today i plan on doing absolutely nothing. ok, I am actually supposed to be writing a paper. but i will do it from the comfort of my basket! 

eventually, we got cold. so we headed up to Angel to sit in a pub and warm up alcoholically. then we went to watch Lucky Number Slevin at the cinema. odd film. but the main actor was really good looking, which is a plus. 

i really liked this dog. i think he is very cute. 

we stopped for a drink at progresso (in background). i thought the interior was bizarre, but justin claims it was calefornian. never having been to calefonia, i wouldnt know. but i do know that they were not playing bryan adams, which is more than i can say for the bloody starbucks from which i am writing this....OOOOOHHHH YYEEAH back in the summer '69.... 

justin had an odd obsession about these buttons i dont why, i thought these things normally appealed to old ladys but....but i guess i was wrong 

in the end the only that justin and i got were sunglasses. here he is sporting his. they were cheap and generic, and we spent the rest of the day walking around london with them on, like two goons 

i got the idea into my head that i wanted a fur coat. they were everywhere, but in the end i didnt find one that inspired me. the nice ones were going for about 50quid...but i am so broke i didnt even manage to splurge on that! 

i guess they sell really a bit of everything at this place. alot of it was total junk, but if you came a lot, you could probably find some good stuff there too.  

so yesterday after some thrilling hours in the library, I headed with Justin to Notting Hill and the Portabello Road market. 

le parole di una schiava

la mia gatta si chiama Naneh. Ha una vita molto interesante. Lei è nata a Mosca, e ha vissuto a Budapest e a Parigi. Oggi, Naneh vive a Londracon me. Lei si comporte come una principessa e io sono sua schiava. Faccio tutto per lei. Naneh è grassa con i peli bianchi e gli ochi verdi. È divertente ma bugiarda: lei ama le personne che le danno da mangiare! È molto astuta. Per esempio, quando piensa che nessuno la vada, manga la mia cena. Qualche volta, quando ritorno a casa, trovo il bidone della spazzatura ribaltata sul pavimento...ma Naneh ha sempre la faccia innocente, e io devo pulire il pavimento....come una schiava.

the towel trama

Well i learned something new today. It seems that in The Korea, it is taboo to use the same bath towel twice.
It seems a funny fact to learn while working in England, especially as I worked for Koreans for 3 years without ever finding out this great secret....but i guess the topic just never came up. My students in my afternoon class are mainly new to Britain, but sometimes there are things about this country they dont understand, which i find quite normal, as i myself sometimes cannot explain the place. so yesterday, Rosie (not real name) announced she had an important question. This brought us to the subject of bath towels. It seems in The Korea, people use a different bath towel everyday; not only that, but they use a different bath-foot towel (the ones you step on when you get out of the bath) and girls use a different towel for their hair....EVERY DAY. In the summer, they go through double, because it is humid in The Korea and they bathe at least twice. So on adverage, they go through about 7 body towels, and 7 foot mats per week....plus an extra 7 for the girls hair! So, girls can go through 21 towels a week, or 42 in summer. Rosie calculated that her family goes through. Rosie estimated her family goes through 91 towels a week, and double in summer.
So, naturally, Rosie came to England with 10 towels. She lives in a host family. She had noticed from the beginning that they looked at her strangly and a bit angrily every weekend when she did her laundry (which would consist of 8 or so towels) but she couldnt understand why. Hence her question.
The topic sparked a huge debate in my class. When i said that English people wash their towel normally once a week (if that), all the asian students recoiled in utter disgust. It seems Rosie was not alone in her habits, the other Korean and Japanese students all had the same, and they all united in agreement that one towel a week was vile. The European students looked amazed, obviously not having realised how dirty we are seen to be in asian eyes. Then more questions followed: how often do European girls wash their hair? Clothes? Body? Teeth? Who would have ever thought you could construct a lesson around body hygiene? But i guess this falls under the category of “cultural difference.”

sunday continued

after the museum, we met igor and made a bit of a tour around central london. we figured we would walk as long as the weather held and then head to the usual spot for lunch. daniel had never had fish and chips, so that is what he ordered, whereas igor and i, creatures of habit that we apparently are, opted for the usual burger with chips....i am not sure why we always end up in exactly the same pub and ordering the exact same thing...it is just that every time we try something else, it is normally unfulfilling...so better to stick to the know.
after wards, we saw daniel off on the themeslink to gatwick...a few hours later he smsed from geneva...must be nice there in winter...

sunday

daniel and i met early sunday at king's cross and headed to the british museum where i got a badly needed coffee. the cafe inside is not too bad by museum standards, and the coffee was decent and not overp[riced. after my caffeine fix, we went inside the old british library...i love that place even though i have been in it many many times. i still find it really cool!

finnally daniel arrived and we all headed for more drinks. then he and igor headed of to a party at the hungarian embassy. i would have liked to go, but i had a train to catch....very bizarrly, it turned out i knew a lot of the guys presenting at the conference, there were alot of guys from my budapest days, including Marija from belgrade with whom i used to enjoy 10 floor dinners on Nador utca.... 

the last time i saw daniel i was in a serbian hospital bed with tubes running out of my body. he and igor both came to visit me in that hospital, along with my roomate ira who had to smuggle me toilet paper...that was nearly 3 years ago, so it was really good to catch up with him. he is doing a phd at the university of geneva 

after we got the swiss sent off, igor and i retreated to our usual spot: the pub near his law faculty. we sat there and waited for daniel to finish the wrap up session of his conference 

during the free time, i met up with igor and we took a walk along the river while waiting to collect the swiss. fortunately, in true germanic fashion, they all arrived at the designated meeting point exactly on time and i got them on the bus. 

here are the protesters. fortunately none of the swiss kids got arrested, although i think they all enjoyed themselves and took tons of fotos of the protesters 

here is one of the views from the boat , at least it was an ok day (for england) although it did start raining at one point 

so here are some fotos, this was taken in the greenwich market while i waited for the kids 

here is a view of canary warf from the boat. we went past this area and the docklands, which is apparently the largest construction sight in europe. i can certainly believe that given what seems to be being built. along the river there are tons of really nice and ultra modern buildings newly finished or still under construction. i can imagine flats in such buildings are going to cost a fair bit.

the things we do

agh the things we do for money...
so here i am at the university library. i am officially working, accompanying 43 swiss german teenagers. the couch dropped us off at greenwich this morning and we had some time to go to the observatory and then to the indoor market before getting on a boat to take a cruise of the thames. the observatory was...well, an observatory. it was pretty foggy, so things were hard to see. the market was nothing special, although for 1.50£ i had a really excellent spinach and feta contraption in bread...it was both tasty and filling, so i cant complain.
and then we got on the boat. this would have been the typical tour thing if the bus driver had not called to let me know there might be demonstrations at trafalger square and that he might not be able to pick us up as planned at embankement. so i spent a lot of the boat ride taking down mobile phone numbers, just in case. so then we arrive at embankment. the plan is that the kids have 4 hours free time, then we meet and i stick them on the coach......that is still the plan, but it is subject to change. as we got off the boat we could see endless busloads of muslims being dropped off, all wearing traditional clothes and carrying placards protesting against "secular fundamentalism" so it seems the protest is on....the swiss germans kept asking me in their tackless germanic way "vhy the muslims are vearing the funny clothes" i told them not to get hurt or arrested and to be back in 4 hours....then i bolted.
on the way to uni (being broke, i walked) i saw a sea of demonstrators at trafalger square...they didnt look happy.
lets hope all 43 swiss make it back to the right place at the right time!

the three musketeers

i think i mispelled the heading of this entry, but i probably do that quite often without even realising it, so no matter.
last night i went out drinking with paul and ian yet again. it seems to have become something of a monday night ritual.we have been making the rounds of the pubs near our flats, i think we have been in several, but this is england, so many more remain to be conquored i feel sure. paul was depressed, his girlfriend treats him badly, but he is too scared of being alone to break up with her, so he sticks around for the abuse out of some kind of perverted interia. ian and i tried to convince him that this was neither normal nor healthy, but i doubt he will follow up on our advice. he is like an abused housewife who wont leave her husband even though he beats her....odd mentality. but the wine was good...i will miss these drinking fests when i am gone.

the beast has a new threat to her existance: a black cat sometimes trots into her space, her courtyard....i managed to catch an image of this dodgy trespasser. 

londongrad

so i met igor after my unproductive day, and he suggested we go to the "russki magazini" near hyde park. so off we went. this place is really amazing, it is literally russia in the middle of london. it consists of a bunch of shops together. first we went into the food shop where igor stocked up on tvorog and i got grechka, priyaniki and kapusta po-koreiskii. the shop was filled with the same stuff as any of the little produkti in MGY's main building: red oktober chocolots, tulski priyaniki, pickles, only the prices were in pounds which meant things were about 5 times more expensive than in russia....and the place was filled with russians. at one point an english woman tried to walk in an ask a question to the guy who worked there, but he answered "no speak eeeenglish." igor said these guys are "spetsialno vospitana shto bi ni govoryat po-angliski." next we moved on the to book shop. it had all the main magazines at grotesque prices, as well as all the hit books from the motherland, including my two favourites: den shastia zavtra and casual. but we have our own reading for our degrees, so we didnt buy anything;;and then we moved on to the cafe....this cafe was great (it had the very original name "samovar") i had borsh and igor pelmeni. the stereo system was blasting russian cheesy pop (blestashi, valeria), the kind you can hear in any pereihod. behind me were three dyevushki discussing their sex lives (on takoi strashni...kogda on menye tseluyet...) behind igor were three babushki comparing pictures of their grandchildren (i vot mashinka, ona svobodna govorit po-angliski uzhe) these babushki were great. the one i had the best view of had a cream puff of (fake) blonde hair and ....dark sunglasses...in and underlit inside cafe, in the middle of winter, in london! but the best were the guys to the side of us. igor called them narmalni rebyata....and that they were in a certain motherland way. the full works: the almost shaved heads, one had on sports clothes, the other had the compulsory black leather jacket, open enough so you could see his black polyester shirt underneath. you know, the kind you can buy in an outdoor market, or a perihod. they had the grimaces locked on their faces, and once or twice looked at me funny when they noticed i was speaking with a strange accent. ah, mother russia.

another unproductive day

so i dragged myself out of bed and into the faculty this morning only to discover that the building was closed for the whole day due to "maintenance work" the last time i was there (wednesday) the toilets were closed, and the time before (tuesday) the computers were down...it makes me wonder...so i am now in an easyinternetcafe using the internet since i cant access the free ones in the university. the place is filled with annoying french people, so i am listening to my ipod and trying to ignore them. the french woman is talking to her child like the kid is a stupid blob incapable of understanding baby speak...
the week has been uneventful much like the one before. i had dinner with my two supervisors. it was at my second supervisors house, which was really nice and had a view over london. they said i can leave and go back to russia basically any time from april. the only thing is i have already promised to meet my mum in paris in april and my dad in prague in may. so i dont know exactly how i am going to work everything out, but needless to say, my days in london appear numbered. although i will have to come back to this place in october 2007, so i am free, but not forever.
in the mean time i still have some business to settle here and back in paris....it is odd to live quasi simultaeneously in 3 cities. grr...
the beast has perked up and has a new hobby: hissing at a neighbouring beast which periodically has the audacity to pass through OUR courtyard. i would put on a picture of the tresspasser, but it seems easyinternetcafes have no space for usb ports so the fotografic evidence will have to wait.
am now off to meet igor

update

so yesterday when i was in my italian class, ian, saint that he is, went to hospital to pick up her furry highness. the vets asked him never to bring the animal back...it seems she scratched 2 nurses badly and took a chomp out of the vet's hand. i guess she felt it served them right for putting tubs into her furry body. she seems to have perked up a bit. she is eating normally at least, and i guess that is the important thing. she looks like quite a bruiser though, the vet had to shave her front legs and her neck to take the blood samples and put in the IV tubes, and as a result she looks like some street cat who has been in too many brawls. but hopefully she will get better now. we have to wait a few days to see how things are going and then the vets will decide whether to run more tests or not. but the vets described her overniht behaviour in hospital as "fiesty" which i think was their polite way of saying "badly behaved" but i found these words reassuring, at least she sounds like her old hooligan self and not the sad passive creature she has been over the past several days.....paws crossed!

crisis!

my furry friend has been hospitalised!
they still dont know exactly what is wrong with her, but she hadnt been eating correctly for some time, and as a result she was very dehydrated. she stopped playing with me and wouldnt come out from under the bed! so i took her to the vet yesterday and he said that she would have to stay in the hospital for further observation and an IV drip...this is awful! as i left the cat hospital yesterday, she looked at me from her little box with these huge sad eyes and i knew she was asking me how i could do this to her, how i could leave her there in that place by herself...i felt really guilty!

and here is igor outside the library. we always meet here, since it is between our faculties. we call the building MGY. for those of you who have seen the real MGY, i guess it will be ovbious why. the building is abit of an oddity in London, but apparently Hitler was found of it. he wanted to make it his headquarters after he conquered Britain. 

i wanted to post some exciting pictures of London, but then i realised that i dont actually have many. i dont know why. maybe because it rains so much and it is always ugly and grey. but it was nice the other day, so i took a few pictures...but i am limited by my surroundings...so here is a picture of the library! ha ha, how thrilling! 

i pass this every day, but i only got around to taking a picture of it yesterday. it is normally covered my mobs of little kids trying to get to Hogwarts, but i managed to catch it at a quiet moment. i grabbed the handle bar....but alas, there appeared only to be brick on the other side...oh well. 

burns night, after the fact

last night was the great burns fest. ian insisted i go, so, being left with no choice, i turned up. it was a full blown patriotic affair, starting with the obligatory Ode to Haggis, followed by the equally obligatory singing of Europe's most depressing national anthem, the Flower of Scotland, and continued by Burns recitation, dancing and some more depressing songs. there were a couple of exchange students from Poland observing the spectacule. they appeared delighted by the dancing, and even more so by the large number of men in kilts (the Polish guy kept taking photos) but during the poetry recitation they kept asking what language the poetry was in (!) so i am not sure they understood a whole lot of what was actually being said. i tried to "translate" the lyrics of the Flower of Scotland into English for them, but my own translation sounded ridiculous even to me, so i finnally just summerised the idea: loss.
i am now trying to get some work done, but i am not really inspired. i have been sitting in the library for an hour, but besides doing some photocopying, i havent actually managed to leave the internet area. i was planning on doing some work and then taking a strole, but the weather is not very inspiring, it is cold, windy and drizzling. another london day....

the week in review

The beast is ill again. I dont know what the problem is, but she just doesnt seem to get better. A few days ago she just stopped eating. She hadnt been that fond of the fancy sushi cat food, but after three weeks on the diet (which did clear up the allergy on her skin!) she has completely stopped eating it. She wont even go near her food dish. And she has lost weight. She has stopped playing, and she wont come out from under the bed. So last night i paniced and called the vet, who suggested be try a different type of (even more expensive) exotic food. So today after work i went in to pick up the stuff. It is canned this time, and contains some odd mixture of rice and chicken, along with various other exotic things i have never heard of. So i brought it home and she did show some initial enthusiasm. She ate a few bites, but then retreated under the bed again. So i dont know what is going on with her little body/ brain. She seems profoundly depressed, and periodically emits these pathetic mews. And i cant cheer her up, she doesnt seem to even want me around. Wierd.
It was a long week, and i am very relieved it is Friday. Monday night i spent in a pub with paul and ian, drifting through various odd subjects and university news. This social gathering ended in paul’s study in the wee hours of the night/morning. I think the alcohol was a little dodgy though, since both paul and i felt like hell the next day, and we didnt drink THAT much.
Tuesday was spent trying to sort out my documents at the national insurance office. That place really seems to attract the dregs of society. The smell was almost overpowering and it hit me the instant i set foot in the place. While i was waiting i asked if i could go to the toilet, only to be told that “clients” were not allowed to use the toilets on the premises, but instead had to go to the public ones across the street, the moment i got to them i regretted ever asking for them. The place had no toilet paper, but rather had shit on the floor, alongside the syringes and other similar items. People were inside speaking a language that was most likely english, but of which i could barely decipher a word. I then had my meeting with the “officers,” self important and sad overweight women who asked absurd questions. I was amused that they apparently operate on the assumption that everyone who turns up in that place must be illiterate. You are not even allowed to fill out your own personal statement. Instead, you dictate your minilife story to the “officer” who writes it on the form in the first person and then reads it aloud to you. Then you sign. And if you cant sign, you make and X! I couldnt believe it. I could barely restrain myself from bursting out into laughter at the whole process, especially as i could see they were making obvious errors in the report....agh!
Wednesday i was dragged out drinking again, this time by a romanian who, i have learned, lives accross the courtyard from me. He has more CDs and DVDs than anyone i have ever met; i have seen shops with less. His whole place, floor to ceiling, is covered by CD shelves, all of which are full. His collection must count in the 10,000+ range. He belongs to some wierd professional internet pirate system, and can get any band or film in seconds. Literally any, i tried to stump him with obscure groups...but he found them all with in one minute. He is a film studies Mphil, so i guess i shouldnt be too surprised by such saavy, but still it was amazing.
Thursday i stayed home and fumed at my italian school group.gRrRRRrrR
Tonight I am going to an after-the-fact burns party, complete with haggis and godknows what other delicacies/atrocities. Just in case it is truely inedible, i have made a large plate of indian food, and i am consuming it as i write. I dont really feel like going to the thing though, i am exhausted and i would prefer, old lady that i am, to stay in bed;;; but i havent been given the choice, the tickets were bought for me by ian, and i have been ordered to appear, at least for a few hours. The event is being organised by the ministerman from the shetland islands who lives on the other side of the “secret” door that goes into our corridor, so i imagine a tweedy affair and a burns poetry reading....

aie!

Je commence à détester mes étudiants italiens. Le group qui était ici la semaine dernière, c’était les petits anges : ils ont posé les questions intelligents sur la guerre en Irlande du Nord, ils ont fait une présentation sur le system scolaire en Italie…en bref, c’est un plaisir d’être leur prof. Mais ils sont partis dimanche, et le groupe qui est arrivé est tout à fait différent. Ce sont les petits sauvages. Hier un garçon de 16 ans m’a dit (en italien) qu’il veut coucher avec moi (comme si je ne comprends pas l’italien !) ce qui est vraiment bizarre, c’est que les meilleurs étudiants se comportent le pire, et l’étudiante qui est la pire de tous, c’est une fille ! Cette fille (Giovanna !) est comme une antagoniste dans un téléfilm américain, avec tous ses gestes exagérés et son regard grincheux. Elle a une copine (Giorgia) qui est toujours avec elle, et qui fait tous ce que Giovanna veut.
Et puis, il y a Odino, qui parle anglais presque sans accent, car il a assisté à une école internationale bilangue jusqu'à l’age de 14 ans. Il est super beau et il semble beaucoup plus âgé que ses 16 ans, jusqu’au moment quand il ouvre sa bouche ! En plus, c’est l’étudiant le plus paresseux que j’ai vu dans ma vie.
Ce n’est pas tout le groupe qui se comporte si mal, mais les types comme Giovanna et Odino rendent l’atmosphère insupportable. Comme je suis contente de ne plus avoir 16 ans. Après plus que 10 ans, j’ai presque oublié comment c’était.
Heureusement, demain, c’est vendredi….