Yesterday, after a slow start, I managed to work some more on my job talk. I typed in an outline and did some thinking. Today I need to flesh it out and actually do some of the research.
Had leftover chili and corn tortillas for lunch, and must register a correction to yesterday's post: the big beans didn't totally dissolve this time, as I found a couple. They are huge, maybe favas? Lately, I have also been enjoying lowfat cottage cheese and a spoonful of jam for "lunch dessert."
For some reason, I got behind and had to rush to get to U of C in time for paleography class. I had to sprint two blocks to catch the #6 bus (but I did catch up with it)! Once there, though, I enjoyed the class very much. Paleography seems to be a field that consists mostly of accreted bits of knowledge, with a few general principles that have slowly been developed. Sometimes I feel like it's just one damn thing after another, but other times I pick up interesting bits of trivia. Yesterday, for example, I learned that the character for "many" 多 (duo1), which is always explained as two "evenings" (on the principle that "night after night" is "a lot" of nights) is actually two chunks of meat. Presumably TWO pieces of meat is "a lot" of meat. Furthermore, the character for meat, 肉 (rou4), was often used in place of the "many" character. So instead of "many sons" you could have "meat sons" (though it would have had a different pronunciation, and still would have meant "many"). Isn't that odd?
On the way home, I started thinking about my Yijing diagram. Every few years, I get started thinking about it and how to make it--a diagram that illustrates the paths of change from one hexagram to another, organized by degrees: so two hexagrams that are only different by one line will be directly connected, but two hexagrams that differ by two lines will be connected through some other hexagram. It's easy to think about but hard to draw. After I got home I kept working on it, even temporarily sucking Pocket of Bolts into the endeavor. A major breakthrough came when we started representing the hexagrams with two digit numbers instead of drawing them all out each time. The numerical representation also helped in recognizing patterns that aren't necessarily obvious from just the hexagrams. Also, they are faster to write. I got closer to finishing than ever before, but still had a very hard time finding a symmetrical and aesthetically pleasing way of arranging the row of 20 (hexagrams that are half weak and half strong). Reminder to self: this project always turns out to be a time thief. Stop spending time on it!
As of yesterday, Pocket of Bolts and I have been married for a third of a year, i.e., four months. Coincidentally, the heat came on in our apartment yesterday too, so we got to celebrate the occasion by being nice and toasty warm.
By the way, the Asian news list I'm on has been having a discussion thread regarding the echo wall at the Temple of Heaven in Beijing. Here is a very cool looking old picture of a debonair Australian fellow trying it out. And here is a panorama view. I have very fond memories of going to the echo wall with Pocket of Bolts and him figuring out the trick.
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