The more I find out about it, the more it explains the things I do. In some ways it's rather depressing to think that the way I live my life is a more or less direct consequence of a "disorder." I don't necessarily agree that it's a disorder, since there are so many people who "suffer" from it, yet it does present certain inconveniences in day-to-day life.
I have found long ago that my hobbies and interests wax and wane with a roughly sinusoidal pattern. I will become interest in something, devote all my time to it for a number of days/weeks/months until I reach a certain peak, then I will gradually devote less and less time until I never even think about it. At that point, something else sparks my interest and the process is repeated. Oftentimes I will return to the original interest and once again dedicate all my time to it for a while, then stop, only to return a month or a year later. In some ways, that's how I define my long-term interests: something that I return to time and time again.
While I feel like these bursts of hyperfocusing are in some ways beneficial to me, since I achieve a good deal in short period of time, they are also quite detrimental. Right now, my hyperfocus is wholly targeted at Chinese language. I read Chinese language blogs, I listen to Chinese podcasts, I meet with a language partner from Taiwan, I regularly go to Chinese class, I even try to read full-length Chinese books. As a side line, I also read blogs, articles, and books about language learning and the most efficient way of doing so.
While my Chinese is flourishing, everything else in my life is deteriorating rather rapidly. I have a hard time completing simple chores like washing dishes or doing laundry, not to mention that my marriage is suffering because I devote most of my free time to Chinese. I don't really talk to my wife, we never do anything together, and she feels I'm very distant and uncaring. And all that's true, because Chinese wholly occupies my mind. I'm sure I am not that interesting of an interlocutor when I all can talk about is this-or-that method of foreign language acquisition or how 很有意思的 Chinese is.
In conclusion, I know I need to do something about this or it's all going to hell. It's not as noticeable when my hyperfocus is aimed at something that we can both participate in (like D&D or even reading), though it's still not the ideal situation. I need to learn how to add some breadth to my interests, even during the periods of hyperfocus. I'm hoping the therapist is going to be able to suggest something. However, the appointment isn't until March 13th (long waiting list), so I'm not sure if it's really going to be helpful and how quickly.
On an unrelated topic, are my posts too lang/rambly? Should I put them behind cuts?
- Mood:worried
Cree did encourage me to select something from the women's selection, but I have to admit, I chickened out. "It just wouldn't look right," I said as an excuse. After all, how can I, a fairly hairy male with masculine features, compete with the elegance and delicacy of female form? It conjured up images of obviously masculine drag queens and Mel Gibson in "What Women Want" putting on pantyhose. So, I stuck with the men's section and "masculine" colors.
However, this prompted me to think more deeply about the gendered fashion we see in today's society. Why is it acceptable for women to wear pants and suits (albeit tailored slightly differently), but a man cannot wear a skirt, much less a blouse or a dress. Yes, there are men who wear kilts, it is far from common. Plus, there is a definite cultural association with Scottland.
For quite a while now I have been somewhat jealous of the vast number of different styles, colors, and articles of women's apparel. There is also a huge difference in choices when it comes to accessories and jewelry. I recently played for a while on Discworld MUD, which too had a tremendous array of women accessories and clothing, while men's choices were quite limited.
On the other hand, I have viewed the fashion industry with certain disdain as of late, since I believe it largely contributes to the wastefulness and consumerism that are so prevalent in the United States and the "westernized" countries. I believe that a move to a more stable fashion as seen in [some] ancient cultures would do a lot for ecological sustainability. I especially abhor the recent trend in wearing prominently branded items -- if I'm going to be a walking advertisement for Old Navy, I should at least get paid. I do oftentimes wish we would follow the lead of the ancients or Arabs and wear tunics or thobes. How much more free would our society be? Plus, perhaps it would help destroy the objectification of both men and women, as well as the ridiculous sizeism in clothing and in public perception.
That said, the temptation of the variety is strong. It allows for greater individuality, albeit at the price of natural resources and socio-economic divide.
So, I'm going to attempt to either 1) break down some of the gender barriers and not limit myself to the traditionally masculine clothing or accessories, or 2) find myself a thobe. I am quite frightened of either, however, and am not sure if I'm actually going to go through with it, but that's my goal.
I'm also going to try and delve a little deeper into gender neutrality topics, masculism, and so on. We'll see how it all goes :)
- Mood:thoughtful
While this was a decidedly more intense week than previous few, I'm still busy all the time. I haven't even been able to read as much as I would have wanted. I also haven't updated in a while, so here goes:
1) I signed up with IELP (Intensive English Learning Program) at PSU to get a language partner from a Chinese-speaking country. The idea is that I will help him/her with English, and he/she will help me with Chinese. I was paired up with a Taiwanese student, Pai Sheng, and have been meeting with him for four hours every week. I'm not sure if it's helping me or him, but I figured we'll just keep on plugging through it.
2) I want to start writing creatively and being who I am, went out and got a Smith Corona Electra 120 for $15. Yes, it's a typewriter; yes, I know I can write by hand or on the computer; no, I don't care. I've always liked the sound of the typewriter, and I feel it lets me focus more on the writing. If I'm trying to write on the computer, I know I will get distracted. While it's electric and I would have preferred a manual typewriter, it's still nice and will do for the time being. So far I've written one 7.5-page sci-fi'ish short story. It's pretty bad all the way around. However, I did finish it, which is a fairly unknown concept to me, so it's all good.
In the interest of improving my writing, I also am planning to read some of the stuff that I've never really gotten around to. I just went to the library yesterday and got a selection of Hemingway's short stories, two short story books by Ursula K. LeGuin, and a short book by Günter Grass, "The Meeting at Telgte". I've never heard of Günter Grass, but it looked like it might be interesting. Plus he's a German, and I still have a soft spot for them. I also have "Flowers for Algernon" waiting to be read (sorry,
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
lyneidas, I know we need to get on with it and continue with the book club). I wanted to find Anton Chekhov's short stories, but the Russian language section at the library is tiny, so they didn't have anything of the sort. I refuse to read Chekhov in English :DEDIT: I just checked the PSU library and they have 10 volumes of Chekhov's short stories in Russian! Plus his letters, plays, etc., etc. That's awesome they have all this stuff! :D
3) I went to the Jewish class with Cree yesterday, and got to meet
sinnamongirl in person, which was nice. I originally went to the class just out of curiosity and to know more about Judaism if Cree decides to convert. We got a ton of books, including a nice student edition of English-Hebrew Tanakh. Rabbi Stone, who was this week's lecturer, was also pretty darn good. She's a Liberal Rabbi, and the way she talked about Judaism and the underlying philosophy really spoke to me. So, by the time we took a break half-way through the lecture, I went over and added my name to the roster next to Cree's. That way, if I happen to want to convert as well, I could get a certificate of completion. It seems like taking a class like this is a part of the conversion process, so might as well. Since we can share books, it's only $300 for both of us, especially since all the books we got probably add up to about that much. We'll see how things progress.I think that's about it. I'll try to post more often if time permits.
- Mood:tired
My wife and I moved back to Portland from Georgia a couple of months ago, and I have to say we do miss Southern food, especially the Georgia born-and-bred wife. Are there any authentic restaurants in Portland that serve real Southern food? I'm talking grits, mashed potatoes with gravy, mac & cheese, sweet potato, country-friend steak, okra, hashbrowns, biscuits with sausage and white gravy, coleslaw, green beans, cornbread, sweet iced tea, and so on. I know there's Sheri's chain around here, but their food is pretty horrible.
A barbeque place would also be good. In Georgia we used to eat at Sonny's Barbeque, in case anyone's familiar with something similar up here.
Bonus points if recommendations come from a Southerner who actually had some real Southern food ;)
- Mood:hungry
I never have been good at doing one thing for a long time. I will do something for a while, then become bored, move on to something else, then another thing, then maybe come back to the first, try something entirely differently, return to the third, and so on. This is likely the reason I'm never very knowledgeable about anything in particular. At this particular point in time, I would like to practice Aikido and/or Tai Chi, learn to fence, learn to ride a horse, learn to draw, learn to play a musical instrument (likely a flute, a lute, or an oud), do more black & white photography, read dozens of books on my to-read list, become fluent in Chinese, be able to at least read Latin and Homeric Greek (as a starter, to be followed by Attic, Ionic, and Koine), play chess at a Candidate Master (FIDE rating of 2200 or so) level (long way to go from my ~1300 rating on FICS), learn to play Go, become a competent storyteller (mostly for DMing D&D :D), start writing short stories and perhaps get published in Asimov's Science Fiction magazine or something similar, create a passable conlang, be able to recognize at least the major classical composers by sound, get much more familiar with jazz, study Chinese calligraphy, and so on.
I was talking to Cree about this today, and how I wonder whether this is something akin to childish dreams that most people outgrow as they settle into a career, or if everybody has diverse interests, they just don't talk about them. I sometimes feel like a "manqué polymath" (I had a "manqué" blog with that name), or perhaps someone who doesn't have the capacity to truly be a Renaissance Man, yet still holds to the belief that it is possible with enough determination.
- Mood:contemplative
Being me, however, I am no longer satisfied with the Gillette either. For one thing, they came up with the all-new Fusion 5-blade monstrosity, which I think is simply absurd (I do realize that many old-timers probably think the same thing about the three-blade razor I'm using). Secondly, the cartridges are expensive. NexTag lists the cheapest price for eight cartridges as $17.99. No wonder my wife could get the actual Schick Quattro handle with one sample cartridge for free; they make all their money from replacement cartridges (I know, I know, this isn't exactly a profound thought). Thirdly, the entire system seems very wasteful. There is an effort to switch to "greener" products, yet I wonder how many tons of used cartridges are dumped at our landfills every year? They're probably not as easy to recycle either, consisting of metal, plastic, and whatever those "comfort strips" are made of. Lastly, everybody's using these disposable cartridge razors now and I want to be different :D
The alternative? I'm thinking of purchasing either a classic safety razor or a straight razor! The blades for a safety razor are also disposable, but at least it's only a thin metal blade without the plastic cartridge. And it might be recyclable too. Plus, they are not nearly as expensive, going for around $6 for a 10-pack for good quality blades. That's less than 1/3rd of the price of my Mach3 Power replacements!
With the straight razor, there are no disposable parts at all, so after the initial investment, I spend nothing more on razors for many years to come (how long does it take to wear down a straight razor?). Additionally, there is a certain elegance and power in using a straight razor, perhaps because it's not as far away from a sword. It seems like even the [relatively] cheaper straight razors are actually made individually by "Master Craftsmen" and not mass-manufactured by machines and underpaid laborers. Plus, I hear that a straight razor will provide the best shave in an experienced hand. The downside, however, is that in an inexperienced hand -- like mine -- the straight razor can also provide the last shave.
Either way, I am also thinking of getting a shaving brush (boar hair probably, since badger hair seems to be rather expensive), classic shaving soap, and a classic mug to complete my shaving outfit.
Whether I go with safety razor or straight razor, one major hurdle is explaining to my wife why I need to spend around $150 on shaving accessories. A cheap (yet still well-made) DOVO straight razor runs around $100. A brush can be gotten for under $10 to begin with, a classic shaving soap cake for $5, and a mug for whatever I can find it in Goodwill. If I go with standard double-edge safety razor, I can get a Merkur "Classic" for $28, a 10-pack of blades for $6, plus brush, soap, and mug for under $20. I suppose the safety razor route does cost less, but I will again have to depend on disposable blades. Do they even sell classic double-edge blades at convenience stores these days?
So, after all that, any thoughts, suggestions, experiences? :D
- Mood:hungry
There are a few annoyances, such as not being able to skip cut scenes. This is normally not needed, but when I need to restart from a save point several times to beat that boss or win that blitzball match, 10 minutes of movies that I've already seen several times does get under one's skin. I can imagine, however, that the developers wanted to make sure that you follow the story and get involved with the characters. Both of which, by the way, are superb, and there is more character development that I've ever seen in an RPG. I almost feel like I know these people, their dreams, their fears, their problems. Definitely a breath of fresh air.
Another annoyance are the incessant "random encounters", to use D&D term. It wouldn't be so bad, but when I'm trying to get somewhere and every five steps I meet a group of fiends, it gets tiring. If there was some kind of warning it might be a little better, but as things are, you're just walking along a well-traveled road with people going to and fro, minding their business, keeping their children in place, and then... lo and behold, a due of basilisks and some kind of mushroom fiend attack my party. Can't they snack on the unsuspecting NPCs and their children for a change?
Other than that, however, the game is very engrossing. I never liked RPGs like Balder's Gate where you have a party of characters that you have to give orders to during battle, so I'm rather surprised that I have absolutely no problem with that in FFX. Perhaps the difference is the turn-based combat, effortless switching of characters, and only three characters to keep track of during any single battle. Turn-based combat also gives me an opportunity to think about the actions, tactics, and so on, instead of repeatedly jamming my thumb into the X button like in Kingdom Hearts. I also like how most of the time there is a red arrow on the mini-map pointing me where I need to go. I hate wandering around wondering what it is the developers wanted me to do.
Oh, it would be nice if I had a little more control of the character's choices during the cut scenes, but I bet it would have been a nightmare for the developers and cinematographers to create dozens/hundreds of divergent paths and still keep the same quality as they do here.
I'd like a date with Yuna, and I think Cree wouldn't mind having Wakka ;)
DRAMATIS PERSONAE:
RICHARD A Ukrainian-American man of about 24.
CREE Richard's Southern American wife, 25.
GRANDMA An old-fashioned unamericanized Ukrainian woman of 80.
ACT I
SCENE I
(Kitchen, where Grandma is preparing several
traditional Ukrainian dishes for Christmas
dinner, one of which uses beet roots.)
RICHARD
(Takes a bowl of freshly boiled beet roots to show CREE.)
[In Ukranian] I'm going to show this to Cree.
CREE
(Looks at and pokes the deep red beet roots.)
[In English] Cool! It's like an actual root.
RICHARD
(Takes the bowl back to where GRANDMA is cooking.)
GRANDMA
(To RICHARD as he replaces the bowl.)
[In Ukrainian] They don't have beet root?
RICHARD
[In Ukrainian] You can buy it in the store, but they don't use it.
GRANDMA
(Looks very perplexed.)
[In Ukrainian] What do they make borscht with?
RICHARD
[In Ukrainian] They don't make borscht.
GRANDMA
(incredulously)
[In Ukrainian] They don't make borscht?
RICHARD
(Exits stage right.)
[In Ukrainian] Nope.
GRANDMA
(Heard from the living room.)
[In Ukrainian] Don't make borscht... don't make borscht...\
END SCENE
"The dauntless grandmother, who had reached a hundred years of age managing a small, clandestine brothel, did not trust therapeutic superstitions, so she turned the matter over to her cards."
This quote made me giggle as I pictured Pilar Ternera at 100 managing a brothel and still relying on her tarot cards more than anything else.
Although I had doubts about One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez, it's proving to be a very good book. I've had a hard time putting it down despite it having no apparent plot. The characters are so diverse and strange in their own special way that even the repetition of the names is not too bothersome; I only need to read what the character is doing to remember him or her even if I confuse Aureliano Segundo and José Arcadio Segundo. Somehow, the women of the family are even crazier than men, in my opinion.
Anyhow, very good book so far, and I'll be able to just finish it and return it to the library before we leave on Tuesday -- I hope, anyway. Too bad the other two members of our book club didn't want to read it ;)
- Mood:tired
2. I've been making good progress with Chinese. I finished the Pimsleur Mandarin Chinese II course, although haven't started on III just yet. Instead, I've been adding interesting sentences from the last two lessons of the second level to Mnemosyne (interestingly enough, this rather rarely mentioned Greek goddess of memory is mentioned in Lolita), which is an SRS application. I can now recognize and write about a dozen Chinese characters without too much trouble. It's been a very slow process, however, since I had to look up each character and the stroke order and all that.
3. I'm registered at PSU for 13 credit hours. I'm going to be taking First-Year Chinese, Asian Studies (part of interdisciplinary "University Studies" curriculum), and Introduction to Linguistics. Should be rather fun.
4. We've received our room assignment from PSU! While not our first choice, it does seem like it's going to be on the first floor and still fairly close to everything.
5. I've sold my dear, albeit somewhat decrepit, MacBook. We now only have one computer, which I believe is the first time that has happened in the five years we've been together. It turns out that I've worked with the person who bought it, Marie, at UTS, so I'm glad it has a good home. The sale was very well timed, as I need to pay electricity and a security deposit for the dorm room.
6. This weekend we're going to Atlanta High Museum of Art, which happens to feature the largest collection of Terracotta Army to be brought to the United States! I'm bursting with excitement about that. And to think we almost missed out the chance to see something of that magnitude! Unfortunately, photography is out of question.
That should be it for now, I believe. Our moving day is getting closer and closer.
- Mood:excited
dreaminmotion's family. Her grandmother cooked for a week beforehand, cleaned for the last month, and generally busted her ass. She wanted a nice family get-together where everyone sat at the table (or rather three tables put in a row -- big family). We were supposed to get started at noon. One of Cree's aunt's, who's blind and has pieces of foot (feet?) missing (diabetic, doesn't take care of herself) has been in the hospital for about a week now. After several days of negotiating, it was decided that she's not going to be able to make it, so we were going to have the Thanksgiving without her and her family (good riddance, I thought). Well, at about 11am today, it seems like B. (the aunt) decided she wanted to come after all. With all the crap she had to do to get out, everybody had to wait until she could be gotten here. Nobody complained, though (well, okay, we complained, but not loudly), since it's a family event and all that. Meanwhile, Cree's grandmother's coke-head nephew decides to show up uninvited with his girlfriend/wife/whatever. It mattered not, of course, that everybody who was invited brought something, while he didn't even had the courtesy to bring drinks or whatever. Some time later, Cree's dad's nurse or caretaker or whatever shows up as well, as apparently Cree's dad invited her without letting anyone know beforehand; naturally, she didn't bring anything either.After all that, B. finally gets down here at around 1:30-2:00pm, sits down at the table, and two minutes later shouts "Okay, where's the food?". Rude, but I figured she might be hungry after all that hospital food, or maybe she was trying to be funny. Everybody busts their ass getting all the dishes from the kitchen and onto the tables, etc., etc. We all gather for Grace (courtesy of "Jesus Saves" aunt C.), who begins saying grace and after a few sentences, pauses for a second to gather her thoughts. Apparently B. was having none of that and decided to finish with some three-word rude "prayer" thing that amounts to "blah, blah, blah, let's eat." Naturally, C. is upset and runs out to have a private moment. Also naturally, B. acts like nothing happened and if something did happen, it wasn't her fault.
Cree and I pretty much stayed in the kitchen with Cree's good aunt (also C.), grandmother, and a few other low-key people. Despite all that, I think Grams enjoyed the day and liked the whole family getting together. Next year, she said, however, they'll do a buffet instead of the whole "formal" dinner.
Oh, and I had some good pumpkin pie with Cool Whip! Last year I tried some and hated it, but this year it was rather tasty. Cree liked it more this year as well.
- Mood:irritated
Since our LJ club pretty much decided that none of us can bear to finish Lolita, I'm going to note a couple of quotes that stood out to me.
pg. 54
[...] Hamilton, Mary Rose Haze, Delores Honeck, Rosaline [...]
pg. 55
So strange and sweet was it to discover this 'Haze, Delores' (she!) in its special bower of names, with its bodyguard of roses -- a fairy princess between her two maids of honor. [...] Or is it because I can imagine so well the rest of the colorful classroom around my dolorous and hazy darling: [...]
Nabokov's intimacy with the language is what struck me here. It seems pure writing genius to not only think up a few dozen names of would-be classmates to his heroine, but also surround her name with two flowery names to comment on later. If that wasn't enough, he goes as far as describe her as "dolorous and hazy", making puns on both her first and family names. I think it's passages like this that give the book the realism that I haven't seen in many books.
Throughout the portion of the book I've read (up to page 107), there are many plays on the name of the antagonist, Mr. Humbert Humbert. For example on page 87: "'Do you know, Hum: I have one most ambitious dream,' pronounced Lady Hum, lowering her head -- shy of that dream -- and communing with the tawny ground." At some later page, which I can no longer remember, he refers to himself as "Hum Hum" in reference, it seems, to this chance remark.
pg. 69
I knew I had fallen in love with Lolita forever; but I also knew she would not be forever Lolita. She would be thirteen on January 1. In two years or so she would cease being a nymphet and would turn into a 'young girl,' and then, into a 'college girl' -- that horror of horrors. The word 'forever' referred only to my own passion, to the eternal Lolita as reflected in my blood.
This to me is a very important passage and a striking difference to his earlier rants about how he lived in a society where it was permissible to court a 16-year-old girls, but not 12-year-old. One cannot hold any sort of high moral ground after admitting that his "love" is nothing but a play-thing for a couple of years, after which it would be discarded and a new one found.
So, in summary, Nabokov's language is rather impressing (although in many cases daunting, especially when he uses French, Latin, or Italian), and I was duly impressed by it. The actual content of the book, however, is not something I can stomach.
- Mood:cold
If you haven't guessed yet, I finally managed to figure out how to type in Chinese! Not that it was difficult, mind you, but being an elite better-than-the-common-joe type of person, my last attempt didn't go so well, since instead of easing into it, I tried to jump into using the professional Chinese input method that relies on Chinese radicals and stroke order. So in order to use that input method, I had to learn Chinese radicals and stroke order, which meant learning at least the rudiments of calligraphy, etc., etc. This time, on the other hand, I shoved my superiority complex quite firmly into the closet, locked the door, and went with the Pinyin input method, which is used by a good majority of people typing in Chinese.
I don't think you guys have to worry about me posting in Chinese any time soon, but it was nice to be able to more or less copy a sentence or two from the first lesson of Pimsleur Mandarin Chinese I :D
- Mood:cold
- Music:May It Be - Hayley Westenra
dreaminmotion played it for several days, and she doesn't play video games! However, after going up to the level of Praetor (after building seven cities, or so), I'm pretty much spent and can't bring myself to built yet another city from scratch. I also tried my hand at Zeus, which was released several years later by the same company, and offered some improvements as well as theme change (Greece instead of Rome). While it as sort of fun, after one or two missions I was spent as well. Lastly, I wanted to see if Europa Universalis III to see if it was any better than Europa Universalis II, which it wasn't.As of today, I'm not really interested in playing anything for a while, so have been doing somewhat more productive stuff, like helping Cree organize pictures in our brand new PicasaWeb shared account! I also have been checking out LiveMocha, which I'm not that keen about, since they don't have much content for Mandarin Chinese. So now I'm looking for something similar to LiveMocha, but with bulletin boards and more Chinese content. Oh, and free!
Aside from that, the date of the move is drawing closer and we still have a ton of things to do, so the next few weeks are going to be pretty busy.
I often feel that this is really true. Even given our situation, we've been struggling against the flow and everything progressively got worse and worse. Now, I feel like we are moving closer to the direction of our dreams, and everything is falling into place.
"The commonest sense is the sense of men asleep, which they express by snoring." (pg. 304)
As someone who is often accused of having little or no common sense, I'm happy to know I at least have it at night. Of course, within a year or two of getting together,
dreaminmotion pretty much beat that remaining shred of common sense with the help of Breath Right nasal strips. "Why should we be in such desperate haste to succeed and in such desperate enterprises? If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away." (pg. 305)
Now, why is it that this quote sounds so similar to what so many movies are saying? We've just watched August Rush, and it too contains notes of pursuing your music, no matter what the people around you are playing. I actually can't remember any movie I've seen lately, aside from Pursuit of Happyness, that eulogize getting a good career. Even in something like Jerry McGuire, where he does get a lucrative career, it only happens because he pursues his dream and defies the world. In The Family Man, the main character has a great career, yet goes after the woman of his dreams and a family after being shown what he's missing.
All that said, why is it that we still feel we need to follow the formula of success? Is it because we, as a society, like to watch "inspirational" movies, yet we watch them as unrealistic and idealized fairy tales. "That only happens in movies" is a fairly common expression. Why is that so? Are we just too afraid to take the plunge ourselves?
- Mood:optimistic
- Mood:sleepy
dreaminmotion's grandmother, B, and aunt, C. That's where it went downhill, so to speak. ( The rest behind the cut... )
- Mood:hungry
You can find this quiz I really love the way Chinese sounds, especially when they use repetitions of the same sound for certain words. I've been calling my wife "taitai" for a while now, and I really like that the word for "wife" (or "Mrs.") is -- to my English/Ukrainian ear -- almost diminutive by nature. The second word, that for "bus", just sounds awesome, even though I've had quite a time trying to pronounce it correctly as part of the sentence. So, below are the two words written in Traditional Chinese and with [copyrighted -- sssh!] pronunciations by native Chinese speakers.
- Mood:excited
I've been reading Walden by H.D.Thoreau, and have come upon a couple of passages that have me rather puzzled. In short, I can't tell if he's being sarcastic about being "proud to know that the liberties of Massachusetts and of our fatherland were in such safe keeping". It's a somewhat long passage, so the rest is behind the cut.
( Read more )- Mood:confused
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