Friday, January 25, 2013

friends, monks, and a mandala

I just got home from a late sushi dinner with these two ladies.  This hardly even shows us, but I've always loved this picture.  The blonde one, that's Laura, and she's going to Paris super soon.  So, being old and dear friends (we've all been friends since the 7th grade!) we had to have a bit of a girl's night.  Ah, it's so nice to have friends that you've had for a really long time.  That's how you really can tell how much you've grown, but also how much you've stayed the same.
By the way, do you think I could fit in in England?  I've really been having a hard time deciding where to study abroad, but today I was thinking, "well, I'm an English major...where better to study English literature than England?"  Kind of a stupid revelation, but seriously.  (Plus, there are almost no study abroad programs to the Netherlands.)
 
 

At the first university I went to, I got to see Buddhist monks make a mandala.  It was really really interesting, and as you can see, the mandala was beautiful.  At the time I was still intrigued by Eastern philosophies, but last semester I took an Eastern Phil class and I just lost all interest in it.  I think philosophy classes do that to you: it's significantly more interesting before and after, but during it just it boring as hell.  That's why I decided to stay an English major and abandon philosophy.  And honestly, I'm so much more interested in reading the Bible nowadays than various Eastern texts.  The Bible is just chalk full of crazy good stories and literary devices.  I'm not interested in Christianity as a religion for myself, but in the texts as literature.  Nonethless, getting to see this mandala in the making was inspiring!  The monks were so peaceful and calming.
 

 


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