Frohes Neues Jahr

my life in alaska seems like it belongs to another, past life. even czech started sounding familiar after just 3 days in prague. it's inspiring and humbling how easily we accommodate to new circumstances. i feel like a chameleon, even my ambitions are shifting like venetian cloud cover.

i learned once that when faced with a large picture, the brain first fixates on a small piece, a corner, a few pixels, one feature on a face. the accumulation of these small parts eventually forms the entire image, but you can't see the whole of it at once - it's too much information for us to compute and handle. all the colors and lines in one picture are too big a job for our mind, let alone all the places and possibilities active or latent in the world. my life has never been so open as now; i could move and do whatever i want before studies dictate it once more, and the freedom is paralyzing. when i am confronted with the mission of figuring this out, my little brain cells are running around freaking out and then decide to hell with it and cower in a corner hiding from their job of thinking. i'm picturing a mob of people after a huge event, maybe something extraordinary like the second (or first, if you're jewish) coming of christ or aliens landing on earth, and there is just a mass explosion of energy being created in a thousand directions with some people meditating or partying or wailing or getting their shotguns. i guess i would be the one who hides under the bed and crosses my fingers. that's a really disappointing thought. i would have hoped i was the kind of person who went out and grabbed the bull by the horns, just up and walked to jesus or that alien and said hello, how do you do, take me with you. or something. i don't know if that came out at all the way i meant - you'll have to forgive me as i'm a little drunk on wine.