Newcomer

From a book I’m currently reading:
“Initially the community may welcome us warmly - even overwhelmingly. But in every culture the newcomer is still exactly that - and newcomers by definition don’t fit in yet. Our basic position in the new community is one of statuslessness. We carry knowledge from past experiences - often including special [...]

Next to godliness

When I told a friend of mine a while ago that we’d decided to hire a cleaner, his response was “Why pay someone else to do something you can do yourself?” To which my reply was naturally “Why do something myself when I can pay someone else to do it for me?”
Ok, so there’s a limit to [...]

Lighting candles

It’s not often I find myself in agreement with the Vatican, but something they said recently about this year’s Oscar-winning films caught my attention, and chimed with thoughts I’d been having recently on the same topic. Basically their complaint is that, this year at least, the Academy rewarded films which are ”filled…with hopelessness”.
I’ve seen “No Country [...]

Are you human?

From a book I’m currently reading:
“We were all terrible when we were little. Did you ever see how vicious and monstrous kids are to each other? And I’m not just talking about in the sandbox either, where they bang each other over the head with their trucks! Teenagers…God, teach them for a while if you want [...]

The thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to

I can’t remember the last time I physically injured myself. I’m not talking about breaking a nail or banging my head - I mean something that resulted in real bleeding, a large bruise, a break.
As a child I never needed to go to hospital - I’ve never broken a bone (although I did manage to [...]

I know what I like

An article I found this morning via Utne (which also reminded me of something posted a while back at Smattery) got me thinking about my comfort zone. I try to vary my media diet as much as possible, yet I still easily slip into a routine of checking only certain sites, reading only certain magazines, lurking [...]

Going Dutch

So, after 6 years living in Brussels, we’re finally getting around to learning Dutch (no, not Flemish).
I won’t go into the endless complexities of the history of language policy in Belgium. Suffice it to say that the “Brussels Capital Region” is officially bilingual (although in reality it’s said that the majority of its inhabitants are francophone), [...]

Social animal

Where do your friends come from?
School is an obvious starting place, although, as I noted previously, I’m no longer in contact with anyone I knew back then (unless university counts as “school”). People I know at work are friendly, but probably fall more into the category of “acquaintances”,(or well-wishers, in that they wish me no specific [...]

Anal

I find, somewhat to my relief, that I’m chilling out as I get older. I never considered myself to be stressed, over-excitable or nervous, but I was certainly anal retentive about many things. I guess I still am to a certain extent, but it’s easing off. For example, I still keep books and cds in [...]

Getting worse

As a counterbalance to the previous, back-slapping entry, here are a few ways in which I’m inexorably declining, as part of the inevitable entropic decay of the universe.
1. Impatience. I no longer have the patience to deal with certain types of irritant. The most notable example is poor driving. Before learning to drive I was indifferent [...]