hights, lows, hellenistic hag

moral dilemmas for which i have no answers and however much i study facts or rhethoric techniques to convince myself, i won't know. for some reason they all make me feel uncomfortable with my consciousness and undermine the confidence i've been trying to build to manage exams and larger tests of time.

or maybe just low points of my day to be written on some piece of blogging to be burnt and buried in the interblag so i can sleep, get up, row and revise like normal people do...

8am - i had to book a flight with ryanair to sardinia.i need to get there for excavations, but there's nothing i have that i can compromise - time, comfort, effort - in favour of the ethical reasons against flying, except the impossible price of the ferryboat. yet, consciousness on the back-burner, i sat down to book 'cheap' flights. and honestly, they get dirtier and dirtier every time i look. the environmental damage comes first; the unneccessary consumerism ranks second; then the intrusive adds and attitude; and with every next webpage, a new kind of made-up cost added to a 'free' flight - insurance, obligatory check-in, obligatory card-handling fee, luggage, etc.

my new theory to play with is that low-cost companies molest their custommers by hidden fees, and intrusive disciplining physical discomfort, telling them where to be, when to do things etc exercises of authority. and this is all a strategy to take people's mind off guilty thoughts about carbon footprints. once you're having a shitty time and have been deceived anyway, you don't want to self-flagellate your consciousness further and enjoy your holliday.
sado-masochisstic behaviour (discomfort for self, bad for the planet) might help people get over their problematic relationship with the environment. that's how i felt on the last long flight i took anyway - 10 hours stuck next to the toilet, with a stinky fat guy next to me undermined good intentions for carbon offsetting because 'i'd suffered enough'.
or maybe they are careless bastards heading on cheap holliday.

2pm - then i met with someone who i recently learnt has published a beautiful book with funding from the getty museum, which is deeply involved in illicit antiquities (but has great outreach). this is someone whom i hold in truly high esteem, whose writings are an inspiration, and whose lectures are a privilege to attend, who has taught me more about art, antiquity, argumentation and cambridge, than any other supervisor, ... so it came as a bit of a shock and caught in the cross-fire between my two teachers (Miss Ethical black and white Heritage Management and Mr Reach Out to the Public is more important than ethical but dust-filled museums), i still don't know what to think.
anyway, he in turn found out what my exam essays would be like...
great way to motivate the last week of hard work - mutual disappointment.

4 pm talking to amiya because i'm upset and concerned, it turns out it's common advise for cambridge exam tactics - 'to do a high-mark argument, write like anything you are not': like a private-schooled english boy who can provoke by instinct, name-drop authors to parade his knowledge, and stick to disciplined timing. i'm sure where i stand on this, but i'm not sure what to do. last year i thought i would try to fit the mould to see if i can, take the best skills from it and move on. but i'm not so sure if those skills are worth it any more or it'll be time to move on to somewhere else (less mouldy) after this degree.

6pm - little 70-year old lady with blue veins under loose satine skin in grads. came up to me. she'd let a bra strap fall off her shoulder and spilt her tea with unrest, because i was bear-footed in a coffeeshop. then gave a long expose on how dangerous i was, compromising the hygene of the institution, swine flu, equatorial bugs, countryside and all. it was so tragicomical and pathetic i could not respond with anything but think 'ok whatever, if you'll fuck off and leave me worry about gender and fetishism'. i would not disagree with anything a crazy little old lady says, but it's disturbing to listen out of pity for someone who expects respect, to treat them as a story, a cultural product that needs to be tolerated or a black-white picture that only accepts respect and affection.

reminding of my great grand mother as real as she was, and aristotle's observation that we enjoy grotesque because we recognise it's art. we take distance from the hellenistic 'old hag' because she is a statue and we focus on the artist's skill rather than the degradation of the subject.
sometimes i write here to take distance from what is happening, lock it in some nice alliterations, metaphors and that kind of safe-keeping devices. then it's a bit more tolerable and thinkable through. it's text, not weight on my chest.

but it's also disturbing to treat anyone (me, the old hag, my unremembered great grandmother) as a story, a cultural product that needs to be tolerated or a black-white picture that only accepts respect and affection.

hopefully one day i'll be buried and will grow into a tree. people would keep correcting my branches, trimming me, and so on to keep me alive and keep stretching higher.

that song. again.
(god took the stars and he tossed 'em
can't tell the birds from the blossoms
you'll never be free of me
he'll make a tree from me

lay your head where my heart used to be,
hold the earth above me
lay down in the green grass
remember when you loved me)