Lunch break

[mothwing]

My weekend was outside of space and time, because Crocky was here. Something about her just makes time stop and moves everything to another plane of reality that is not exactly unreal, but isn't coherent with my everyday reality of university and family, either.
It is scary how much my week depends on the knowledge that on the weekend, we will be seeing each other. If we do not, I don't feel well, I grow very dependent on our daily phone calls, and I miss her terribly every day. Sometimes I doubt it's entirely healthy. On the weekends, I feel that they belong to us and us alone, and I meet disturbances only very, very grudgingly.
I have become absolutely addicted to this relationship, and time with Crocky. So far it hasn't had any dramatically negative side-effects, but I doubt that addictions are positive, even when they're to people.

She went home again this morning and I am waiting for my courses to begin at four, in the Mac pool. There is so little oxygen in the buildings that I feel completely light-headed and unable to concentrate on any work. It's too cold to open the window, too. Great.

I hate the fact that my university is obsessed with Macs. There is one PC pool, and two Mac pools. Blegh. Are there Word-like programmes on Macs? Do they exist? If they do, why doesn't my university bother with having them installed on these computers? I am about to write my homework in an e-mail programme. Although seeing as the two girl working on their presentation on Scots (which makes my skin crawl - do they know anything at all about Scots??) are using a PowerPoint-like programme, they do seem to exist.

Why do we even bother with presentations? I think in all the years at this university I have been to about two presentations that were really worth attending. No one ever takes them seriously and the value they have for the courses are close to zero, especially with people doing the presentation who so obviously don't know what they're talking about. Sadly, I can't find the great site with sound samples Crocky showed me the other day, but here's an example for synthetic Scots.

I've been looking everywhere for material on "The Widower" by Hugh McDiarmid, but there's just nothing on the little poem that contains two very pretty words, "pitmerk" and "snell". "Pitmerk" means pitch dark, "snell", which means piercing, icy, cold, severe.

It doesn't help that there are so many other pretty poems on the poetry pages that distract me, like

The Twa Corbies

As I was walking all alane,
I heard twa corbies making a mane;
The tane unto the t'other say,
'Where sall we gang and dine to-day?'

'In behint yon auld fail dyke,
I wot there lies a new slain knight;
And naebody kens that he lies there,
But his hawk, his hound, and lady fair.

'His hound is to the hunting gane,
His hawk to fetch the wild-fowl hame,
His lady's ta'en another mate,
So we may mak our dinner sweet.

'Ye'll sit on his white hause-bane,
And I'll pike out his bonny blue een;
Wi ae lock o his gowden hair
We'll theek our nest when it grows bare.

'Mony a one for him makes mane,
But nane sall ken where he is gane;
Oer his white banes, when they are bare,
The wind sall blaw for evermair.

-Anonymous, or the unforgettable

The Tay Bridge Disaster

Beautiful Railway Bridge of the Silv'ry Tay!
Alas! I am very sorry to say
That ninety lives have been taken away
On the last Sabbath day of 1879,
Which will be remember'd for a very long time.

'Twas about seven o'clock at night,
And the wind it blew with all its might,
And the rain came pouring down,
And the dark clouds seemed to frown,
And the Demon of the air seem'd to say —
"I'll blow down the Bridge of Tay."

When the train left Edinburgh
The passengers' hearts were light and felt no sorrow,
But Boreas blew a terrific gale,
Which made their hearts for to quail,
And many of the passengers with fear did say —
"I hope God will send us safe across the Bridge of Tay."

But when the train came near to Wormit Bay,
Boreas he did loud and angry bray,
And shook the central girders of the Bridge of Tay
On the last Sabbath day of 1879,
Which will be remember'd for a very long time.

So the train sped on with all its might,
And Bonnie Dundee soon hove in sight,
And the passengers' hearts felt light,
Thinking they would enjoy themselves on the New Year,
With their friends at home they lov'd most dear,
And wish them all a happy New Year.

So the train mov'd slowly along the Bridge of Tay,
Until it was about midway,
Then the central girders with a crash gave way,
And down went the train and passengers into the Tay!
The Storm Fiend did loudly bray,
Because ninety lives had been taken away,
On the last Sabbath day of 1879,
Which will be remember'd for a very long time.

As soon as the catastrophe came to be known
The alarm from mouth to mouth was blown,
And the cry rang out all o'er the town,
Good heavens! the Tay Bridge is blown down,
And a passenger train from Edinburgh,
Which fill'd all the people's hearts with sorrow,
And made them all for to turn pale,
Because none of the passengers were sav'd to tell the tale
How the disaster happen'd on the last Sabbath day of 1879,
Which will be remember'd for a very long time.

It must have been an awful sight,
To witness in the dusky moonlight,
While the Storm Fiend did laugh, and angry did bray,
Along the Railway Bridge of the Silv'ry Tay.
Oh! ill-fated Bridge of the Silv'ry Tay,
I must now conclude my lay
By telling the world fearlessly without least dismay,
That your central girders would not have given way,
At least many sensible men do say,
Had they been supported on each side with buttresses,
At least many sensible men confesses,
For the stronger we our houses do build,
The less chance we have of being killed.

- William Topaz McGonagall. Or this poem,

Lovesong

He loved her and she loved him.
His kisses sucked out her whole past and future or tried to
He had no other appetite
She bit him she gnawed him she sucked
She wanted him complete inside her
Safe and sure forever and ever
Their little cries fluttered into the curtains

Her eyes wanted nothing to get away
Her looks nailed down his hands his wrists his elbows
He gripped her hard so that life
Should not drag her from that moment
He wanted all future to cease
He wanted to topple with his arms round her
Off that moment's brink and into nothing
Or everlasting or whatever there was

Her embrace was an immense press
To print him into her bones
His smiles were the garrets of a fairy palace
Where the real world would never come
Her smiles were spider bites
So he would lie still till she felt hungry
His words were occupying armies
Her laughs were an assassin's attempts
His looks were bullets daggers of revenge
His glances were ghosts in the corner with horrible secrets
His whispers were whips and jackboots
Her kisses were lawyers steadily writing
His caresses were the last hooks of a castaway
Her love-tricks were the grinding of locks
And their deep cries crawled over the floors
Like an animal dragging a great trap
His promises were the surgeon's gag
Her promises took the top off his skull
She would get a brooch made of it
His vows pulled out all her sinews
He showed her how to make a love-knot
Her vows put his eyes in formalin
At the back of her secret drawer
Their screams stuck in the wall

Their heads fell apart into sleep like the two halves
Of a lopped melon, but love is hard to stop

In their entwined sleep they exchanged arms and legs
In their dreams their brains took each other hostage

In the morning they wore each other's face

-Ted Hughes. I loved his "Examination at the Womb Door".

Off to try and get some work done instead of slowly dozing off.

Comments

[aixa.livejournal.com]

LOL! Yes Moth, Macs can use Word. I'm a Mac person and I truly believe that once you get used to them, they are SO much better than PCs. Macs have Microsoft Office, as well as an Apple program called AppleWorks that for some things is better. (Excel is still better at spreadsheets, but AppleWorks kicks Word's butt if you're trying to make certificates and stuff.) Macs tend to be better at dealing with graphics, which is why you see them so heavily used in graphics design and theatre, and Apple has had a long history of working well with schools, so you see them a lot in educational institutions. And with the new Intel-based Macs, a Mac can run Windows if you need it to, you just partition the hard drive and you've got both. Macs are virtually virus-free, which makes them even better in school settings- no worries about people downloading something stupid and infecting every computer on campus right at exam time.

It's too bad you have a tough time with them. If you ever need a hand with figuring out something on one, let me know, I'm happy to help! :-)

[mothwing.livejournal.com]

Good to know. :D

I have been feeling quite proud of myself to figure out how Macs are working, at all, but some of the finer details still escape me. Like where I would start looking for Word-like programmes. But I hope to find it next time I use a Mac. Or what the point of the - are they called Widgets?- is. o.O

[aixa.livejournal.com]

All programs are in the Applications folder. When you've got a Finder window open (When in doubt, click on the Mac face in the Dock, a Finder window will pop open. You can also double-click on the hard drive icon.) along the side of the Finder window will be an Applications icon. Click on that, and either an Office icon or a Word icon should be in there.

As for the Widgets, well, those can be pretty dorky. I have a few that are useful, like one that tells local gas prices, a weather one, and a sudoku game. If you don't think they're useful, don't bother with them. They certainly aren't mandatory, and frankly, most are pretty dumb.

[lordhellebore]

Btw., "lunch break" is a good idea. Tomorrow at 12?

[mothwing.livejournal.com]

Sounds good. :)

[(Anonymous)]

great poems

Nothing having to do with anything...

[luckyoldsun.livejournal.com]

While making a transfer between rapid transit trains this afternoon, I saw someone who's, no doubt, your long lost identical twin. Not that I've seen you in person, but I've seen a few photographs, and this individual had the mothy hair and mothy glasses, complexion, etc. etc., and when I looked up and saw this individual walking past me I instantly thought, "Moth". Perhaps you should inquire with your parents? :o)

Glad you had the weekend with Crocky. And I heart Macs. They do everything a PC can do (and have virtually all of the same programs PCs do, including the whole Microsoft Suite), only it's all so much more intuitive. They're the standard in primary and secondary education here in the U.S. (at least, in my experience they have been. Offices and officer workers use PCs. Schools and school teachers use Macs. Such is the way of things. :o)