Wishes, observations, and a review

I wish I was a master gardener.
I wish I knew all the best fishing spots.
I wish I knew more knots.
I wish I talked less.
I wish I loved more deeply and with less thought.
I wish I remembered more from the books I read.
I wish I read more poetry.
I wish I wrote more letters.
I wish I kept up with old professors.

My observation is that the nexus of my hypocrisy lies mainly in my inability to conquer my own materialism whilst simultaneously espousing a minimalist, anti-consumerist agenda.

In other words, I wish I bought less stuff. Happiness comes from experiences and interactions with loved ones, facilitated by a simple set of belongings which exhibit a set of practical and aesthetic characteristics in keeping with the personality of the belonger-to.

I also recently finished reading a book entitled A Sense of Ending by Julian Barnes. It was a really good book, and the ending shocked me in a way that I've come to associate more with movies than books. It's hard for the plot of a book to sneak up on you, I think, but this one did. Quite a good read!

I also recently finished reviewing my ex-girlfriend's thesis project for her Master's Degree in Epidemiology. Really more of a formality than anything else, she had already submitted it, and she has been and will continue to be much smarter than me anyway. Just like letting an old dog bark and pretend to be tough, it's good to allow outdated people to exercise their old tendencies. I found almost zero problems with it, but I did notice one detail which made me smile. When a city was named, the state and country were named after. So it would go; City, State, USA. Except it was the same city, state, and country every time. So the paper was full of USA. I laughed.

Here's a photograph I took at Shenandoah National Park, VA, USA: