Sooo, procrastinating from a paper that was due yesterday. *headdesk* What's wrong with me? Senioritis or what?
But anyway, I figured that since this is my travel blog, I should tell you where I've been so far, and what's better than a visual aid? Thus, for your viewing enjoyment, I present a MAP!:
And there you have it, my travels thus far. Currently I am (unfortunately) in America, as I'm finishing up college, but I hope to rectify this sad state of affairs soon. More on that as news comes; I don't want to jinx myself.
I've left the country three times (well, kinda four). The first was when I was 17 with my family, and the second was when I was 18, a solo backpacking trip through Europe for two months. All the maroon European countries are because of those two trips.
The summer when I was 19, I went to the Thai-Burmese border to teach English to refugees for 2 months. I only entered Burma for an afternoon, because it was required in order to renew one's visa, which expires each month if you don't have a work visa. (Since my teaching work was, technically, illegal, since the refugees were there illegally, I didn't have a work visa.) I do not endorse tourism to Burma, because the tourism infrastructure has been built largely by their extremely corrupt government, and the tourists' money tends to be directly funneled into this government. Trust me, not a good thing.
Before I got to Thailand, I spent three days in Tokyo, Japan, on a fortuitous layover.
After I got back from Thailand, I went to stay in Canada for a few weeks.
And there you have it-- my travel history thus far. Hope to add to that list of countries before too long!
Saturday, April 19, 2008
Tennyson's "Ulysses"
As some of you might have figured out, the title of my blog is a reference to Tennyson's "Ulysses", which is probably my favorite poem of all time. So I think it is appropriate for my first post to be that poem.
Ulysses, Tennyson
Ulysses, Tennyson
It little profits that an idle king,
By this still hearth, among these barren crags,
Match'd with an aged wife, I mete and dole
Unequal laws unto a savage race,
That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.
I cannot rest from travel; I will drink
Life to the lees. All times I have enjoy'd
Greatly, have suffer'd greatly, both with those
That loved me, and alone; on shore, and when
Thro' scudding drifts the rainy Hyades
Vext the dim sea. I am become a name;
For always roaming with a hungry heart
Much have I seen and known,-- cities of men
And manners, climates, councils, governments,
Myself not least, but honor'd of them all,--
And drunk delight of battle with my peers,
Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.
I am a part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethro'
Gleams that untravell'd world whose margin fades
For ever and for ever when I move.
How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use!
As tho' to breathe were life! Life piled on life
Were all too little, and of one to me
Little remains; but every hour is saved
From that eternal silence, something more,
A bringer of new things; and vile it were
For some three suns to store and hoard myself,
And this gray spirit yearning in desire
To follow knowledge like a sinking star,
Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.
This is my son, mine own Telemachus,
to whom I leave the sceptre and the isle,--
Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfill
This labor, by slow prudence to make mild
A rugged people, and thro' soft degrees
Subdue them to the useful and the good.
Most blameless is he, centred in the sphere
Of common duties, decent not to fail
In offices of tenderness, and pay
Meet adoration to my household gods,
When I am gone. He works his work, I mine.
There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail;
There gloom the dark, broad seas. My mariners,
Souls that have toil'd, and wrought, and thought with me,--
That ever with a frolic welcome took
The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed
Free hearts, free foreheads,-- you and I are old;
Old age hath yet his honor and his toil.
Death closes all; but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.
The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks;
The long day wanes; the slow moon climbs; the deep
Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends.
'T is not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down;
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are,--
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
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