Phenomena

Mahmoud's condition is very critical and he must go abroad for treatment. He was injured 3 days ago and underwent surgery to clean his head. The doctors are telling us that he needs to undergo a major operation to remove the shrapnel or fix it to the skull bone so that no nerves in the brain are cut off.

Please donate and share this post widely so that we can get my husband out and receive treatment abroad.

Health organizations are warning of an imminent public health crisis in the Gaza Strip, where disruptions to health and water systems are raising the risk of disease outbreaks. The International Rescue Committee (IRC) on Thursday warned of the inevitable spread of waterborne illnesses such as cholera and typhoid, caused by contaminated water sources and a lack of sanitation. Currently, 95 percent of the population in Gaza has no access to safe water, while 64 percent of primary health facilities have shut down, IRC warns, as Israel conducts a lethal bombing campaign.

But the Israeli military is not allowing the water and sewage treatment plants to operate- what extremely limited fuel it permits to enter the Gaza Strip appears to be diverted from these critical facilities. The amount of potable water available in Gaza is estimated to be well below the minimum threshold a healthy human being needs- let alone what anyone would need to rehydrate themselves.

07|07|2022

Thesis Diary #37

New update on the thesis. I have finished reading and rereading the first chapter and I wrote the professor an email sending it. I also had a few questions to ask her so I did all in one go. I am a bit nervous but also excited to hear what she says about it, mostly because it will give me a lot of help with the rest of my work, as I will have a clearer idea of what she wants me to do. Aside from this writing related things today I did a bit of organization of the material I gathered yesterday at the archive. I have divided the photos in chuncks, and I have more or less decided which parts I will start working on first. Tomorrow I plan on rereading and reorganizing the notes I took while I was at the archive, and after that I will actually start working on those documents.

18/30 days of self care

Read first thing in the morning (currently reading Once Upon An Ice Age by Roy Lewis)

Had my much needed monthly therapy session

Organized my thesis work for the next few weeks

tranquilstudy's studying challenge // day 22

What are three things you want right now?

Some peace of mind

More confidence

What I read these past two weeks – as before, no ratings, but I’ll still say if I recommend ®, strongly recommend (S), or don’t recommend (D) a story:

1.  James Baldwin, “Previous Condition” (S) “I didn’t believe that she could really understand it; and there was nothing I could say. I sat like a child being scolded, looking down at my plate, not eating, not saying anything. I wanted her to stop talking, to stop being intelligent about it, to stop being calm and grown-up about it; good Lord, none of us has ever grown up, we never will.”

2. Lesya Ukrainka, “Святий вечір!” [Holy Evening] (S) “Вся сім’я гомонить, кожному хочеться сказати щось радісне, кожний почуває себе щасливим і повним надій, хоч ніхто не знає, чого, власне, сподівається він і чи справдяться його надії… Тая радість перелітає з одного обличчя на друге, мигтить, мов зірниця, в очах, бринить чарочками, лунає в дзвінкому дитячому сміхові.” [tr. below the cut]

3. Nazlı Karabıyıkoğlu, “Elfiye,” trans. Ralph Hubbell ® “tear it up, tear it up, tear it all up, you, and you, and you keep          what’s left this constant gyre of orders, my mouth was going dry my heart was rattling, so then the spirits and the fairies          had finally shown up, ah—!”

4. Natalya Rubanova, “Шесть музыкальных моментов Шуберта” [Six Musical Moments by Schubert] (D) “как ты думаешь, вот если кто-нибудь заглянет в окошко… – никто не заглянет, дурочка, девочка, три часа ночи, мы одни, одни во всей Москве – как славно: одни во всей Москве! иди ко мне… – смотри, снег хлопьями валит… – это для тебя, это всё для тебя – а для тебя? что для тебя? – ты…” [tr. below the cut]

5. Shih Chiung-Yu, “Wedding in Autumn”, trans. Darryl Sterk (very disquieting. can’t say if I recommend or not bc I think it’s written well but I wouldn’t read it again) “Women’s wombs are strange places: they can nourish new life and discharge it, over and over again. In that respect, a womb’s kind of like my big sister’s temper. One moment she’d say she wanted to play house hopscotch, the next minute she’d be whacking my head with the wooden spoon saying she’d never speak to me again. Soon she’d forget all about being angry and say: ‘Ah Chung, want to play again?’”

6. Anton Chekhov, “Корреспондент” [The Reporter] ® “Теперь кому кушать хочется, тот и пишет, а пишет что хочет, лишь бы сбоку на правду похоже было. Хотите денежки из редакции получить? Желаете? Ну, коли хотите, то и валяйте, что в нашей Т. такого-то числа землетрясение было да баба Акулина, извините меня, mesdames, бесстыдника, намедни единым махом шестерых ребят родила…” [tr. below the cut]

7. F. Scott Fitzgerald, “Winter Dreams” ® “Dexter raising himself on his arms was aware of a figure standing at the wheel, of two dark eyes regarding him over the lengthening space of water–then the boat had gone by and was sweeping in an immense and purposeless circle of spray round and round in the middle of the lake. With equal eccentricity one of the circles flattened out and headed back toward the raft.”

8. Fatimah Busu, “The Lovers of Muharram,” trans. Pauline Fan (S) “The Angel of Paradise turns to face west. The flaming red-gold rays of the evening sun saturate the sky above the desert, unfurled in its ochre vastness. He sees the panorama of the sprawling city all the way to the gray-blue sea. And the walls of the city have turned parchment yellow in the dusk. Ships glide, their funnels churning black smoke into the evening air. He sees the pinnacles of skyscrapers strewn against the boundlessness of the galaxy. He sees the network of telegraph wires. He sees the labyrinth of bridges and roads. He sees countless vehicles crisscrossing in all directions. He sees people moving like swarms of ants. He sees everything. He sees all.”

9. Leila Aboulela, “Missing Out” ® “So she, who had once braved tear gas, the crush of running feet, now faced a middle-aged teacher, a jolly woman who had recently travelled to Tunisia for her holidays and come back encased in kaftans and shawls. The teacher gushed at Samra, ‘You must be so relieved that you are here, all that war and famine back home. You must be relieved that you are not there now.’ From such a woman Samra recoiled and like a spoiled stubborn child refused to continue with the course.”

10. Veniamin Kaverin, “Пятый странник” [The Fifth Wanderer] ® “Душа бургомистра, со одной стороны как бы коренастая и неуклюжая, с другой являла вид вполне очаровательный. Она повисла на щипцах с необыкновенной легкостью и переливалась всеми цветами радуги и не-радуги, при свете свечи и лампы.” [tr. below the cut]

11. Ray Bradbury, “Shopping for Death” ® “‘People die every day, psychologically speaking. Some part of them gets tired. And that small part tries to kill off the entire person. For example—.’ He looked about and seized on his first evidence with vast relief-—’there! That light bulb in your bathroom, hung right over the tub on a frayed wire. Someday you’ll slip, make a grab and—pfft!’”

12. Yoko Tawada, “Where Europe Begins,” trans. Susan Bernofsky and Yumi Selden (S) “It was August, and there was no trace of the cold that had stiffened the Creator’s hands. The Siberian tribes mentioned in my book were also nowhere to be seen, for the Trans-Siberian Railroad traverses only those regions populated by Russians — tracing out a path of conquered territory, a narrow extension of Europe.”

13. Charlie Jane Anders, “The Fermi Paradox is Our Business Model” ® “The idea is, you evolve. You develop technology. You fight. You dig up all the metals and radioactive elements out of the ground. As you become more advanced, your population gets bigger, and you fight more. When your civilization gets advanced enough, you fight even harder, until you kill each other off. We don’t even find out you existed until after you’re all dead.”

Rice paddies cover the mountainsides of Yuanyang County, China. Constructed in “steps” by the Hani people for the last 1300 years, the slope of the terraces varies from 15 to 75 degrees with some having as many as 3,000 steps! The stunning colors that you see here are indeed real and result from the presence of water and certain plants within the terraces.

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23°09′32″N, 102°44′41″E

-wash dishes

-make my bed

-clean the bathroom

-fold and put away laundry

-start another load of laundry

-vacuum and mop my room

-find and apply to five more jobs

-eat lunch

-clean out fridge

-eat breakfast