It was dinnertime.
Me: But I was just in the middle of learning history!
Mom: Ugh. Just because your family wants you to eat dinner with them.
Mom: I suggest you fire them.
Showing posts with label time. Show all posts
Showing posts with label time. Show all posts
Friday, August 10, 2012
Thursday, July 26, 2012
Life is Long
It has not yet been a month since I left Israel.
Needless to say, it feels like forever.
Just over a month ago I was still in school. In this way of seeing things, a year seems so very long. Heck, a day is a long time. And six months? Well, that's damn long too.
It makes me wonder: what can I do with all this time? There's school and someday a job and everything, but there's always more. Extra hours. They're wasted so easily.
But we are so focused on the future that we don't think of now. Obviously you've got to plan some things, otherwise nothing would happen at all, but what about now? Often I forget about the now. Oh, in so many minutes or hours or days or months such and such is happening, but something is also happening now.
There will never be a moment again like this moment. That's what spurs me to do stuff.
Needless to say, it feels like forever.
Just over a month ago I was still in school. In this way of seeing things, a year seems so very long. Heck, a day is a long time. And six months? Well, that's damn long too.
It makes me wonder: what can I do with all this time? There's school and someday a job and everything, but there's always more. Extra hours. They're wasted so easily.
But we are so focused on the future that we don't think of now. Obviously you've got to plan some things, otherwise nothing would happen at all, but what about now? Often I forget about the now. Oh, in so many minutes or hours or days or months such and such is happening, but something is also happening now.
There will never be a moment again like this moment. That's what spurs me to do stuff.
Sunday, June 17, 2012
Sluttish Time
(No, I didn't invent the title, it's from Shakespeare's Sonnet fifty-five.)
Today I realized that on Tuesday it will be two weeks until I'm gone.
Shakespeare was right on for a lot of stuff. Including about time and "all the world's a stage" and things.
Time is making me confused. The passing of time is a strange thing. What is time? I don't think there's a definition. If time is a collection of seconds and minutes and hours, what are seconds and minutes and hours? They are ways of measuring time. And time is...well, you get the idea. Chicken and the egg kind of thing.
And so suddenly I've got three days left of school and I'm getting my report card soon and my uncle is arriving from New York and it's officially going to be summer on Thursday and I have to say goodbye to my friends here.
My life is bonkers. But then, it always was.
Thursday, May 31, 2012
The Language Enthusiast
A few days ago I decided I'd go on Google translate and look up the words for time/age/era in the sixty-five languages Google has deemed important enough to take the time to translate.
In German one word for time or tempo means Kleenex.
In another language (Indonesian? Don't remember which) "river" can mean time.
I found many languages in which a word for time is also "story" or "path." Oh, connections. This is why languages are cool.
In German one word for time or tempo means Kleenex.
In another language (Indonesian? Don't remember which) "river" can mean time.
I found many languages in which a word for time is also "story" or "path." Oh, connections. This is why languages are cool.
Sunday, May 27, 2012
Mayumana
I went to this show called Mayumana Momentum today.
It was in Jaffa, and we had to drive there because it's Shavuot (a holiday) and there aren't any buses. May I just say that driving in Tel Aviv/Yafo is the worst? I mean, firstly I'm not so used to sitting around in cars anymore and secondly, it's all so complicated. Plus, you can never find parking. We were lucky in that respect.
Mayumana is a group that does something sort of similar to Stomp. Except not. It's a cross between dancing and singing and acrobatics and acting and drumming and playing music and audience participation. And it's really cool. But loud, too.
This particular show had a theme of time. There were clocks everywhere and quotes about time that were projected onto a screen before each act. And then that screen lifted up to reveal this grid-thing where the dancers/actors/musicians could climb up and each person had their own box where they danced and sang, backlit by lights, and they also performed on the stage. They had this really cool recording thing which they could press and it would play back the music they'd already created and they could record another part over it, which they also did with cameras: they would film something and project it onto the screen, sometimes filming something else and adding it. Oh, it was all brilliant.
They made the show mostly in English and movements, so most people would be able to understand. Even if you didn't speak English, you could get it from the actors' gestures, and in any case it was more about the music and dance.
All the performers were insanely adept at guitar, drumming, and singing, as well as being extremely strong and flexible. At first I thought, "Oh, I could do that," but it soon became apparent that there was no way at all.
In any case, Mayumana was really great. If you find yourself in Jaffa, I encourage you to go.
It was in Jaffa, and we had to drive there because it's Shavuot (a holiday) and there aren't any buses. May I just say that driving in Tel Aviv/Yafo is the worst? I mean, firstly I'm not so used to sitting around in cars anymore and secondly, it's all so complicated. Plus, you can never find parking. We were lucky in that respect.
Mayumana is a group that does something sort of similar to Stomp. Except not. It's a cross between dancing and singing and acrobatics and acting and drumming and playing music and audience participation. And it's really cool. But loud, too.
This particular show had a theme of time. There were clocks everywhere and quotes about time that were projected onto a screen before each act. And then that screen lifted up to reveal this grid-thing where the dancers/actors/musicians could climb up and each person had their own box where they danced and sang, backlit by lights, and they also performed on the stage. They had this really cool recording thing which they could press and it would play back the music they'd already created and they could record another part over it, which they also did with cameras: they would film something and project it onto the screen, sometimes filming something else and adding it. Oh, it was all brilliant.
They made the show mostly in English and movements, so most people would be able to understand. Even if you didn't speak English, you could get it from the actors' gestures, and in any case it was more about the music and dance.
All the performers were insanely adept at guitar, drumming, and singing, as well as being extremely strong and flexible. At first I thought, "Oh, I could do that," but it soon became apparent that there was no way at all.
In any case, Mayumana was really great. If you find yourself in Jaffa, I encourage you to go.
Tuesday, March 20, 2012
Happy Spring!
I was under the impression that the equinox and the first day of spring were tomorrow, but I guess they're today, so, well, happy spring to everyone! Back in Boston it seems they're really noting the arrival of spring - it's practically summer weather there, and warmer than it is here. That's not supposed to happen!
I'm going to join this with my quote of the week. It's an interesting quote, not necessarily celebrating the arrival of the season, but one which puts forth a thought which has crossed my own mind.
I'm going to join this with my quote of the week. It's an interesting quote, not necessarily celebrating the arrival of the season, but one which puts forth a thought which has crossed my own mind.
What does winter or autumn or spring or summer know of memory. They know nothing of memory. They know that seasons pass and return. They know that they are seasons. That they are time. And they know how to affirm themselves. And they know how to impose themselves. And they know how to maintain themselves, What does autumn know of summer. What sorrows do seasons have. None hate. None love. They just pass.I found it on Wikiquote, which has got to be one of my favorite websites - I am, after all, a quote enthusiast. I have expressed the point it makes before - time is no more than time, unknowing, ever-moving. There is nothing anyone can do to stop it (unless someone can procure a TARDIS, which would actually be amazing). So enjoy your time, use it as you may. And happy spring!
- Giannina Braschi, "Pastoral or the Inquisition of Memories" from Empire of Dreams (1994)
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Leap Year
So today is February 29th. A special day, you could say. It only comes once every four years, after all.
But doesn't it ever occur to you that each day is just that - a day, be it a Sunday or a Wednesday, in January or in June, or the twenty-ninth of February. They're all the same if you think about it. But being humans as we are, we number and label the days so we can always know what to do with them. We divide time into bundles, so each of us can make use of our own allotted parcel. So maybe it isn't so special that it's be twenty-ninth, and maybe I shouldn't hate Wednesdays so much. They're just days, after all, and it's not poor old Wednesday's fault that it was plonked in the middle of the week when everything is at its busiest and craziest.
In any case, happy February twenty-ninth! And I am dearly sorry for any babies born today...
But doesn't it ever occur to you that each day is just that - a day, be it a Sunday or a Wednesday, in January or in June, or the twenty-ninth of February. They're all the same if you think about it. But being humans as we are, we number and label the days so we can always know what to do with them. We divide time into bundles, so each of us can make use of our own allotted parcel. So maybe it isn't so special that it's be twenty-ninth, and maybe I shouldn't hate Wednesdays so much. They're just days, after all, and it's not poor old Wednesday's fault that it was plonked in the middle of the week when everything is at its busiest and craziest.
In any case, happy February twenty-ninth! And I am dearly sorry for any babies born today...
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