Archive for November, 2010
Hell Month.
I got used to it when I was doing my English degree – the gradual buildup to the worst imagineable month possible. September is a breeze because you’re getting started, October seems like a normal workload, and then November is insane. For English it was a matter of writing about 5 term papers in three weeks. For Science its midterms midterms midterms.
I’m not necessarily behind, but I’m not where I want to be and I have a lot of work ahead of me this month. Not to mention the fact that we’re trying to figure out Christmas etc. and we’re moving to a new place in January (somehow), and I’m trying to work on my applications for Masters programs next year.
Yikes.
If you don’t follow surfing, it means nothing, but if you do it means everything.
Andy Irons, 3x world champion surfer from Kauai passed away yesterday in a Dallas Hotel Room from Dengue Fever. He was 32 and on his way back to Kauai after withdrawing from the Rip Curl Pro in Puerto Rico due to illness. He left behind a wife with a baby on the way.
Irons was the only Hawaiian ever to win more than one world title. He was the only real competition for Kelly Slater in the 2000′s. His career seemed to be cooling down until a 2009 win at Teahupo’o. Everyone was looking at him and saying “he’s back”. I thought that ten years from now I’d still be watching videos of him surfing – he’d be like Tom Curren is now, travelling and giving aged wisdom.
The smaller sadness is that Kelly Slater’s tenth world title, the big 10, is only days away from being won. All of the happiness is drained out of that for everyone. Despite all of the trash talking Andy did, he wouldn’t have wanted to ruin Kelly’s 10th.
It makes me emotional. I’m not a celebrity person and I know I never really knew him but I felt like I did.
Mahalo for all your surfing AI. Aloha.
Image by paula rúpolo via Flickr
I have never remembered my dreams well. I probably have between five and ten dreams a year that I am able to recall with any clarity.
I don’t know how I feel about that. I have always been jealous of friends who describe being able to manipulate their dreams or recall long dream sequences. As a postmodernist writer I love dreams in media, and kind of feel like I’m robbed of something by not having them myself. On the other hand, I kind of like the solitude and peace of remembering nothing, and I’m afraid that disrupting it will end some vital process.
Anyway, I’m trying. I put a pad of paper down beside my bed, and I am attempting to condition myself to write down my thoughts immediately after waking up. I’m two days in and so far- nothing.
The last dream I remember was sitting on top of a moving train and eating a bag lunch. I’ve never done that, so I found it strange that my brain was able to produce it so convincingly.
