addictive as light reading, so I am not sure that this is any kind of a solution. Stayed up late last night reading the first half of Tim Parks's odd but compelling Teach Us to Sit Still: A Skeptic's Guide to Health and Healing, recommended to me recently by a colleague to whom I was lamenting my lack of work-life balance. (Afterwards, though, I realized that it's not really the right term: I don't want work-life balance, I just want to be able to work a lot and be calm and quiet the rest of the time!)
Bonus link: Lee Child's lessons for success.
(Absolute priority once I clear this next bunch of deadlines and finish the teaching semester: lower stress levels!)
Miscellaneous light reading: Jonathan Mahler's Kindle Single Death Comes to Happy Valley: Penn State and the Tragic Legacy of Joe Paterno (a bit luridly written as well as titled, and not reported from interviews but more like a synopsis of published sources, but informative and worthwhile); Barry Graham's The Book of Man; Lewis Shiner's Dark Tangos.
Have also burned through most of the first two seasons of The Good Wife on the theory that it might be good if I spent evenings not just reading books so compulsively, but really good TV episodes are at least as addictive as light reading, so I am not sure that this is any kind of a solution. Stayed up late last night reading the first half of Tim Parks's odd but compelling Teach Us to Sit Still: A Skeptic's Guide to Health and Healing, recommended to me recently by a colleague to whom I was lamenting my lack of work-life balance. (Afterwards, though, I realized that it's not really the right term: I don't want work-life balance, I just want to be able to work a lot and be calm and quiet the rest of the time!)
Bonus link: Lee Child's lessons for success.
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