seeing stars

I just read a heartbreaking journal entry written by one of my students. For Thanksgiving, I asked them to write about what they are most thankful for (I know that was awhile ago, but I only collected journals twice during the semester and am just finishing the last little stack of them tonight). This student wrote that he is most thankful for the sky. He wrote about laying around watching the sky as a child in the countryside, counting stars with his grandfather on summer nights, then wrote about how the sky is grey now and he can't see the stars under all the city lights. He is thankful for the sky because it gave him a happy childhood, showed him the beauty of nature, and teaches him that some things are very rare and easily broken and should be cherished. "I have lost the blue sky, I don't want to lose other 'blue sky' any more."

Tonight walking to dinner with Jens and Sarah were talking about how I am still grading journals, since I can't bring myself to do them all at once and thus it seems like I am constantly grading them and have been grading them for ever. I mentioned how mind-numbing it can be to go through too many in a row, and we joked that I shouldn't let my students know that a little piece of my heart dies every time I have to grade a journal. Usually that is not true, but maybe it was for this one.

It can be easy to forget about the stars when you can't see them every night. I miss them. That was one of the most wonderful things about climbing Mount Hua (beginning of October, still haven't blogged about it, photos at least to come very soon!): I could see the stars, and they looked amazing.

So for the benefit of all of us, here is a photo of the Milky Way taken by my newspaper-photographer-turned-recreational-astronomer uncle:

(Don't steal his picture for anything other than personal use [i.e. looking at it and remembering how good life is; Uncle Jerry says "I find it gives me a sense of scale to any problems/frustrations"], but if you do, at least give credit and good karma to Jerry Telfer.)

In other news, I hope everyone has been enjoying the holiday season and is looking forward to another new year!

It was a little weird not being home for Christmas, but I had a lot of fun celebrating it here. Mostly it just felt like a completely different holiday, which was pretty exciting, though I'll look forward to having Christmas-as-I-know-it again next year. Still, there was lots of merriment and good food and good company and a small mountain of presents (my mom went a bit overboard -- thanks!!!), which is what any good holiday is made of (except for the presents -- a good holiday doesn't actually need presents).

I leave in three days for Taiwan, where I will spend a week and a half, followed by a week back in Xi'an and surrounding areas with Steve, followed by a solid month of travel to such exciting destinations as Chengdu, Thailand, and Cambodia (specifically, Angkor Wat!!). I'm hoping to do some serious blogging catch-up before I leave, as I'll obviously have a LOT more to say when I get back, but I can make no real guarantees. I'm also hoping to write all of the long emails I have been owing people (if you've sent me an email and haven't heard back, you know who you are), but again, no guarantees. So if you don't hear from me, know that I'm thinking of all of you and missing you and wishing we were together in real life so you wouldn't have to be tortured by my agonizingly slow blog and email response rates. I am 15 hours in the future and running out of time!