I just wanted to share a link to an excellent essay by David James Duncan that was in this year's July/August issue of Orion. I've chosen this piece as the focus of a response for my writing class, as DJD so clearly articulates many of the issues with which I've been wrestling for the past several years, issues which have bubbled up to the surface again in this first semester of grad school. Enjoy.
Insha'allah I will post again in the near future. But if I don't, know that it's because I'm frantically dog-paddling in a tsunami of end-of-the-semester research, papers, projects, readings, lesson plans, and gradings. WHOOSH, there I go! In three weeks I hope to be HOME, as in, Sioux Center, Iowa, a place I haven't seen since mid-June. But that's only if I somehow manage to survive the three weeks in the first place . . .
I must share a wonderful, quintessential Missoula moment:
Today I walked down to Bernice's Bakery to have a hot chocolate and cinnamon roll and do a little reading, and who should be there but my friend Jacob (from MESP) and his sister, and we sat and chatted for awhile, and then my friend Tim came in, so I introduced him to Jacob, since all of us know my friend Rachel (another MESPer), and it turned out that Jacob's sister knew Tim . . . Dutch bingo in Missoula! Ain't life grand. Then I walked home in the dark, invigoratingly cold evening, with snowflakes drifting down around me, glittering beneath the streetlights to create a shimmering fairy world. I love winter.
Insha'allah I will post again in the near future. But if I don't, know that it's because I'm frantically dog-paddling in a tsunami of end-of-the-semester research, papers, projects, readings, lesson plans, and gradings. WHOOSH, there I go! In three weeks I hope to be HOME, as in, Sioux Center, Iowa, a place I haven't seen since mid-June. But that's only if I somehow manage to survive the three weeks in the first place . . .
I must share a wonderful, quintessential Missoula moment:
Today I walked down to Bernice's Bakery to have a hot chocolate and cinnamon roll and do a little reading, and who should be there but my friend Jacob (from MESP) and his sister, and we sat and chatted for awhile, and then my friend Tim came in, so I introduced him to Jacob, since all of us know my friend Rachel (another MESPer), and it turned out that Jacob's sister knew Tim . . . Dutch bingo in Missoula! Ain't life grand. Then I walked home in the dark, invigoratingly cold evening, with snowflakes drifting down around me, glittering beneath the streetlights to create a shimmering fairy world. I love winter.
And you thought you could escape Sioux Center....
ReplyDeletehey yaAmal...
ReplyDeleteNice to read your updates... I heard the sunami is actually hitting the EAST coast over the next couple of weeks-- not Montana! Or is it both?? =-) Anywhere one might find oneself in school perhaps.
Fun meetings with Jacob and Tim and all... over some hot chocolate. That sounds nice- so much gentler and then the whirl and buzz of going out for coffee in crazy balitimore. But maybe thats just me and the grass being always greener...
love ya!
Hi Al,
ReplyDeleteIt's so nice to keep connected this way! I love these random MESP connections; we're really a big happy family, aren't we? I saw Sarah over the weekend; she's in Palestine for a CPT delegation, and we hung out at a mutual friends' house, whom we know through Biola and Aubrey and ASP...
I enjoyed the article as well. Ya aTikl afia (God bless your hands) over the next few weeks as you finish your exams and work. Maybe I'll see you over Christmas; rumour has it that a certain blond Minnesota girl will be returning from the land of desert and conflict to her native ice and snow... Minshoof.
Hugs and peace,
Basma
hooray, al!
ReplyDeleteHi hi Allie!
ReplyDeleteLove you girl! Just wondering if you could shoot me an e-mail about why you liked the article so much. Just curious.
Love you
rita