Sandalwood & Chamomile

Update and random thoughts:

• One session left in Beginner's Japanese.
• Visit next class of Beginner's Japanese on Wednesday. I have read ahead, and I hope that's enough to not feel adrift in the new class.
  
• Boring Professional Day. One would expect to feel refreshed and ready to work the Monday after the mandatory training, but I just felt exhausted and burnt out.
• Diary of Anne Frank by the Driftwood Players in Edmonds with Jenny. Wonderful.
• I can't believe Denny's is open 24 hours.
  
• Children are funny and love puppets. A lesson I learned while I worked for the children's ministry at church.

Written by Gail T. at 9:16 PM | Links to this post    
Filed under update

My writing was so neatly and evenly spaced, I thought I needed to somehow document it. I have a new obsession once again, and it will be an expensive one. I hope to delay buying anything, though. Who knows if this obsession will go past first stage, anyway.

A copy of the entry I wrote today after lunch appears in the passage below.

i just discovered the joy of fountain pens.

i continued to journal on paper because my pen writes like a dream. the ink just flows, and my wrist barely moves. there is no writing fatigue. there's only the slowness of my mind.

i started looking for some fountain pen safe paper, stationery or journals. i wanted something that absorbs ink well, on whose pages the ink do not feather away nor blot. i wanted something that says, "i enjoyed gliding my pen on this paper." i wanted something that is a joy to use.

so as i take my time forming the following words. carefully printing each letter, i admire my own handwriting, and bless the day I learned to write.

now, I write in script. my hand struggles to slow down as my cursive has always been my quickest hand. but i stretched out my arm, forcing it to rest. my pen barely touches the paper to transfer the ink it glides. that's how it should be. the effort of writing shouldn't come from the actual printing but from the extraction of the appropriate words out of one's jumbled mind.

i hope I end up writing another short story in pen, in fountain pen ink, when I can let my dialogue flow through the nib of my pen. or let my next love letter be written in this hand, in foutain pen ink, so I can finish this ink, and find an excuse to buy more fountain pens and ink!

God bless all the pen-makers of the world.

Written by Gail T. at 12:05 AM | 2 comments Links to this post    
Filed under as it is, hobbies

Today a very wise woman at work remarked, "Getting a new hire is like starting a new [romantic] relationship. At first, it's all peaches and cream but it all goes downhill." So she said, and mimed strangling someone.

Maybe we're getting too cynical, but we couldn't help but laugh. I feel like I'm just about headed to splits ville. I've caught myself saying, "I can't do this anymore" too many times to count, that I'm disappointed I have let the relationship sour to this level. There's a sense of agitated impatience. I need to say my goodbyes before I forget I had previously felt joy with the relationship.

Written by Gail T. at 8:35 PM | 3 comments Links to this post    
Filed under as it is, work

Own only what you can always carry with you:
know languages,
know countries,
know people.
Let your memory be your travel bag.

Written by Gail T. at 11:39 AM | 0 comments Links to this post    
Filed under words of wisdom

Written by Gail T. at 1:57 PM | 1 comments Links to this post    
Filed under as it is