M. Willis Monroe

We had a Thanksgiving dinner last night. The table was: tomatoes and aspargus, mashed potatoes, veggie sausage, butternut squash and desert was a home made apple pie.

I didn’t have a recipe for the pie but with a lot of help from Gillian it came out all right in the end. There’s a few more photos of the dinner here.

Now I have an essay to write but I’m pretty tired. It’s about the Phoenicians and Assyrians.

We had a fancy dress dinner party at our house on Saturday evening. It was great. A bunch of people came and we all ate well.

The next day I went to Quaker Meeting with Peter and then he and I met Chris and Karl at a studio and we all played music for three hours and recorded three songs. You can find the songs here under “Plate Full of Bread”.

I seem to take a lot of night pictures out my window. I think I remarked on that in my last entry. I should really keep my camera more ready as I’m walking around. I’m always seeing thing I wish I could capture.

Sumerian is really hard. I think however I’m on the verge of a higher understanding in Akkadian. I feel the grammar begining to seep it’s way into my brain.

I have something lined up next week which is making me really happy and excited. Let’s hope it goes well. Times like these are so interesting, because it feels like such a deciding point in your future. But I tend to over dramatize things.

Oh and for something computer related I found the first linux related question I ever asked on the internet in the form of an e-mail to a XFree86 mailing list. The post is archived here. It’s hard to believe it’s been four years since I started using linux. I have to say it’s come a very long way since then. The more I think about it the more I think it’s ready for the common computer user.

The railway tracks outside my window are a source of constant amusement. Something interesting is always going on.

The past couple days I’ve been more and more productive. I discovered that if I turn my computer off and put it up on a shelf. My desk then bereft of a time sucking internet device becomes host to: books for studying, my cutting mat for stencil making, music books for singing and fiddle. Today I made a potato, lentil, and leek soup it was quite good. I baked bread to go with it which was nice as always. There’s something great about a good hearty soup and warm fresh bread during the winter.

The SOAS teachers are planning on striking next week in response to the sacking of some of the specialist librarians. I’m interested to see how this turns out, and I kinda wish I knew more about the whole situation. I’ll still have all my UCL classes but it still cuts a large part of my schedule away.

With not much food around the house I made a simple dinner tonight. Chopped tomatoes + onions + rosemary + olive oil + salt + pasta + cheddar cheese = delicious. Were it not for Lucia I’d still be buying tomato sauce at the supermarket, but making your own is so much better.

My Calamine cd came today. It’s really nice. They do the theme song for Sealab 2021. The album is very good but different from that short theme song. They have a new album being sent for printing so it should be out soon.

I really want to do some more programming. Since giving up spyblog last year I haven’t had any big project to work on and develop. I’ve written a few scripts here and there to solve little problems but I’d like to work on something bigger. All the profiling and optimization going on over at Planet Gnome looks like a lot of fun.

Starting a while back here’s a picture of our front step from Halloween. I got back from my lectures mid afternoon and set to work cleaning to the kitchen… about 4 hours in someone rang our doorbell. I answered it thinking it would be Chris, Karl, or Peter. But no it was Trick or Treaters. I quickly apologized for my lack of candy and ran into the kitchen to find something. I ransacked the shelves for something sweet. Finally I found some german cookies still in their wrapper. I assumed they were Karl’s. I brought them back to the kids still waiting and the front door (with their parents I might add), I told them how it was a big secret and they couldn’t tell anybody but these were really really good cookies. Then after they had left I ran down to tescos and bought two tins of candy to give out the the rest of the Trick or Treaters that came. Oh and when Peter got home he and I carved this pumpkin.

This past Monday I set out early in the morning and caught a train to Macynlleth in Wales via Birmingham. Once I got there I took a bus up to Dolgellau and proceeded to hike up Cader Idris, a mountain in Snowdonia National Park. I looked at the weather before leaving and saw that they predicted rain for most of the time I would be there. No matter I thought I’ll make it to the top and hunker down in some shelter. I started climbing and was making great time. I think it took me roughly two and a half hours to get to the summit with my pack and all. Near the top however the weather started to turn much much worse. The skies clouded up and fierce gusts of wind came down the mountain often pushing me off the path, which were quite narrow as well. About three quarters of the way up I ran into a sheppard heading down, he told me it’d be quite blustery up at the top.

I climbed the last tough bit, essientially a cliff of scree, and it began to rain. When I did finally reach the summit it was a flat, bare expanse of grass. The wind was whipping across it so it would’ve been impossible to set up my tent. Already now it was getting darker. I found some rocks and sat down in a bit of shelter. I started putting on all the clothes I had brought with me and covered myself with a poncho and my pack with its rain cover. However even still I was shivering and getting more and more nervous. I stayed up there for a while, but I was getting less and less sure of my situation, and my mental state as well.

Finally a bit after sun down I made the rather rash decision to head all the way back down and try to find a house or a hotel to stay in, because I wasn’t going to last on the mountain. I put on the few clothes I had left in my pack ate a few quick handfuls of peanuts and set off back down the mountain with my flashlight. I figured if I could at least clear the scree I’d be in a much better position. I took the descent very very carefully. I knew in my tired and cold state that my decision making skills couldn’t be trusted to well. So I approached each step with the utmost caution.

The mountain is supposed to make you a poet or mad if you sleep a night on its summit, I think I opted for the latter without even doing it.

Eventually I made it to the bottom of the cliff and continued on down the path, I still had four fifths on the path left before I reached a road or a house. It was essientally dark by now. The streams I had forded coming up were now swollen from the rain. I ended up throwing my pack and jumping over most of them. A few slips, a twisted ankle, and some cuts later I made it to the base of the trail where there just happened to be a little hotel. I came in and the proprieter and two patrons were sitting around the bar. He offered my a room and I changed out of my wetest clothes in favor of the less wet, and went down for dinner.

The next next day I had a very nice breakfast and the owner gave me a ride into town. I caught a bus back to Macynlleth and the train back to London. I learned a lot from this trip. I’ll be back to visit and hopefully sleep on the mountain again, but not before the weather becomes warmer and drier.

The rest of the photos from the trip are here.

Oh yeah it’s been a year since I started baking bread. I haven’t bought bread in that time either. I’ve been trying to subsist entirely on my own bread, and it’s worked.

Life is good. I’ve discovered how much I love my course and all my classes. I spent six hours in the library at the Institute of Archaeology translating two Sumerian royal inscription tablets. I met with one of my lecturers and he gave me advice on applying to digs, so hopefully I’ll be working in Turkey this summer near Diyarbakir.

Reading week is next week, and Ramadan ends tomorrow. My plan is to take a train to Wales and hike up Cadair Idris and sleep on top and then come home.

I had some other things to write but I forgot.