It’s been a few months now since I was last in India, and I’m definitely missing the simultaneous calm, chaos, and contrast.
#mybrain
I want to consume all the day’s news from around the world.
I want to read every interesting book.
I want to be friends with royalty and gang members and presidents and bank robbers and financial analysts and relief workers and doctors and journalists.
I want to understand physics and history and psychology.
I want to read all the analyses and be informed of every trend.
I want to see all the world’s beauty and photograph it well.
I want to make great art and play every instrument.
I want to be a pirate and a spy and a ninja and a conductor and an architect.
I want to meet everyone,
and know everything,
and do everything,
I can’t,
but I want to be capable of anything.
ZY: hmm….shoot. really shoulda made that Congo clarification
ZY: any other countries have specific ways of “announcing” them?
ZY: like Ethiopia is ok being Ethiopia
ZY: but Liberia should be Republic of Liberia, etc.
BM: Ethiopia should stay Ethiopia
BM: definitely use Republic of Liberia
BM: there is also another way of differentiating the Congos by their capital
BM: Congo-Brazzaville = Congo
BM: Congo-Kinshassa = DRC = Democratic Republic of the Congo
ZY: ty
BM: Republic of Liberia is only for formal communiqués
BM: Liberia is the standard reference
BM: Obviously there is Sudan and South Sudan
BM: and Sudan is not referred to as North Sudan; it’s still Sudan
BM: you can say ‘the Sudans’ when referring to both
BM: Niger is not pronounced like nigger
BM: it’s French: Nigér
ZY: Neezher
BM: sure that
BM: there is Guinea, and then Guinea-Bissau
BM: different countries. they are neighbors
BM: capitol of GB is Bissau
BM: GB is its street name
BM: sometimes people pronounce Sierra Leone with the pronouced E at the end but I haven’t caught on to it
BM: Côte d’Ivoire is the French name, it is Ivory Coast in English - but still goes by Côte d’Ivoire. they speak french
BM: Tanzania is pronounced Tan•zá•ní•ah by westerners and more like Tan•ZAN•y•uh by Tanzanians (95% positive on this, but it’s so widely mispronounced I think people go with it)
BM: Djibouti is like djuh•bööty
BM: And Eritrea is: Er•uh•TRAY•uh, not Er•ee•tree•ah
I could still be completely wrong.
there is no creating.
only rearranging.
the master rearrangers
are the ones who win.
Was cleaning out old notebooks; found this:
[background, I wrote this in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, en route to South Africa, on Semester at Sea]
3:45am | 13 October 2011
Title: “a thought.”
My heart is still in Ghana, but my brain is in South Africa.
Possibly the worst thing you could do is take me around the world, and introduce me to all these problems which I can solve … because now, I have a to do list.
I can stay awake for as long as I can stay asleep.
I can send emails for as long as I can avoid them.
I can stay in school for as long as I can ditch class.
I can talk to people for as long as I can ignore them.
I can read books for as long as I can watch airplanes.
length of time for all activities above = forever.
water. and light.
I could probably play with these two things all day long.
It’s peculiar how much weight we put in words from another; if you can quote someone else in conversation, your argument suddenly becomes heavier. How is this possible..?
