Gewiss seid ihr alle voll Unruhe, dass ich so lange -- lange nicht geschrieben.

My journal of Vietnam can be found here. There will be some "pinned" entries on the top of this page, like the reading list, that I may update over time. Otherwise, the entries closest to the top will be the most recent.

Books to be read:

I'm trying to get back in the habit of actually reading every day instead of just being online until I go to bed. I'm using actual candlelight and nice dark ambient music.

English:

  • Beowulf Transl. Maria Dahvana Headley -- might read Seamus Heaney after this just to compare.
  • The Saga of the Volsungs Transl. Jackson Crawford
  • The Epic of Gilgamesh Transl. Stephen Mitchell
  • The Poetic Edda Transl. Carolyne Larrington
  • The Decameron Transl. Wayne A. Rebhorn

German:

  • Der Sandmann by ETA Hoffmann (reread)
  • Das Nibelungenlied Transl. Karl Simrock
  • Wege zur Unmöglichkeit (anthology)

August.

23. The apple tree down by the lake has put out its first apple of the season! I will be watching for more.

20. Have been watching Apple's Foundation series, admittedly while scrolling tumblr, conlanging, etc. etc. Still, the main idea seems to be "what if there was a dictator who was bad, BUT there was another dictator who was good, because everything he did was based on this new branch of math he invented, so if you don't listen to him you're just being irrational." (If you are a big fan of Foundation, please correct me. I do kind of want it to be deeper than this because Foundation is reportedly so influential on later sci-fi.)

This gets an entry in the journal because one of Math Dictator's administrators has just said "whatever the case, we don't have time to cry and clasp our icons," a sentiment I am firmly against. There is always time to cry and clasp your icons. But I'm a calligrapher-bookbinder, so maybe I'm just biased :Þ

7-12. Pennsic 50! Mom and I went together this year, which was great because we were able to do the whole drive in one day, taking it in shifts. We went in Greco-Roman garb because of the heat and the ease of making it on short notice; all it takes is hemming some rectangles and finding a set of nice pins. I learned some lampwork glass beadmaking (yay modern gas torches!), goldwork embroidery, and paintmaking. For the second year in a row I saw some very intimidating and inspiring bookbinding.