i am sitting by the fire with a scarf wrapped
around my neck, a glass jar of roobios tea,
and pile of reads that i am very happy
i managed to hunt down:

1) a visual cultures of oceania reader,
thrown into the dumpster by an old housemate
after taking the course. i'm already a few pages in
and even got out a pen & wrote down notes/

underlined interesting things to think about.

for example, i learned that french naval explorer d'urville first made distinctions
between polynesia, micronesia, and melanesia in the 1800s
but we should approach looking at the regions as "zones of cultural activities that shade each other."
i'm reminded of b. anderson's idea of imagined communities
and e. said's Orientalism.
(holy roman emperor! i just wikied b. anderson and he was born in kunming, yunnan. which is absurdly random. its a beautiful city! filled with solar paneled buildings, flower markets, lots of heroin trafficking & HIV transmitting; i visited there one summer!)

2) the bone people by keri hulme,
a fictional book that hopefully will offer me some insight about
the "zone where Maori and European New Zealand meet"
(i am determined to not show up
100% ignorant about a land[of the thin white cloud] i'll be living in for ~6 months...!)

3) an arthur picture book about teeth.
i love arthur. i've loved him since
2nd grade and always will.
hopefully this book will calm my fear
of all my teeth falling out.

4) camus' the stranger,
i'm hoping i successfully finish this one.
there are so many books i wish to read. and there is time; i will MAKE time.

there are too many texts out there.
we are lucky to be literate.
my grandma taught herself how to read & write
when she was (i think) in her 20s.
before that, her life consisted of: eating bark & grass, taking care of her ~10 siblings and war.