Wednesday; Gaudeamus igitur; Graduations;

My daughter and my grandsons.

Both my grandsons have finished their student life, graduated and  will start their jobs in 2014.

Lucian, 24 has studied Medicine at University of Queensland. Starts as a junior doctor at the Prince Charles Hospital in Brisbane. His aim is to become a specialist surgeon. 

Felice 21, here with his mother,

Felice has studied Metallurgy and Chemical Engineering,

 also at University of Queensland, he finished with Honours.

Starting a grad job   with Glencore Xstrata,

 one of the world's largest global diversified natural resource companies

A new period of life for both boys, or better said young men, Both have done so well, always.

Gaudeamus igitur

"De Brevitate Vitae" and "Gaudeamus" . For the work by Seneca the Younger.

"De Brevitate Vitae" ("On the Shortness of Life"), more commonly known as "Gaudeamus Igitur" ("So Let Us Rejoice") or just "Gaudeamus", is a popular academic song in many European countries, mainly sung or performed at university graduation ceremonies. Despite its use as a formal graduation hymn, it is a jocular, light-hearted composition that pokes fun at university life. The song dates to the early 18th century, based on a Latin manuscript from 1287 It is in the tradition of carpe diem with its exhortations to enjoy life.

It was known as a beer-drinking song in many ancient universities and is the official song of many schools, colleges, universities, institutions, and student societies.The lyrics reflect an endorsement of the bacchanalian mayhem of student life while simultaneously retaining the grim knowledge that one day we will all die. The song contains humorous and ironic references to sex and death, and many versions have appeared following efforts to bowdlerise this song for performance in public ceremonies. In private, students will typically sing ribald words.

The song is sometimes known by its opening words, "Gaudeamus igitur" or simply "Gaudeamus". In the UK, it is sometimes affectionately known as "The Gaudie". The centuries of use have given rise to numerous slightly different versions.

Johannes Brahms quoted the hymn in the final section of his Academic Festival Overture. Sigmund Romberg used it in the operetta The Student Prince, which is set at the University of Heidelberg. The hymn is also quoted, along with other student songs, in the overture of Franz von Suppé's 1863 operetta Flotte Burschen (the action being once again set at the University of Heidelberg).

When sung, the first two lines and the last line of each stanza are repeated; for instance:

The first

Gaudeamus igitur

Iuvenes dum sumus.

Post iucundam iuventutem

Post molestam senectutem

Nos habebit humus.

Let us rejoice, therefore,

While we are young.

After a pleasant youth

After a troubling old age

The earth will have us.

In between are 8 more!

Sung by the great Mario Lanza.

©Photos/Titania Everyday/Ts

Tuesday; chores;

This morning in the garden

I tidied a clump of giant Heliconia bihai;

it can grow to 3 meters or higher.

It had lots of dried leaves and stalks to cut out.

Its beautiful, interesting flowers are just emerging. 

Some rather tired blooms of Epiphyllum oxipetalum,

 no wonder they were open all night

 to welcome the night flying moths.

Looking up,

clouds are shifting and pushing  the summer sky  into cobalt blue fragments. 

It was hot and sweaty work, not yet finished, but the clump looks already so much better again.

©Photos and Text Ts

Tuesday; Bookshelf; Burial Rites;

BURIAL RITES  by Hannah Kent

Hannah Kent, the author of Burial Rites said:"  first heard the story of Agnes Magnúsdóttir when I was an exchange student in the north of Iceland. It was 2002, I was 17 years old, and I had left Adelaide for Sauðárkrókur an isolated fishing village, where I would live for 12 months. This small town lies snug in the side of a fjord: a clutch of little buildings facing an iron-grey sea, the mountains looming behind.

When I arrived it was January, and the days were gripped by darkness, 20 hours at a time. There were no trees. The town’s houses were hostage to snow, and in the distance the north Atlantic Ocean met the north sky in a suggestion of oblivion. It felt like the edge of the world.

I was intensely lonely. The community was tightly knit, and I was an outsider. For the first time in my life I felt socially isolated, and my feelings of alienation were compounded by the claustrophobic winter darkness, and the constant confinement indoors. I turned to writing for company, to fill the black hours. I sought shelter in libraries, consolation in books.

It was during the first difficult months of my exchange that I travelled through a place called Vatnsdalshólar. It’s an unusual tract of landscape: a valley mouth pimpled with hillocks of earth. When I asked my host parents if the area was significant, they pointed to three small hills, nestled closely together. Over 100 years ago, they said, a woman called Agnes had been beheaded there. She was the last person to be executed in Iceland.

I was immediately intrigued. What had she done? What had happened? Over time I discovered that Agnes was a 34-year-old servant woman who had been beheaded on 12 January 1830 for her role in the 1828 murders of two men. It seemed a tragic tale; Agnes had been unequivocally condemned.

Excerpts from Hannah  Kent.

 In northern Iceland, 1829, Agnes Magnusdottir is condemned to death for her part in the brutal murder of two men.

Agnes is sent to wait out the time leading to her execution on the farm of District Officer Jon Jonsson, his wife and their two daughters. Horrified to have a convicted murderess in their midst, the family avoids speaking with Agnes. Only Toti, the young assistant reverend appointed as Agnes's spiritual guardian, is compelled to try to understand her, as he attempts to salvage her soul. As the summer months fall away to winter and the hardships of rural life force the household to work side by side, Agnes's ill-fated tale of longing and betrayal begins to emerge. And as the days to her execution draw closer, the question burns: did she or didn't she?

Based on a true story, Burial Rites is a deeply moving novel about personal freedom: who we are seen to be versus who we believe ourselves to be, and the ways in which we will risk everything for love. In beautiful, cut-glass prose, Hannah Kent portrays Iceland's formidable landscape, where every day is a battle for survival, and asks, how can one woman hope to endure when her life depends upon the stories told by others?

We talk about the "good old times" yet when we go back to those times they were anything but good for most of the populace. Life was more a  tragedy, a constant battle. Work from morning to night. Living in dismal conditions, no rights, nothing. Ts

Burial Rites, is well written and makes you shudder to think that people lived under those conditions. Ts

Sunday, teachings;

It is impossible to live a pleasant life without living wisely and well and justly.

 And it is impossible to live wisely and well and justly without living a pleasant life.

Epicurus

©Photo Ts/Titania Everyday;

...apple of my eye;

Nothing like a home grown apple,
A jewel glinting in the tree
Ripens in sun and rain and dew;
It’s taste of honeyed blossoms,
The warmth of summer days. Ts

©Photo my garden/Text Ts/Titania Everyday.

Woof...woof..

A dog's life; Billy;

Billy, wait...

Billy, luag do...understands Swiss German  as well...

Billy,  good boy...

Billy, walkies...

©Photos Ts/Titania Everyday

Nature's art;

For me, Art summons up a feeling of life and energy. It is part of mankind, our first artworks were scratched into stone.  I  am mostly inspired by colour,  natural sculptures, love the diversity,  subtle designs and colours of lichen  and  fungi which I find in my garden.  For me Art is  and has always been a vast  and profound exploration.  

Fungi garden;

Lichen on bush rock;

Gifts of the sea; fantastic patterns and  subtle colours.

©Photos my garden/Text/Titania Everyday; Ts