six noticings:

1. Leaving things to the last minute – things like walking down to the bus stop, actually writing (and not just planning and researching) assignments, telling people things, getting out of bed, taking dinner out of the oven et cetera – makes life a bit more stressful than it needs to be.

♥

2. Sometimes, no matter how many times you notice things, you just can’t get them to sink in. The ‘leaving things to the last minute is a bad idea’ thing is an example of this. It is easier to talk about things than to actually do them. This year I will learn. I will.  

(I won’t.)

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3. Orange juice is the best cure for thirstiness.

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4. The reason studying English Literature is so wonderful is because it is actually a little bit of everything: history, theology, psychology, sociology, philosophy, what it means to be a human (not sure what ‘ology’ that falls under...all of them probably). After carrying about my Renaissance Literature anthology for the past four months it feels strange to stick it in my bookcase. So long Spenser, Sidney and friends. Hello Defoe, Fielding and Austen.

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5. This sentence:

‘There is as much difference between us and ourselves as there is between ourselves and others’ 

~ Michel de Montaigne, 1634.

I came across it in an essay on the Renaissance notion of identity and ‘the self’. (‘The self’ has been one of the most interesting concepts to look at last semester.) And I agree. If I find it so difficult to understand and know myself – that curious and infuriating person that is both too quiet and too opinionated, both thoughtful and rash, can feel about fourteen things at the same time without knowing which one to listen to – then how is it possible to ever actually know anyone else? I suppose it isn’t. I suppose that is why love, be it romantic or not, is so frightening: it is about relinquishing control and just trusting. It is about being brave.

♥

6. This song (‘Please Speak Well of Me’ by the Weepies).

(Pictures by Eveline Tarunadjaja).