a distinct chill in the air
Ξ Tuesday, 28 Oct 2008 at 22:36 | → 0 Comments | ∇ Normal |
well, the fog and cold and mist came back, at least for one day so far. This morning the sun shone brightly through the misty haze, and I was glad I’d brought my hoodie with me as I headed off to work. It was a good weekend really, and I got a lot done on my thesis — 11 pages so far, which isn’t a lot, but it’s better than nothing. I’ll be working more on it tomorrow during the day; tonight I’m a bit burnt out. if this weather keeps up, it’ll feel more like october/november should be, and is a welcome portent.
This weekend we went to the beach again, and while there were more people there this time, it was still pretty nice. Better than when we went before, actually, since it was comfortably warm (mid- to high 60s?), and the winds behaved themselves. Overall, a very nice time, and I took some pictures when I wasn’t reading League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, volume one of which I borrowed from Nicole. I’ll post those pictures later; one may even become the new ‘mugshot’ in the upper right. I got some excellent photos of the sun over the water, since camera lenses are not prone to blindness, and I’d be happy to post them soon. They’re on the desktop, though, and here I am on the laptop again, so it’ll have to wait.
I can’t believe it’s almost the end of October. Halloween is three days away (barely), and we’re on the cusp of November. Time flies way too quickly. However, I’m (nerdily enough) excited that Ubuntu 8.10, code name “Intrepid Ibex,” is coming out on the 30th, and I’m eager to install it on both this laptop and my desktop. My experience with Hardy Heron (8.04) in April has me wary about installing it that day, though. The servers were absolutely hammered with people doing distribution upgrades when I did it before. It took a number of hours to download everything (at a snail’s pace), when it would have taken an hour at most on any regular day. So I may wait until Halloween proper, or the day after, to do so.
Excellent news came to me a couple of days ago! My friend Anna, who lives in Australia, whom I’ve known for close to ten years (since I was 15 or 16? We were talking about this) — she is coming to the States in November! And she’s coming to see me, and ostensibly stay with Nicole and I for a couple of days! She was initially going to get a plane up here, but now she’s said she may be able to take a roadtrip with our mutual friend Oscar (“Stylo”), who she’s also visiting. He would drive up here with her and his girlfriend, and she could stay with us while they got a hotel. That’s sort of the plan for the time being, but she’s still sorting it out. I’m just ridiculously excited about this, because I’ve not met her yet and I’ve known her all this time! I guess it’s hard to meet when you live so far away though. In any case, it’s fantastic. I was going to see her in May, just meet up with her in the airport for a bit, but this is even better — it didn’t work out back then obviously.
That’s probably the most exciting news I’ve gotten lately though. Otherwise I’ve just been plugging away at my thesis, working, and taking things a day at a time. It’s a cold night tonight, but I’m in my warm room, the light on the nightstand casting its warm yellow glow all about. Nicole’s laughing in the other room, ostensibly at Keith Olbermann’s show on her MacBook, or some YouTube video, hehe. All seems right with the world.
I gave my friend — the one who inspired me to write a couple entries ago, inspired me with her words on stars and all — I gave her an epithet just for fun. I’ve been reading a lot of Homer lately, as you probably know, and I remembered that Homer calls Aphrodite “laughter-loving” a lot of the time (even when she’s gravely wounded by Diomedes in Iliad 5!). The adjective is φιλομμειδής (philommeides, if you can’t read the Greek Unicode) – literally “laughter-loving.” My friend laughs a lot when we talk, and so I thought it was perfect.
I was thinking of another epithet for myself, and I don’t know if this one even exists in Greek: ἀλεξίφιλος (alexiphilos) — “protector of friends.” It may be somewhere in Modern Greek, but I doubt it; according to LSJ it’s not a real word, but I’m making it up. Nicole used to have other epithets for me, such as θεοειδής (theoeides), “godlike,” and ἴφθιμος (iphthimos), “mighty.” And I used to call her παγγλυκερά (panglukera), “all-sweet,” and λευκώλενος (leukolenos), “of the white arms” (an epithet of Hera). Bloody hell, I’d almost forgotten about παγγλυκερά — it took me a second to think of it. I miss all that, we don’t really do that so much anymore.
in any case, it’s a beautiful night. Enjoy it.
