Long(er) time, no posts!

Man, college leeches all of the time out of your life. Good think to know, though--all the same, apologies for my inactivity. As you may (or may not) have seen, the winter snows have come to New England, and they've come in force. This is an image of how winter decided to deviously destroy my sight out of my dorm room window. Dastardly! Heaven only knows what this harsh winter means--or rather, why it has taken hold in the way that it has.
My time at college has allowed me some sitting and thinking time (though truly, more thinking than sitting), and those thoughts have manifested into a sort of ideology which is this: nature provides for that which is needed. This doesn't mean that nature will blow money from a bank to the poor of the world (I'm sure some big business or bureaucratic batch of bourgeois bankers has some kind of defense against such things anyways), but rather, it means that nature gives out the cure to many ailments we have. Take for example cold season. I don't know how cold season has been in the rest of the world (and that could be the undoing of my idea), but here in New England, it's been a bad year for a cold/flu that wipes out the voice, comes on with a migraine, and hangs on for a couple of weeks--this sickness among others. Oddly enough, last year was an amazing year for elderberries, which actually grew in places they never had before. Elderberries are good for immune system boosts, so I wonder, is this one of those coincidences? Food for thought, that is.

Apart from the time to sit and think, it has been the time to sit and carve. I made about four or five little wooden priests over the course of this year, among other small project things--Just something to keep the hands busy while reading, and something that's easier to work with than making riveted chainmail (that was an adventurous mistake). A pine block, and about an hour of leisure work with the knife, and out pops a new friar, ready to stoop over my desk and frown at my penmanship in a most discerning manner. In truth, they don't do that, but I'd like to think that they disapprove of my handwriting in a clerical manner.

This little hobby carving is fun, but it's much like having a piece of chocolate--you only crave more after the first bite. For me, it's so tempting to spend my entire summer carving, jointing, and making little bits of everything that I can--tables, chairs, trunks, clothes--everything. I suppose this little taste of creative work has been a little bit venomous, but only in the best of ways. I crave more creative work with my hands, and the freedom to go up and down mountains in the fall, snowshoeing in the winter, frolicking in the spring, traveling in the summer, and all the while making new discoveries and crafts. Alas! Those times are past for now. In their place have come the times of tedious teacher's trials and tests, of witty and wild writing, and more importantly, stupendous slipping of seconds in the semester. We're halfway through the second month of the year, friends! My how time files, when you're up to your neck in your work.

And oh how we should cherish it.

Goodnight, People. Enjoy the final acts of winter!
~Andrew