silva rerum

Ambition should be made of sterner stuff

Recently, there has been much stress building in my life due to several factors. I’ve been avoiding posting anything on the blog because I do get a little cross with myself for being an insufferable complainer. Of course, I’ve also read about the cathartic effects of maintaining a journal – how it alleviates symptoms of stress and helps people cope – but that doesn’t stop me from feeling guilty for complaining. Perhaps I have made my bed and now, in it, I must lie?

I suppose I might have bitten off more than I can chew. Work’s tragically stressful, as are my other extracurricular commitments. If I seem even paler than usual, it might just be the toxic stress getting to me. With school starting, I just hope I can manage to strike a balance among everything. I’m not hopeful.

My self-prescription? A vacation, a real one, the first one in a very long time.

Currently reading Beowulf translations, specifically the Heaney and the Liuzza.

[…]

Soon he found, who in former days,
harmful in heart and hated of God,
on many a man such murder wrought,
that the frame of his body failed him now.
For him the keen-souled kinsman of Hygelac
held in hand; hateful alive
was each to other. The outlaw dire
took mortal hurt; a mighty wound
showed on his shoulder, and sinews cracked,
and the bone-frame burst. To Beowulf now
the glory was given, and Grendel thence
death-sick his den in the dark moor sought,
noisome abode: he knew too well
that here was the last of life, an end
of his days on earth…

I will be briefly skimming over the Ecclesiastical History of the English Peoples and La Morte D’Arthur later on. I like Everyman but we’ll see if I get to it – I want to see if I can read some of The Book of Margery Kempe. Hurray for speed-reading!