Here's an iceberg

Plus a poem:

When it's over, I want to say: all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

When it's over, I don't want to wonder
if I have made of my life something particular, and real.
I don't want to find myself sighing and frightened,
or full of argument.

I don't want to end up simply having visited this world.

That's Mary Oliver, from When Death Comes.

We talked about the Harlem Renaissance in my class on Saturday, and read a couple of Langston Hughes poems, which the students loved. One student suggested that they could memorize a poem in English as a homework assignment, so I spent yesterday putting together 15 poems/excerpts that I think they would understand and enjoy. (Not necessarily to memorize, although if anyone wants to do that I'd be thrilled.)

One more dive

And that's a 10 out of 10 for form, a 7 out of 10 for being too far away and too hard to see against the rocky background.

Before and after

Although I missed the actual dive on this one. They're speedy little buggers.

Sunday bird blogging

I might not have captured any good shots of penguins porpoising, but I did manage to capture this gentoo mid-dive.

Admittedly, a diving penguin is much easier to photograph because they don't just pop up out of nowhere.

Bodyguards

Fun fact: although penguins get much of the water they need from their diet, they can and do drink salt water. They have a gland by their eyes that excretes excess salt from their bodies.

This quartet of penguins (yes, there are four—count the beaks) look like they're standing guard while their friend takes a drink.

Penguin Feet

I offer this closeup of gentoo feet in Cierva Cove for no other reason than it makes me smile.

And more spooky Antarctica

Also near Neko Harbor.

The light changed as fast as the weather did. It went from dazzlingly bright—if overcast—to sepulchral and back again very quickly.

Sunday bird blogging

Gentoos living the good life, in Mikkelsen Harbor.

More spooky Antarctica

Mikkelsen Harbor.

Saturday reflections

Neko Harbor, and a picture that really shows how spooky Antarctica can be, with the mists draping over the mountains and the water that looks almost black in the dim light.

Thai food near me

I passed this restaurant when I was walking home from a doctor's appointment this morning and I laughed out loud (always welcome these days.)

I googled “thai food near me” when I got home and this restaurant was indeed at the top of the search results though it's actually on the other side of Manhattan. Very clever.

Sunday bird blogging

 This seems appropriate. In Cierva Cove.

I'm shattered

Well, that's an exaggeration for me personally, but less so for these remains of a large mirror that until late last night sat on top of some shelves in my apartment. (Or our honor and reputation as a country, though that is not something I have the energy to think about today.)

Yesterday after having made it to class at the last possible minute because I could not find my phone, I got a text during lunch because of fraudulent charges on the credit card I use most often. They're issuing a new card, and while I'm grateful that it's being taken care of, it means I will have to go through the tedious process of updating all the automatic charges.

Another series of texts late that afternoon informed me that I am an "ignorant moron" who should leave the USA for Ukraine. This was apparently in response to some texts the previous day on the teachers' group chat, expressing our anger over the White House meeting and joking that we should leave and open a language school in Europe. This was unnerving, to say the least. It was not only the malicious tone of the texts, but the fact that our chat had been intercepted and read by some unknown person. (Only those of us who had actually commented in the chat the previous day received the texts.) I know SMS texts are not really secure, and it's not as though we were plotting a rebellion but in this political climate you don't want strangers looking over your shoulder.

We set up a new group on WhatsApp, I watched some TV and tried to relax, and then broke the mirror on my way to the bathroom before bed.

Yes, that person vacuuming at midnight last night was me.