Well, the offers are in, negotiations have occurred, and we have a decision. We are moving to Maryland next year! I am crossing my fingers that this will be a permanent move for us and we can really put some roots down. Now the fun of arranging a multi-state move begins. Luckily we know the area really well so house hunting is much easier than it ever has been with our other moves.
Cora's excited to go back to Maryland and get back to the beach. Scott is excited to get back to fresh crab cakes. I am excited to get back somewhere less flat, more scenic, and closer to water. Schatzi is excited to get back to Lake Artemesia and riding shotgun all over town. Daphne has no clue what is going on, but she is a total fish so I imagine she'll enjoy the beach and the great UMD pools as well. Also, I love DC so getting back to the city will be great.
Cora's all signed up for school next year and I started the ball rolling on setting up a Daisy Scout troop for her class. Now I need to start looking for a little part-time library work, but I think I have something that is a good possibility there too. All in all, things really couldn't have ended up much better for me and the girls. I'm hoping the job ends up being really good for Scott too.
Showing posts with label DC. Show all posts
Showing posts with label DC. Show all posts
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Thursday, March 5, 2009
Spring Cleaning
It looks like Spring may be arriving in Champaign. I think we may hit 60 today, though the gale force winds are kind of putting a damper on enjoying the weather. Scott is in College Park interviewing with CASL (cross fingers) and I am longing for the DC area, which is quite possibly the most beautiful place on earth in Spring. Right now they are predicting peak bloom for the cherry blossoms from April 3-9. This picture doesn't do it justice. It looks like the world is covered in cotton candy and snow but it is actually flowers everywhere. Anyways, I miss Maryland and I'm hopeful...
South Africa is sending the contract documents via courier, so we should know better what we are dealing with in terms of that offer very soon. I hope we will know where we are heading in the next couple of weeks. It will be good just to know.
I just finished reading Roberto Bolano's 2666. I'm not done processing yet, but this is an important book. How important is what I'm having a hard time judging. I am fairly confident it is the best novel I've read that's been written after 1980. That may not sound like it is saying a lot if you know about my distaste for most recent literature, but there have been some bright points in the last 3 decades, so it isn't a hollow compliment. By best I mean it is best as judged by a combination of writing and importance, not that it has been my favorite read. It is not a happy or light read at all, though it does read really fast for being roughly the same size as War and Peace.
Most of the critical reviews I've seen have been almost fawning. I think this is partly due to the author being dead. I think the tone might be a little more measured if the author was living. The book isn't without flaws, though I suppose that gets mitigated by the fact that this work was in draft when Bolano died.
My trouble in judging the book is coming from a combination of the style of the book itself and the author's death. So the book is actually 5 books revolving around a central location, Santa Teresa (which is a thinly veiled Ciudad Juarez). The place unifies the work, but the place itself is not really the point. While the book seems pretty place-driven, much like Under the Volcano and One Hundred Years of Solitude, which really seem to be the parents of 2666 in many ways, I don't really think the place is much other than a stand in for what the author is really focusing on. Bolano doesn't attack his central theme directly, nor does he ever explicitly articulate it. Reading the books is like examining from a distance the concentric circles that ripple in water after an object is thrown in. Part of my dilemma in judging this book is that all we have are the circles so we have to guess what it was that was thrown in. That is easy enough -- death. But I'm not positive whether it was death as a boulder and the ripples are tsunami sized or whether it was death as a pebble. I think most of the reviews I've read have taken it on faith that Bolano threw a boulder here, but I think that is because of some assumed insight or intimacy with the topic because he was dying as he wrote. I'm not really sure the book itself bears that out. I'm struggling to see what is new here, what is different, what is unique and important about whatever it was Bolano threw in. I'm not sure I'm there yet. The book bears rereading and regardless of whether it was a boulder or a pebble, this book is masterfully done and important in the canon of great works I think. I haven't decided whether it goes in my top 100 ever though. Still on the fence on that one. At any rate, I recommend it. And I'd love to chat about it with anyone else who reads it.
South Africa is sending the contract documents via courier, so we should know better what we are dealing with in terms of that offer very soon. I hope we will know where we are heading in the next couple of weeks. It will be good just to know.
I just finished reading Roberto Bolano's 2666. I'm not done processing yet, but this is an important book. How important is what I'm having a hard time judging. I am fairly confident it is the best novel I've read that's been written after 1980. That may not sound like it is saying a lot if you know about my distaste for most recent literature, but there have been some bright points in the last 3 decades, so it isn't a hollow compliment. By best I mean it is best as judged by a combination of writing and importance, not that it has been my favorite read. It is not a happy or light read at all, though it does read really fast for being roughly the same size as War and Peace.
Most of the critical reviews I've seen have been almost fawning. I think this is partly due to the author being dead. I think the tone might be a little more measured if the author was living. The book isn't without flaws, though I suppose that gets mitigated by the fact that this work was in draft when Bolano died.
My trouble in judging the book is coming from a combination of the style of the book itself and the author's death. So the book is actually 5 books revolving around a central location, Santa Teresa (which is a thinly veiled Ciudad Juarez). The place unifies the work, but the place itself is not really the point. While the book seems pretty place-driven, much like Under the Volcano and One Hundred Years of Solitude, which really seem to be the parents of 2666 in many ways, I don't really think the place is much other than a stand in for what the author is really focusing on. Bolano doesn't attack his central theme directly, nor does he ever explicitly articulate it. Reading the books is like examining from a distance the concentric circles that ripple in water after an object is thrown in. Part of my dilemma in judging this book is that all we have are the circles so we have to guess what it was that was thrown in. That is easy enough -- death. But I'm not positive whether it was death as a boulder and the ripples are tsunami sized or whether it was death as a pebble. I think most of the reviews I've read have taken it on faith that Bolano threw a boulder here, but I think that is because of some assumed insight or intimacy with the topic because he was dying as he wrote. I'm not really sure the book itself bears that out. I'm struggling to see what is new here, what is different, what is unique and important about whatever it was Bolano threw in. I'm not sure I'm there yet. The book bears rereading and regardless of whether it was a boulder or a pebble, this book is masterfully done and important in the canon of great works I think. I haven't decided whether it goes in my top 100 ever though. Still on the fence on that one. At any rate, I recommend it. And I'd love to chat about it with anyone else who reads it.
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