Certainly not live (of any quality) but these days we have access to it on satelite broadcasts and (increasingly) video internet broadcasts.

Are you still with Unisa? What is the broadband situation in your area - do you have reasonably-priced access to DSL or cable internet?

I was last there just more than three years ago, and what made a big impression was that the general costs (except for housing) did not seem to be much different from here, while the salaries were nowhere near in comparison.

Personally, I have become more and more interested in comparative literature (a little of which is reflected in my library, among the glut of books from earlier years) and the impact of technology on society, engineering ethics - that sort of thing. (Those books I still have to load.)

The intersection of out libraries as reflected here is relatively small (and rather eclectic) - I found you with a couple of intermediate hops as a result of an initial search on Thomas Merton; specifically, I was trying to track down a poem of his which I've read years ago, and was looking for a likely candidate to ask "Do you happen to know which poem this is of which I can recite part of a stanza?"

It was a poem about the farmland around the monastery (as much of his poems were) during the autumn activities, and one snippet has remained with me now for more than 15 years. It is a disembodied snippet though, and I would like to give it its home again. This is the way it goes (more or less), speaking of the fall colors, I think:

"this is the way our hearts take fire
and burn us down on pyres of prayer
with too much glory"

posted by Sivani at 9:32 am (EST) on Aug 26, 2006