it still moves

it is amazing to me how difficult the mere fact of co-existence with other values-oriented persons can be. my friend sam, for example, who can be very chilled out and silly especially a lot of the time, is so extremely tough on the subjects of proper behavior and the meanings of the way we carry ourselves and treat other people. he and i often get into seriously frustrating arguments over our very disparate particularities of how we think people should deal with one another, but i admire him very much for these differences. he is intensely loyal, very aware of where his ability to give to others does and should end, and is deferentially polite in spite of everything, including his pride and testosterone and preferences. his values can create such real human drama, so far from melodrama or triviality, illuminating to me the endless possibilities for complexity to develop between two individuals, despite our shared nature.

to give another example of what i mean and what i've been noticing, here is something close to a conversation i had today with dane, who is from guyana in south america and is here getting a masters in robotics - and did his undergraduate degree at some school i've never heard of in pennsylvania; this took place at the international student centre (isc), meaning in quite a public environment:
sarah: so dane, what's new?
dane: i'm trying to think of an explanation for something.
s: an explanation for what?
d: to settle something with a friend.
s: oh, did you have a row or something?
d: yes, we did.
s: what about?
d: jealousy.
s: you mean like the concept or something that you did?
d: something that i did.
s: i see. well, that's quite a lot of news. most people just say "nothing."
d: *chuckle* well what is new with you? nothing?
s: no, actually quite a lot. but it's a very long story.

incidentally, this problem of co-existence and dealing with collectivity and social faith was pretty much the entire point of 900-page middlemarch, and really, it is quite worth a book of that length. it's all over the place in my seminar's latest book as well, dostoevsky's notes from underground, though that is more about dealing with the co-existence in spite of our hyper-self-consciousness. each of our interactions is so generative, so fascinating on some level, for what it does and does not mean. it is meaning as a mere human construct, rather than something that inherently exists in our surroundings; thinking about this gives one both a sense of control and of inevitability. i find it quite celebratory.

enough ruminations for the moment. here is a list of one sentence updates on various aspects of my life:

- this weekend, to get out of the flat, josh and i are taking a cheesy and very scottish day tour through a company called - guess what - haggis to what is supposed to be an especially pretty part of scotland called loch lomond.

-my tutor for my social anthropology tutorial is horrible and it doesn't help that this discipline consists of pieces of information presented to pose more questions rather than provide any answers, a situation that he does not know how to navigate at all.

-i've embarked on an exchange of music and books with a literary english boy in the flat below named barry; we share many tastes, and though he is a bit manic and constantly reeks of cigarettes, i enjoy talking to him.

-i spend a fair amount of time at the isc, and i can't decide if it is strategic socially or just lazy, because it is a constant, comfortable place to go and meet people, but the interactions are thus far confined to that space.

-i have so many emails to write, oh my god.

-i am quite spent and need to go to bed very much, to prepare for my third early rise in a row this week.
goodnight all.