Even More Important Photos

Lisbon is facinating, but here are photos of my host family (some of the only ones I ever took) and of Montpellier in mid-December.

(Figures 1-8: Statue of Louis XIV and the Chateau d'Eau; Louis XIV, the Arc de Triomphe and the Eglise Saint Anne; the Arceaux aquaduct at night; my living room looking right with Tannhauser on the couch; my living room looking left; my walk to Paul Valery each day; (L-R) Arthur, me, Timothée, Luc-Amaury, Véronique - a silly pose; (L-R) Arthur, Timothée, Véronique, Luc-Amaury - a formal pose)

Fotos de Lisboa

Over the course of six months, I managed to accumulate approximately 24 rolls of film, totaling around 500 photos. I am just now started to get those photos developed and uploaded into a digital format. Much to my chagrin, the scanners at Mac do not resolve colors as well as I would like, and so the prints of the photographs are a good deal more vibrant and clear than their digital counterparts. So, to put it quite simply, here's what you've all been waiting for.

(Figures 1-3: (L-R) Vilja, Vilma and Ricardo at Ricardo's Apartment, where I couchsurfed while in Lisbon; the highway that passes beside Ricardo's apartment; the walk to the metro station from Ricardo's)

(Figures 4-6: The Torre de Belém; the Monument to the Discovery; the Geronimite Monastery)

(Figures 7-11: A fountain in a square whose name I no longer remember; calçada portuguesa - Portuguese mosaic sidewalks; a view of the Castelo Sao Jorge from Chiado; some king of Portugal, again don't recall the name; the Baixa from Chiado)

(Figures 11-15: looking out over the Tagus River to the east from atop the Castelo hill; the Ponte de 25 Abril and the statue of Christo Rei from the Baixa; I know this has a name, but I'm not remembering it - right outside the Praça de Commercia; another view to the east from the Castelo hill)

(Figures 16-23: Flags at the Park of Nations - where the Worlds Fair was hosted recently (I forget when); the cable cars, same place; the Lisbon Oceanarium; the skyline of the Park of Nations development; the Vasco de Gama shopping center; a reflection of the Oriente station; the Ponte Vasco de Gama; me near the same)

(Figures 24-29: The Rossio Train Station; the Sintra Train Station, looking up at the Castle of the Moors; Sintra; looking west out over the hills of Sintra and to the Atlantic; Vilja and Vilma at the Castle of the Moors; the Castle of the Moors)

(Figures 30-36: One of the hills of Lisbon; looking at the Baixa, the Ponte de 25 Abril and Christo Rei from the Castello Sao Jorge; peacocks at the Castello; same; the flag of Portugal; a view down a street and up a hill; the Marquês de Pombal (Hah! I remember one!))

Okay, I most certainly need sleep now, and putting up all these pictures has been extremely annoying. I've gotta find a better way of uploading photos to this website.

Time Doldrums

It is the fifth(?) week of school now. I am now getting into my rhythm of classes, work, and homework, now mixed in with cooking for myself and other chores. It has been a slow and arduous process. When I got back from Europe, I had no idea at how hard the transition back into serious academic life would be. It has been hard. For most of last week, I wasn't sleeping well so I ended up missing my morning classes - nothing terrible, but something distressing nonetheless. Today has been the first day in several weeks I haven't needed a nap halfway through the day. My semester is reading-heavy, with tests and final projects coming almost exclusively at the end. While I am looking forward to all of them, I certainly would be screwed right now if I had anything major to accomplish by say, Friday. Even my style of writing right now is somewhat chopped. My brain feels like it fell out of my head and got ran through the wash. Now, I bet a lot of you might say "Oh, you have to do your work, otherwise XYZ bad things." I know that, I know that. I find myself asking "Why, though?" a lot. Why am I studying geography? It seems like everyone I know is either better at it or far more knowledgeable or just plain more interested in it. I am still interested in it, but I don't know what. Urban planning? Well, that's interesting. So's cartography. So is regional geography. Everything is still interesting, but I'm just not feeling things right now. Dad and Grandma Anne and Judy have all been pushing me to ask about grad school. Well, what if I don't want to go to grad school? How can I answer the "why" of it all? Hmmmmm.

So that was last week. This Monday, having had the weekend to veg out and reach a point where I've now been wearing the same clothes for five days (still don't smell though - I am showering regularly and changing my underwear) I was woken up by my boss calling me to remind me not to forget to come in to work. She is 46 with kids of her own and of course knows the tendencies of college students to not care about anything at 8:30 in the morning, which for us is like an hour before sunrise. Woke up, rushed a breakfast, and drove to work (when I am late like that, it's just the most expedient thing to do), got everything done having found the office already in decay in my absence, and scrambled to class. It really sucks not having Microsoft Office on my computer as Excel is an integral part to this class - Disciplines and Methods. It makes everything a lot easier. So, I basically have to make sure to do all my homework on campus. Which I hadn't. It got turned in this morning instead, with an apologetic note attached. After class, went home and napped. Did I mention I had stayed up until 3AM on Sunday night, foolishly and for no apparent reason? Yup. Go figure. After the nap, it was time to go back to work (Mondays I work the morning and afternoon shift in the French Department). After work, it was time for... oh right, reading all of Machiavelli's The Prince for my evening class. Whoops! Did that with half an hour to spare, wolfed down a dinner during which we discussed the imminent extinction of bees, the banana and possibly human civilization. Not the most exciting stuff. After that, rush to class!

My Monday night class is the one class for which I am never unprepared. That would be even more terrifying that missing work, failing a test or burning my laundry. Professor Samatar's class has six people in it, myself included. He knows when you haven't done the work, and quite frankly he isn't happy. That happened once when I took his class last year for the introductory course to International Studies. He had a way of mixing disappointment with anger in a way that none of us misunderstood him. It was more like he drilled into your own head and yelled at you from your own point of view. Good teachers do this. Good parents do this, too. Then again, good parents are good teachers. So, luckily none of us have been unprepared for his class so far this year. In fact, I currently have an A- in his class (which is a sign of considerable favor, as there are only 100 points in the semester and we've only had one paper due, an 8-page essay on what leadership means to us. I got a 13.5 of 15). I like this class, and Professor Samatar usually has a way of inspiring me to do things that are completely unrelated to class. Like, y'know, get my life on track. As much as I'd like to say I immediately went home and got to work, I instead had to go to the library to finish my late geography homework. The problem with procrastinating is, ha ha, it catches up with you. And then beats you savagely. So, after getting all that done, I talked to a couple of people about necessary items of life - some of which had been contributing to my previous week's lackluster self - and then went to sleep.

Today, I woke up less tired - although still tired, as is my wont, went to class, and started to feel that familiar feeling of "Oh, your train completely derailed recently, and now you have to get it back on track so as not to be eaten by the wolves that are coming down from the hills." Luckily, Tuesday is my least busy day and I have the most ample opportunity to relax. I have a considerable amount of reading to do for my other IS class tomorrow evening, but I will have that well in hand by tomorrow afternoon. It's only various Marxist treatises on economic imperialism. The usual. Tomorrow, I also plan on going around to a couple of professors with a two-by-four to see which one of them can hit me in the head the hardest. In the effort of getting me jump-started. You see, Professor Samatar in class on Monday gave his roundabout way of saying "You're smart, but you're lazy - you all are. Go and do something with yourselves, come back next week and don't disappoint me." Not only do I not want to disappoint him - or by extension my family and friends - but hell, it sucks feeling like you're the dumb kid in the class. I need to get my act together. I may not have a Rolls-Royce engine of a mind, but it certainly isn't a two-stroke lawn mower engine either. I am not a Trabant! So, with that in mind, I have to run. But! Peter is on the upswing. And it seems to me each time this happens (and it's been happening since like 8th grade), the apogee gets further and further up there. Here's to seeing the tops of clouds from above.

Best Idea Ever!

So I bet $1000 that the Steelers would beat the Cardinals, but only on the stipulation that Pittsburgh would win 49-0 (five touchdowns, each with two point conversions, plus two field goals) and that they would reach this score by the 3rd quarter. The Vegas bookies said they'd give me 10 to 1 odds too! I'm gonna get $1010 if I win! Yeahs!!!