i'm back in north bay. there is snow here - and it is cold - and my landlords are listening to their tv way to loud as seems to be normal. i'm excited to see everyone tomoro - not as excited that i'm going to be back in the classroom - but the first day is always people sharing stories of their placements - so that'll be good i guess.
got a nice email from jeff... looking forward to these crazy malaria pills - i am so splurging for the kind that doesn't make me mad....
i was reading something on the qualities of introverts the other day - and i think i am one... i draw my strength / recharge my batteries by being alone and thinking things through - or just writing stories in my head ----- i should start writing those down some day.... hmmm. anyways - this surprised me a bit because while i knew i wasn't a TRUE extrovert - i always figured that i am very relational - i like having people around me i get mad when they are not... maybe i'm just messed up - maybe there is no maybe about it haha...
anyways - as per usual lately i have nothing really to say - or perhaps what i do have to say is locked up and i can't write is in an articulate manner (is writing articulate? or is that just speech?) ok - g'day

so my english practicum is over. i think i may actually miss it a bit --- tho i'm excited for a music placement in feb with craig... and even more excited about kenya in march !!!! things are all moving at rocket speed - it's kind of insane... hopefully the world stops spinning soon... or something is gonna get missed.

i have so much to say - but no energy or desire to really get into it all. teaching is going well for the most part - there are still those kids who make me want to smack them upside the head - but i feel there probably always will be those kids.
i have no voice right now - i feel that may be contributing to the general crankiness that is me...
but who really knows in the long run.
anyways - i'll have more later - for now - the relative silence shall continue.

so the following is really long - but it's my favourite poem of life. welcome to the full version of matthew arnold's "the buried life"...

light flows our war of mocking words, and yet, behold, with tears mine eyes are wet! i feel a nameless sadness o'er me roll. yes, yes, we know that we can jest, we know, we know that we can smile! but there's a something in this breast, to which thy light words bring no rest, and thy gay smiles no anodyne. give me thy hand, and hush awhile, and turn those limpid eyes on mine, and let me read there, love! thy inmost soul.

alas! is even love too weak to unlock the heart, and let it speak? are even lovers powerless to reveal to one another what indeed they feel? i knew the mass of men conceal'd their thoughts, for fear that if reveal'd they would by other men be met with blank indifference, or with blame reproved; i knew they lived and moved trick'd in disguises, alien to the rest of men, and alien to themselves--and yet the same heart beats in every human breast!

but we, my love!--doth a like spell benumb our hearts, our voices?--must we too be dumb?
ah! well for us, if even we, even for a moment, can get free our heart, and have our lips unchain'd; for that which seals them hath been deep-ordain'd!

fate, which foresaw how frivolous a baby man would be--by what distractions he would be possess'd, how he would pour himself in every strife, and well-nigh change his own identity--that it might keep from his capricious play his genuine self, and force him to obey even in his own despite his being's law,bade through the deep recesses of our breast the unregarded river of our life pursue with indiscernible flow its way; and that we should not see the buried stream, and seem to be eddying at large in blind uncertainty, though driving on with it eternally.

but often, in the world's most crowded streets, but often, in the din of strife, there rises an unspeakable desire after the knowledge of our buried life; a thirst to spend our fire and restless force in tracking out our true, original course; a longing to inquire into the mystery of this heart which beats so wild, so deep in us--to know whence our lives come and where they go. and many a man in his own breast then delves, but deep enough, alas! none ever mines. and we have been on many thousand lines, and we have shown, on each, spirit and power; but hardly have we, for one little hour, been on our own line, have we been ourselves-- hardly had skill to utter one of all the nameless feelings that course through our breast, but they course on for ever express'd. and long we try in vain to speak and act our hidden self, and what we say and do is eloquent, is well--but 'tis not true! and then we will no more be rack'd with inward striving, and demand of all the thousand nothings of the hour their stupefying power; ah yes, and they benumb us at our call!

yet still, from time to time, vague and forlorn, from the soul's subterranean depth upborne as from an infinitely distant land, come airs, and floating echoes, and convey a melancholy into all our day.

only--but this is rare--when a beloved hand is laid in ours, when, jaded with the rush and glare of the interminable hours, our eyes can in another's eyes read clear, when our world-deafen'd ear is by the tones of a loved voice caress'd--a bolt is shot back somewhere in our breast, and a lost pulse of feeling stirs again. the eye sinks inward, and the heart lies plain, and what we mean, we say, and what we would, we know. a man becomes aware of his life's flow, and hears its winding murmur; and he sees the meadows where it glides, the sun, the breeze.

and there arrives a lull in the hot race wherein he doth for ever chase that flying and elusive shadow, rest. an air of coolness plays upon his face, and an unwonted calm pervades his breast. and then he thinks he knows the hills where his life rose, and the sea where it goes.