Booking Time

I don’t feel like I’m getting much actually done that I’m aiming for these days. I’m pottering along, doing bits and pieces, but nothing seems to get to measurable levels. Perhaps I’m being affected with the malaise I’ve been trying to help others through, of barely meeting already extended assignment due dates. I haven’t done so much for them, and now I’m waiting in fear for my own, rather than ensuring I won’t be late.

So perhaps it will help to remind myself that I have actually read some good books (even if they aren’t the ones my course requires!) from cover to cover. (We’ll forget that I’m two or three weeks behind my aim of one per day this year.)

The first three are all audiobooks (from Librivox) that I listened to while preparing for the Yomim Tovim, while the second three are Jewish books I read during those festivals.

265. High Adventure: A Narrative of Air Fighting in France by James Norman Hall

I would say this book lives up to the enthusiasm expressed by its Librivox reader. Hall was an American volunteer airman in the French forces in World War 1 (he went before the USA became involved) and is a most interesting raconteur of his experiences, from arriving in France without knowing any of the language, to his dodgem style pilot training, to the fears and exhilarations of flying and fighting. I was a little disturbed in the first chapter or two at the reader’s inaccurate pronunciations of the French words and place names that constantly crop up, but quickly realised that this is probably reasonably accurate to how the author would have pronounced them, as he never seems to have become fluent in French, even after a few years in the country. Knitters and crafters who make items for soldiers might like to listen to the first few minutes of chapter 12…

266. Stickeen by John Muir

This is quite a short tale (only three chapters) of the adventures of a dog (Stickeen) and a group of men exploring the far North, one of whom (the narrator) decides to go for a solitary walk on the glaciers one stormy day (no, he doesn’t give a good reason for doing so). Stickeen accompanies him, and they spend a frightening day bonding while leaping cracks in the glacier, trying to get back to the camp they shouldn’t have left! While I don’t think much of the sense of the narrator, he does tell an exciting tale well.

267. An Old-Fashioned Girl by Louisa May Alcott

I read this for the first time as an adult, unlike Little Women and its sequels, or Eight Cousins and Rose in Bloom. While in some ways it is slightly more formulaic than either of those – the visiting Old-Fashioned Girl (Polly) makes a modern leaning family too interested in fashion and making money reassess and appreciate each other in the first half – in many ways she becomes more modern than they in the second half, with her interest in women’s rights and insistence on financial independence.

From all of these books I feel like Alcott’s ideal woman and girl synthesises the traditional feminine and home-building skills of cooking, crafting and caring with a strong mind and the full use of all of her individual talents both for her own expression and to support herself independently should she so desire and require.

268. Educating Our Daughters, Why? by B. C. Glaberson

The short introduction to this series of interviews with women educating girls in Yiddish in Israel states:

You may not agree with everything they say. In fact, you may disagree strongly with some of their opinions.

While I don’t disagree with their right to educate their daughters in this way (and it’s not Alcott’s way, as above, although it shares that synthesis of practical and academic), and share some of the values (I don’t speak Yiddish, for one) it’s not entirely the system I would be involved in. Definitely thought-provoking, well argued and well written, it does present a spectrum of opinion, showing one of the things I most appreciate in the Jewish education I have seen, that there isn’t just one way that will suit everyone, and that each child should be educated in the way that suits her or him.

269. A Touch of Warmth by Rabbi Yechiel Spero

Rabbi Spero is an inspiring raconteur, who can bring out a moral without drowning you in it.

270. The Winds of Change by Lena Spitzer

East End London of the 1930s, as at any other time, was a place of flux. It’s always been an area for immigrants, and in the 30s a great many of them were Jews escaping the poverty and persecution that was ever increasing in mainland Europe. In coming to a new country, often with nothing except the clothes on their backs, they had to meet the challenges of a new country and a changing world that included fascism not only in power in Germany and elsewhere, but in vocal minority in England, notably Oswald Mosley and his Blackshirts. It’s an involving, well-written and researched book, and I heartily recommend it.

Pensive

Shabbos was nice, although I didn’t make of it what I know I should. Then last night and this morning I heard Rabbi Shurin speak, and I really want to take much more out of that. This morning he elaborated on something I’ve heard him mention before, namely the difference, perhaps even chasm, between thrill-seeking fun, and contented or satisfied happiness. (What follows is my thought-process after hearing the shiur – my thoughts should not be ascribed to him.)

It really is true: no instance of simply having fun can make me happy. It certainly has its place, but the past excitements that still bring a smile to my face are those that had something much more meaningful involved. I enjoy going on fairground rides, yes, but do I actually remember those few minutes or seconds afterwards? The times I do, what I’m really remembering is the connection with the friends or family members who accompanied me, or overcoming the trepidation of a particular ride, or feeling really sick (and no, that last is not such a good memory).

Thrills certainly have their place in our lives and in that so American ideal The Pursuit of Happiness, but for what we can build from them, rather than as an end in themselves. If they are the end, rather than the means, then only the next, bigger, thrill is of any interest, and that way can lead disaster.

So that said, a little introspection seems in order: which of my hobbies or other free-time activities actually bring me contentment or satisfaction, and thus happiness, and which bring cheap thrills?

Crochet certainly brings contentment in being productive in giving others the fruits of my hands. It brings satisfaction whenever I complete a useful object, or teach someone the skill. On the other hand, stash and tool acquisition for their own sake are thrills only to be upgraded when there is a project involved (or at least strongly in mind). Which means that while I truly appreciate the beauty of these hooks, and would love to be able to support such skilled craftspeople/artists, right now what I can justify is one or maybe two hooks in each of the sizes I use. I’ll say yes to spending a bit on extra comfortable hooks in the sizes I use regularly, or want to make a large project in. I’ll buy extra (yes, cheaper, but perfectly serviceable) hooks to give away to learners. However, I won’t build up a hook collection for its own sake. (Certainly not unless and until I have the space to display and thus really enjoy it!)

Don’t get me wrong – I’m decrying MY OWN tendency to collect things that don’t have inherent value to me, and trying to challenge that. I own one or two pieces of art (nothing monetarily valuable) and wouldn’t mind acquiring one or two more, but these must be items that will give me pleasure, make me smile, maybe even make me think, well into the future.

(This bowl always makes me smile, and that does help me to be happy.) (Sorry, I’ll try to take another pic with better focus to replace this with later.)

Reading is actually a harder issue to address, because much of it does have work or learning value. I’m hardly going to say many novels don’t have value either, to provoke thought, to share with and connect to others, to provide an easy learning experience or even just as a quick way to see a different perspective on something. The fact remains that while I do get much of that from most of what I read, some of it also involves images and thoughts, thrills that aren’t currently … helpful … in my life. If nothing else, I’d like to rebalance how much of that there is.

Again, this is (public) introspection. I amn’t passing judgement on other people. That isn’t my way.

Crochet plans

So there’s a thread for Ravelry’s bloggers suggesting we post our crochet and knitting resolutions for the year, and I thought I might as well join in as not. So:

• Make at least one shaped, wearable garment. (I have agreed to make a Prepster for my housemate, so that’ll do it.)
• Make something larger for myself that I will keep and use. (I’m thinking a Seraphina’s Shawl from the alpaca my mother got me.)
• Do something that works with the Numei Montage that’s been aggravating me.
• Get pictures and put on Ravelry some of my earlier projects that I never recorded.
• Get the lady I live with to finish her second hot water bottle cover.
• Teach my brother some basic stitches as he asked/I offered/threatened.

It’s not a hugely long list, but that should make it doable.

The obligatory first post

So here I am, giving in to the not-very-heavy pressure to have my own blog.

My current intentions (having reread three childhood favourites today) are to keep a log of my reading, possibly put up some comments about my crocheting (although that’s better recorded on Ravelry), and get some extra HTML (and possibly CSS) practice in. As I either get compulsive or give up entirely on this blog, these intentions may well change.

In any case, the new civil year seemed as good an arbitrary date as any to begin these recordings and musings.

For now this is entirely for my own benefit. I am not really expecting anybody to be out there.