yura and i spent the afternoon walking around cambridge. it was (almost) sunny, but bitterly cold in that hideous wet english way. yuri said it felt way colder than moscow, where he was back visiting last weekend. we went around the collages and reministed about the good old days when we were students living in moscow state university housing. we even reministed about the food they used to feed us in stolovaia, which i guess is a testiment to nostalgia. yuri's got a summer job in investment banking in london, so he will be here all summer. then in the autumn he finishes his MBA at INSEAD and hopes that the company will take him on permenantly. the salary is....grotesque. 

lovely

 

vertigo

this is what happens when you stay in the library until late at night. we now have extended hours that leave the place open until midnight...it is just too exciting. the urge to stay late is just overpowering. 

i suppose i should have dedicated a foto of shelves dedicated to milosevic instead;;;but many of the books on his reign were checked out! there seems to have been a mourning inspired rush to read all about the guy....so you will ahve to accept these images of literary dedication to tito instead 

ok i guess my library fotos cannot compete with the stark beauty of marcus's pavement images, but i am trying nonetheless to improve the quality of my thrilling book fotos. enjoy 

czechs and slovaks

 

swiss

 

koreans

 

so here are some of my students in the pub on wednesday night 

benders

wednesday was pub night. this is an event the school where i work does (i think) once a week. normally the school social coordinator organises it, but she was lucky enough to be on holiday in portugal this week, so the job fell to me...not that i am complaining: i had a grand time. who can complain about being paid to drink with a bunch of young people from around the world?
so i spent several hours hearing about life in korea or slovakia and enjoyed a healthy dose of wine....such outings are great in limited doses, but as luck has it i seem to be on a bender role. thursday i got an email from yura saying he had just showed up in london with a portuguese friend and did i want to me for drinks? i hadnt seen the guy since last july so of course i couldnt say no. so we met for "a drink" and ended up making the rounds of various pubs in the neighbourhood. and it seems the bender is going to stretch into day 3...i am waiting for the "where are we meeting" phone call right now.....

up to my old tricks

agh, when the slaves are away, i can fully inspect my territory!

another day.....

the problem is that some books just cant be taken out of the library, hence the long hours at station 210

dodgy pubs

i hate the start of the week. i really dread it. there is always so much that needs to get done and the feeling that i will not suceed in doing everything i have to do.
the alarm clock woke me out of bed as i had agreed to do some early morning overtime at a place where i sometimes work to get extra cash...then the evening i spent holed up in one of the top floors of senate house trying to get things together for my huge exam in october. you might wonder why i am panicing now over an exam that is 7 months away, but i assure you it is with good reason. i have about 80 pages of original work that i have to get together and submit before then, nevermind a pile of books to read....so i am starting to stress.
finnally, when my brain could take no more, and senate house was moving into its late night tomb mode, i decided i need something strong to drink. so i met max (the polish guy from the "managing YOUR phd seminar") and we went to the dodgiest of dodgy student pubs. it was one of those places where you feet stick to the floor as you walk. we drank and noted that whatever england's problems may be, there is still nothing worse than france. it seems max also had the dubious pleasure of killing of some months there, so we agreed that RIBs are the most pointless things ever invented, and reministed about the various bureaucratic struggles we had undertaken, and agreed that even poland and russia were much more efficient, which pretty much says it all i guess.
then i stumbled onto the train and headed home. and now i am looking out the window through which i can see that it is pissing rain....again

sundays

so i was in the senate house library when i got the news. it came at me almost simultaneously from accorss europe. the first message arrive in russian: slobodan milosevic umer nochu. i had just the time to respond my shock to that message than a new one came in from le murana in lisbon.....i decided i had done enough work for the morning and bolted to the postgrad computer lab were i read the various conflicting reports for myself, telephoned people in budapest/belgrade/moscow......i am sure somewhere near metro station akedemicheskaia my old supervisor was angry and dissapointed. i am sure in the next few days there we be articles publised by guskova and the whole moscow gang saying he was murdered, if not delibrately than by neglect. he had wanted to go to russia for medical care and they hadnt let him: murder one way or the other. i can hear it all already.
so slobo is gone for better or worse....what next?
after catching up on that, i met igor to discuss the events. we wandered around regent's park and stopped to eat some cake in a restaurant named the honest ham....whatever that means.....i tried not eat eat too much since i had one of danka's great dinner parties at 8pm, where as always i overate....her parties always involve 6 courses and tons of alcohol....i am normally the youngest guest by about 50 years, so i get to perform the role of the starving young post grad who hasnt seen a meal in weeks, a part i am happy to play. so i stuffed myself and rolled home and straight into bed, collapsing into a coma like sleep

Скончался Слободан Милошевич

Скончался Слободан Милошевич
Лондон. 11 марта. ИНТЕРФАКС - Британский телеканал Sky News сообщил в субботу о кончине бывшего президента Югославии Слободана Милошевича.
Со ссылкой на сербскую радиостанцию В-92 Sky News передает, что С.Милошевич был найден мертвым в своей камере в тюрьме в Гааге.
В интервью Би-би-си адвокат С.Милошевича Стивен Кэй подтвердил, что тело его подзащитного было найдено в субботу утром в камере Международного трибунала по бывшей Югославии МТБЮ.
"В последнее время состояние здоровья 64-летнего бывшего лидера Югославии вызывало опасения", - добавил адвокат.
МТБЮ фактически официально признал смерть С.Милошевича. Трибунал сообщил, что начал расследование по факту смерти экс-президента Югославии.
Министр иностранных дел Франции Филипп Дуст-Блази заявил в Зальцбурге, что С.Милошевич умер "по естественным причинам".
В январе защита С.Милошевича передала Международному трибуналу по бывшей Югославии (МТБЮ) документы, на основании которых трибунал должен был принять решение о временном освобождении экс-президента для его поездки на лечение в Россию.
Директор российского Научного центра сердечно-сосудистой хирургии имени Бакулева Лео Бокерия заявил тогда о наличии всех оснований для того, чтобы С.Милошевич прошел курс лечения в этом московском медицинском учреждении.
В интервью "Интерфаксу" Л.Бокерия отметил, что сам С.Милошевич в случае положительного решения вопроса просит разрешения лечиться в Центре имени Бакулева. "Для этого есть резонные основания", - подчеркнул директор Центра.
Он пояснил, что медики этого учреждения неоднократно обследовали С.Милошевича.
По результатам обследования было установлено, что в состоянии здоровья С.Милошевича имеются нарушения, свидетельствующие, в частности, "о декомпенсации мозгового кровообращения и неадекватности получаемой им терапии".
"Совершенно очевидно, что пациент нуждается в дообследовании и этиопатогенетическом лечении в специализированном стационаре", - подчеркнул руководитель Научного центра.
Он сообщил, что в связи с этим в середине декабря 2005 года направил председателю Гаагского трибунала Фаусто Покару письмо с предложением направить С.Милошевича для дообследования и лечения в Научный центр сердечно-сосудистой хирургии имени Бакулева.
Что касается возвращения пациента по требованию суда, то, отметил глава Центра, С.Милошевичем "лично подписано соответствующее заявление, а также были даны гарантии Министерством иностранных дел РФ"
Однако члены МТБЮ в Гааге отказались удовлетворить просьбу 64- летнего бывшего президента Югославии.

friday, finally

the week has gone by really quickly, yet at the same time it has seemed really long...i am glad it is friday. i finish work early on fridays, which is a really great thing. i think all jobs should have something like that.
my letter of permission to be absent from the faculty arrived yesterday, so that removes the last barrier to my leaving, yeah!

managing YOUR PhD

Yesterday for the first time i got myself organised, took a day off work, and attended one of the university’s “methodological seminars.” The title of the subject in which we were supposed to be receiving instruction was “managing YOUR PhD.” It was an occasion for overblow education experts to apply thacherite corporate business vocabulary to academics. Maybe that way they can tell themselves they are in “corporate work” rather than admitting they are simply....people with education degrees...
So i walk into the room. Actually i walked in twice. The first time i was 10 minutes early. I took one look in at the uptight crowd of early arriving students and decided to get a coffee from the student union before subjecting myself to their company.
So i entered the room again 5 minutes late. By this time there were about 50 still uptight students, and a powerpoint display on the wall reading “YOU are the manager of YOUR PhD.” No shit.
For the next 7hours, we were informed that we are managers...and were told all the things we should be doing (as effective “managers”) we learned that we need “perseverence, organisation.” But that we have to avoid that trap that ensnares so many high achievers: work acholism. We were told we have to “know when to take a brake.” And so on. This pearl of wisdom was followed by a series of role plays. My favourite was “saying no to your supervisor.” Here we saw models of students saying no: the passive student, the assertive student, the aggressive student....
Mercifully, i happened to be sitting next to a polish guy, who, like me, felt we were being force fed a load of crap. So we passed notes and took the piss out of the whole thing. The scary thing was there were alot of science students who took the whole thing ultra seriously. They furiously took down notes and nodded vigorously. One thrid year phd even said that these seminars were the most memorable part of her degree....sadly this may even have been the truth, as her specialisation is about molecular biology (another girl was studying the genetic factors that contribute to the shape of the jaw....)
The seminar did have one great redeeming feature: and endless supply of free chocolat biscuits. I must have had at least 15, i would have fallen asleep otherwise.

spring isnt here yet and i have decided to bury my nose in wool until it arrives. except that i have a dinner to go to in south kensington... 

each packet of soup makes a cup full. it is a delicious, as you can see! 

having informed week before last how dirty i am as a towel recycling european, this week they brought me different kinds of soup to try. this "europeanism soup" was quite good.