throw a stone and watch the ripples flow…

once upon a time there was a beach

the tide was low

very low

in fact the lowest of low

the beach was flat, and the sand damp

there were many, many tidepools in this damp sandy beach

stretching all across the beach and down to the edge of the water where the little waves rolled ashore lapped gently at the shore before washing slowly back out

it was peaceful and quiet

and the sand was a bright brown

and the sea was a light blue and aqua colour, tinged with 

pale green

near the edge of the sea the water was clear but not colourless

the air was filled with the pleasant smell of salt and the soothing and relaxing sound of the little waves lapping

cool, calm, and contented

in the tide pools were smooth, rounded stones

they were a myriad of colours

when you removed them from the water they dried quickly

and lost the vibrancy of their colour–they became faded, but no less beautiful

however, when placed back in the water, their colour returned, bold and bright underneath the 

sparkling water surface

there were mulled reds, forest greens, blue-greys, grey-purples, sands, blacks, whites

some even had little thin lines of orange

and these stones

would sing when they were underwater

if you lay on your belly in the damp sand and dipped your ear 

into a tide pool, you could hear them

such a melody you would never have heard in your life

such a blend and mix of sounds

saltating, dancing, rhythmic, beautiful

high and clear, and yet low and 

strong

middle pitches and harmonies such as have never been thought of

or heard of, ever

the singing would reflect to the sparkling water surface

and the water would dance, full of joy at the music

the water would dance and move and sway, and the surface would sparkle and shimmer ever more

colours would begin to reflect off of the surface

pinks and oranges and purples and blues and reds

all shades

golden as well

the sparkling colours fuelled the singing of the stones even more

which in turn made the water sparkle and dance even more

and yet, to the distant observer

all was quiet, peaceful and quiet

the breeze blew, gently ruffling the sea

the pure clouds drifted soundlessly in the endless pale blue sky above

 and so it was, and will always be, when the tide is low

when the tide is high

the stones rest in the sand

and wait patiently

wait quietly and patiently for the time to come when the tide once again withdraws

and they can sing in the shallows

contented with their music and the dancing and sparkling and shimmering and the colours of the water

the end

it is now quarter to two in the morning.

about three hours ago we returned from virsa punjab da, a bhangra competition between about 10 colleges.

it was absolutely brilliant, of course. lifechanging.

and while we were waiting on the judges to announce a winner, we had a sing-along with one of the mcs, in which mehndi laga ke rakhna was sung, which made me very very happy. it’s one of my favourites.

and for the last few hours, we’ve been bouncing around the lounge, playing the bhangra and punjabi music i have on my computer, trying to figure out the routines we’ve just been watching.

ever since akd, another competition last september, i have wanted to learn bhangra. not a little bit, a lot. an insane amount. and of course, vpd made it even stronger.
i can’t help it. i watch them dance – their movement, the expressions on their faces, are so full of energy, passion, exuberance, delight in what they are doing – completely lost in movement – and it is infectious and i just watch, i can’t even think, all i want to do is jump out of my seat and dance. the music is so hard to resist, pulsing and strong and jumps from one rhythm to another and the movement of the dancers follows it perfectly. the colours of their costumes are so vibrant and swirl around the stage – red on yellow, yellow on red, purple on pink, pink on purple, blue on orange, orange on blue, green on darker blue, darker blue on green. swirling around the stage full of life.
and i need to learn! must must must must must learn!

sigh.

as evidenced by the six or seven or so drafts that i have sitting around…but i always forget to post them, or leave them and mean to come back and write more and then never do. i don’t know how long this one will be – i’m thinking not too long because it’s half twelve and i’m tired, ish.

i like moving back in, i think. especially just a bit before everyone else. cause then you walk up and down the stairs and slowly recognise more and more people going up and down,because the lift is broken. of course. first alex with his mother, both with their arms full, trying not to fall up the stairs. alex grins at me and says, ‘just one more after this!’ then jane, whose mother sounds incredibly southern, which is strange to my ears and makes me laugh a little bit. and lastly marissa, who arrives after the lift is fixed, and steps out with her mum to find about fifteen of us sitting in a semi-circle around the lift with our ras, talking.
and apparently patrick has crowned himself king of our dorm, so i don’t know what that entails or how that’s going to work out for him.

and i still haven’t broken it to my roommate that i have someone coming to stay. even after i stayed back from church to try to make sure she was happy enough to tell her. before i could, i discovered that i left the lock to my bike at the house, so the bike gets to stay in our room, which i’m not too sure that she is altogether happy about. ah well. it’s grand. i’m going to bed anyway.

specifically, this one:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XOWTn-0ObIA
this one being the one at 6:58, on the right. but you have to watch closely, cause it’s only there for a few seconds. oui.

normally in hindi recitation, my ta will have us all recite vocabulary or groups of words after her, and then will have various people recite them from memory and the rest of us echo. so yesterday, we were reciting ordinals, and our ta called on saachi as one of the first to recite from memory.
and saachi stuttered for a second, then looked at me, and muttered, ‘help me!’
she looked so terrified that i muttered them under my breath to help her.
i would whisper, ‘pehla,’ and she would say ‘pehla.’
‘dusra…’
‘dusra.’
‘teesra…’
‘teesra.’
all the way to dasva.
the whole time those of us in the front row were laughing silently because nilakshiji was serenely moving papers around behind her desk, completely unaware.

except, when saachi finished, she said, ‘buhat accha, saachi. abby, you next, i heard you can already do them.’ so she was not so completely unaware as we thought. but she was smiling. which made the whole class start laughing so hard. it seemed like a moment out of…something, i don’t know, maybe a really bad book or film or something.

all i can really think of is what i should have done when i first saw that my laptop had turned into a pond. i should have taken my water bottle, started pouring the water onto the keyboard, and said,
‘dang, this is like, the never-ending soda! never-ending so-da! ah-ah-ah, ah-ah-ah….’
as a tribute homestarrunner’s anything.
because at that point, more water couldn’t have made it worse. ah well. and it was such a brilliant, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity as well! and i missed it! this is severely disappointing.

last week in lifetime fitness we had a fitness test…yay…so anyway we had to work in pairs, and i randomly got paired with this guy, i think his name was troy..? anyway, we had to start with recording our heights – it was on the same paper – he put his down as 5′4” -
i don’t know what he was thinking, but it was clearly wishful, because he was shorter than me.
so i laughed about that for a while. to myself. mostly. because i didn’t want him to feel bad.

*worst at the best of times//duke special

the newest reason i hate them being, they’re terrible for walking in the rain! absolute rubbish. who invented flip-flops anyway? psychos.
slipping and sliding all the way over to frisbee the other evening, i just thought, screw this, ditched them, and walked the rest of the way barefoot. much more productive.

the other day was the iv new student picnic….they had a few tables set up – one was a table for church of the good shepherd, i think they were called. so i went up to go talk to your one who was running the table. i don’t know how it came up but, he learned that dad worked for whm, and he got so excited. it was so funny. apparently he’s a huge fan of world harvest, he absolutely loves it. he said he’d met hunter and thought he was amazing, and then started looking further into whm. he said he loved everything they represented and all of their ideas and programmes, and pretty much everything about them. which was so cool, it was so good to talk to him, he was so enthusiastic and curious about everything.
so we talked for ages (so long, in fact, that i nearly missed the whole dorm small group division thing), he was so excited. apparently he and his wife are interested in going overseas with whm, particularly to my republic state, so he was particularly excited when i was from there.
i highly recommended the dpc for a sort of check-things-out trip. look at me, look at me, recruiting!

so that made my day. not the recruiting part. the conversation part.

and tonight was just a *brilliant* experience…i spent most of the afternoon with my hall mates…which was great…we went to dinner together…which was great…we hung around afterwards…which was great…and decided to go to this music thing on the im fields…which was also great. so we walked over, no problems, got in line, no problems, chatted away to each other, no problems…
then close to the entrance this woman stopped me and asked to look in my bag. so i opened it up, she stuck her flashlight inside and saw my water bottle, which was given to me in colorado. which also happened to be completely empty.
“you can’t bring that water bottle in,” she said.
“sorry?” i said.
“you can’t bring that water bottle in,” she repeated. “you’ll have to throw it away.”
i blanked. “i can’t throw it away,” i said.
“you’ll have to if you want to get in.”
“i can’t throw it away,” i repeated, and backed away.
“abby, what..?” chris said from the line. “where are you going?”
“i can’t throw the bottle away,” i said again, rather stupidly, and walked off.

they rang me shortly after that, wanting to know what that all was about. i said i was just going to drop my bottle back off at the dorm and then come back. which i was planning on doing, but then i got sidetracked. so now i’m sitting here puzzling over what i’m going to tell them. how am i ever going to be able to explain it? they’re not going to get it. i mean, who gets upset over throwing out a cheap plastic water bottle? but it’s not that – not to me – it’s so much more -
but i know i’m going to be communicating one way and they’re going to be communicating the other – so this is going to have interesting results. right now though, i’m too busy congratulating myself on exposing myself as a freak within the first week. well done. there’re much better ways of showing myself to be a tck…ah well. maybe i’m not giving them enough credit.
anyway, i think i can hear them coming down the hall…this is going to be interesting…

i left it too late, it is now half one (in the morning), but i have unpacked everything i own, and i am just so happy to not be living out of a suitcase anymore! so happy.

so we are back from colorado, back from the reunion, and now on college campus. and i will have time for more hopefully, right now…my duvet is looking pretty good…of course that could be because it is freezing in here…so cold it could actually be the arctic…but no wind, so that is a plus. although, i do like wind. just not when it could potentially be as cold as the arctic. so it’s good now. that there’s no wind. ok. i’m just going to go before this turns into a completely random stream of consciousness with lots and lots of run-on sentences, which happened when i emailed a friend of mine just about twenty minutes ago, which turned out interestingly, but -
oh wait it’s starting to happen now – nooooooooooooooooooo

ok ok ok i’m going bye.

yesterday i printed off all of the information we need for debrief. we’re pretty apprehensive – we were wondering what we’ll do there (besides the whole debriefing part) and started joking about it -
’swimming…outdoor activites…maybe some team building projects…there’s sure to be some sort of craft…’ pause. ‘oh come on, there’s got to be crafts!’
and we both started laughing because that’s what you do.

we slag it off because we’re apprehensive and unwilling to go – but in the end we’ll probably end up loving it – just like mti, just like greece. but somehow it feels different.

but i kind of am looking forward to it as well – well maybe not looking forward to, more relieved – if it means i can get out of the house, if i can do something besides shop and mill around. because i try to do things that use my brain but unfortunately every time i try to focus my brain just kind of collapses and refuses to do anything or engage. won’t even go places i try to make it go because i think it will help. deadpan.
and if it means i will stop or i will have someone to help me and i won’t feel like this, or as intensely like this, or even just a little less like this.

and yet right now it just feels selfish and self-indulgent.
but…i miss the pearliness of the sky and the myriad of colour in the sea and the purple of the hills in the background and the unpredictability of all three. and i miss laughter and people and buildings and streets and irish on the signs. and i miss smells and sounds and imprints on my memory and plenty of other things too. and i miss fuchsia. fuchsia everywhere. 

grandma is very funny with her hand and foot group. and she’s very funny with making me go to bed because our flight is out early tomorrow morning. even though i won’t be able to sleep, and giz won’t either. i expect her any second now. so no more, for tonight.

usually, giz and i don’t travel together very well. usually, our connections are somehow confused. usually, this makes us stressed and frustrated on top of being tired, because usually, we get flights out very early in the morning.

so, usually, when i get stressed and frustrated and tired, i get cranky and start criticising everything. pretty much anything and everything.
and usually, when giz gets stressed and frustrated and tired, she gets cranky and starts defending everything –  the things that i start criticising.

as can be expected, usually, this does not go down well.

so, usually, we end up trying not to say anything at all.

this time we were ok. for once we were ok. even though there were several glitches.

we finally found our gate for our connecting flight and sat down. i think we were both in the process of shutting down when this wee little kid came over, probably about two or so, and wanted us to read him a book. his mother came over, smiled at us, apologised, picked him up, and carried him away.
two minutes later, he was back. she came back over, retrieved him, smiled, apologised again, and carried him away again.
and then he was back. so she finally gave up and let him play with us until close to boarding time.
that was probably the best thing that happened all trip.