Women, Science and Literatute

Julie recommended some books: The Poet X, Mockingbird, Girl In the Blue Coat, The host, Eleanor Oliphant, My Best Friends Exorcism.

I figured re-reading some books from Dr. Lacey's Women Science and Literature class would be an interesting read during a global pandemic. I'm reading State of Wonder by Ann Patchett right now.

indefatigable- (of a person or their efforts) persisting tirelessly p.97.
I'm sharing an old West African picture from some kids in a remote village outside of Ricks Campus in Bombi county Liberia. State of Wonder makes me think of these kinds of remote places I went to in Africa.


"Such is your bravery. Such is my good fortune" -State of Wonder

Many things in State of Wonder remind me of my trip to West Africa, Liberia:

"civilization drop away again and again before they reached their final destination"(Patchett, p.166) 
To get to West Africa we flew from Atlanta to Chicago, and then to New York City. We left New York and flew to Belgium. From Belgium we flew into Freetown, Sierra Leon. From Freetown we took a 30min flight to Monrovia Liberia. Im trying to remember at what point you get that feeling where its like okay, no one is going where we are going. I began to notice fewer and fewer people on the flights we were on. Not to mention, we were traveling to Liberia during the beginning of what turned out to be a really bad Ebola outbreak in the region. By the time we were on the small flight headed to Monrovia it felt like it was just my group I was with and some local Liberians on the plane.  I remember looking out the plane window when we first touched down in Africa. I remember feeling like Id made it to the motherland. It was a strange feeling of returning home. Ill never forget that feeling.

Patchett makes reference to an E.E. Cummings poem on p166, "all in green my love went riding" Lots of untouched green green green forest in Africa.  "I had ..taken a boat down a half a  dozen splitting rivers only to be greeted by a John Hopkins T-shirt" p.168


 terse- brief and to the point(p.178)
"Ice is a luxury confined to this moment" p.178 Having a coca cola drink was a luxury on Ricks campus.

ebullient- cheerful full of energy(p.186)

"mosquito netting that was suspended from the ceiling and fanned out over a cot" I remember the anxiety I had about getting my mosquito netting from Dr. Grunzke. What if she didnt have mine? What if she ran out of them? A good way to get Malaria is to sleep without a mosquito net.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

PETTY JOHNS CAVE

Petty Johns was amazing. Terrifying. Disorienting. The cave messed with my mind a lttle bit. We all turned our lights off in the cave to experience the true darkness. The dark was nothing like ive ever experienced. Its nothing like being in your bedroom with the lights turned off at night. Its different. Its hard to describe. In the moment of darkness it made me think about nothingness. For a moment i felt 1was alive during the time before the big bang. I felt like i was in the universe before the universe came into existance. The further i descended into the cave the more i felt like i was descending into maddness. I was not descending into madness in my own mind. I felt like i was inside the mind of a serial killer . The disorenting effect of the cave made me feel like an astronaut in space. Why would traveling deep into the Earth make me feel closer to space? It felt like the cave was a representation of the mind. Maybe caves are entrances into the Earths mind and soul? I f...
Read more

Fuji Apple Trees

Image
Adel and I planted 2 Fuji apple trees in the backyard today. we've got Pomegranate tree, watermelon and collard greens growing. The Orcan guy came out to look at the barn. He said the long holes in the barn were NOT termites, but carpenter bees. Well he said the woodpeckers come and dig out the carpenter bees larva from the wood. I should fact check that. He quoted us $750 to treat the whole house + barn. Adel missed school today. Yesterday I met Johnies new girlfriend. She seems pretty chilled back. We put this old basketball goal together and played 21 in the street. I went for a run yesterday too. I need to finish the exit Ethics exam that I just found out about and get my official teaching certification.
Read more

Petty Johns Cave-Bill the neighboor

I saw Bill outside working in the garden. I walked over and he was fertilizing his tomatoes. He like to talk. I like talking to him. He's done a lot of cool stuff. He replaced his roof on his house, says he saved like $1,500.00 He mentioned that some standard roof pipe things will leak water. He replaced his with ones that water cannot get into. He also used carbon fiber to fix his house foundation. He told me about some caves in North GA called Petty Johns Cave and some other cave systems West of Aragon GA. He says one would not find these caves on a map-. He says Petty Johns cave can be dangerous- the cave floods when a storm comes in and if you are in the cave during a heavy rain you will die. He said China is going to own the International space station or something like that. I told him about Providence and showed him a picture. I also told him I was planning to goto Cumberland island and he asked me if I was going to do any swimming maybe body surfing..He suggested I bring BU...
Read more