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Sunday, May 13, 2012

the week in a blink

it is now just past midnight, signaling the end of the weekend. it was a fantastic weekend. i learned that turning on the ceiling fan can be usefully employed in killing mosquitoes, my body had time to reconfigure itself after thursday's solid run, i finally solved a crazy problem that i'd been working really hard on all week, i got some of my seminar paper done, and this evening was taken up by good games of citadels and thunderstone, exquisite dinner at one of our locals (with a terrific eighties playlist providing atmosphere), and pg finally completely convinced to get the heck out of this country with me*.

* the last bit's a bit of a bummer, but at least the results are positive.

movies watched this weekend: imitation of life and chronicle. the former is incredible, the latter was kinda cool but i've pretty much had my fill of american high school flicks.

wednesday and thursday were long days, wednesday being a day blown on israel's seat of corruption (i'll have to put together a separate post to discuss the experience) after two hours of sleep and during an intense heat wave; that was followed by a fun creative writing workshop and a visit to ric and his mother who were in tel aviv on holiday.

i wonder how much wednesday's trip to parliament influenced the dream in which i somehow ending up watching zombie porn narrated by marilyn manson which became a cool video game that i got physically sucked into with truly scary intelligent, running zombies.

i had an astounding insight into poetry's place in culture between wednesday and thursday, and it's lent new colour to our classes on the topic. after another interesting lesson (the new course), we had a guest lecturer from prague discussing autopoesis. the first half was bland and boring, and i only found out at the end that i'd fallen asleep at some stage, and obviously :$
the second half was absolutely fascinating.

i rushed to work to deal with an emergency that turned out had nothing to do with me and everything to do with the lack of proper development process. instead of working, i spent an hour or so discussing politics and parenting with one of the team leaders, and later had my ideas and opinions reshaped when i watched jonathan haidt on the real difference between conservatives and liberals. i strongly advise watching it. i warn you that it raises a lot of questions.

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i read an article today that we can all learn from: radicals can be defeated. the lack of awareness of the complexity of israeli / palestinian relations outside of this country is horrifying. trying to explain to someone who's heard only bad about one side and doesn't want to hear the truth is a nightmarishly difficult task :(

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i'm going to quote moonflake, who was a part of a team effort convincing me that a lot of my statements regarding marriage have been misdirected:
i would agree that religious-social recognition of marriage as the sole definition of the thing is definitely so last millennium. since civilisation separated church and state and instituted state laws for things that used to be determined by the church, there have been more ways for people to recognise their commitment to one another in a formal and protected way - interestingly SA gets it more right than most, including the UK. some countries and societies still have a way to go though, especially those where church and state is still entangled. but i can understand why someone would still want to get married rather than enter into a civil partnership. the tradition does have meaning for people, and much of the ceremony of it all is about the meaning you as a couple attribute to it. some brides want a big white wedding, and others don't. it's the freedom to make the choice that's important.

perhaps my opinions on marriage have become coloured by living in a country where the religious / social element is first and foremost and civil marriage isn't possible. fine. i am now officially behind gay marriage without reservation.

in fact, i've begun reconsidering my position vis-a-vis my shared status with pg...

2 comments:

  1. For some more context, let me tell you about my wedding.

    We got married at the River Club, in the same room that we held the reception. A small gathering of our closest friends and family were seated at the same tables at which they would momentarily feast.

    Our 'marriage official' was a pastor who belonged to a kooky religious sect that has no official place of worship, and so has special dispensation from the SA govt to marry people anywhere... and which has no qualms at all about providing a secular ceremony. So no church, no G-word, just 'Do you? Do you? I now pronounce you... Let's eat!'

    We both wore black.

    And it was wonderful. Because it meant something to us.

    ReplyDelete
  2. beautiful story :)

    well, i think i can see us going in that direction - but we won't be able to do something like that in israel because only religiously sanctioned marriages are possible.

    aahhhh, religion.

    ReplyDelete

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