Nighttime Space Alien of McDonald Hall

Tonight I fell in love -- once again with the wind, once again with the sky, and finally, for the very first time, with Coldplay's new album titled "Viva La Vida and Death and All His Friends". It's been out for a while now, and I've had this album in my possession for some time too, but I haven't really given it much of a chance until tonight. The conditions were perfect: ass-freezing cold and lightly windy. The sky was cloudy, which is not generally considered good conditions for star gazing, but tonight I appreciated it. Every now and then the clouds would open up and give me a little peek at the stars; at one point I looked up and there was a perfect outline around the big dipper-- one of those images in my head that I'll always associate with the winter childhood moments with my father back in Brattleboro.

Music has this way of grabbing my heart and moving it along with it. When it speeds up, I speed up. When it slows down, I do too. Tonight this album was exactly what I needed. I sang with it, cried with it, tapped to it, and full on danced with it in the back yard of McDonald with my pink breast cancer blanket wrapped around me like a cape. I was wearing 4 layers, huge space alien headphones, and a blanket -- I must have looked nutzo. I'm still wearing all of those things right now.

~*~

The immensity of the UN project came and hit me in the face today. Dr. Lange gave a wonderful lecture on interviewing and the ethnographic process, and all of the peices came together in my head. This trip is more than an experience; it could be everything that this project needs for direction.

~*~

Today proved to me that I've gotten better at hiding the things that are bothering me. Usually my eyes tell the whole world when something is wrong, but today I mastered a technique I like to call the "mind put off". I've gotten pretty good at it over the years, but it was never really 100% solid. It reassures me that I have reached a whole new level of professionalism. When it's time to work, it's time to work, and I can't be getting lost in the messiness of life.

"The sky could be blue
I don't mind
Without you it's a waste of time"
-Coldplay: Strawberry Swing