i finnally got the part time job i was looking for....i am now a book seller at one of london's largest book shops. ha ha, i think this suits me pretty well. the only problem is that after i pass my 3 month probation period, i get a big discount on all books....this is dangerous, i will have to restrain myself from spending my whole pay all at once! needless to say, if any of you guys have requests, please let me know....three months from now that is.
the fun starts this weekend....
31.10.06
29.10.06
art
For all of you who are in London and like art, i HIGHLY recommend the Velasquez expo on at the National Gallery. It is the first completely satisfactory expo i have been to since the Modernism one at the V&A in April. Ok, it wasn’t perfect, i went on Sunday, and the crowds were pretty dense, which meant that i sometimes had to wait or wiggle about in order to get a really good look at the various paintings. But the effort was worth it, the selection of paintings is really good. I also really appreciated it that they give you a complementary booklet to take with you into the expo that provides an overview of the different artistic periods in Velasquez’s career and gives mini-insights into the different paintings. The booklet was really perfect: the info blurbs on each painting was just enough to give you some valuable information to think about and to bring out some points that might not have otherwise been evident, but at the same time, all the blurbs were short enough that it didn’t feel like you were reading your way through the expo. Of course there were all the usual super expensive hard cover beautiful edition of books on Velasquez in the gift shop, but in terms of valuable information to actually improve you viewing experience, i found the free booklet really perfect.
There are a lot of court paintings of the 16th century Spanish monarchy, which effectively demonstrate that the Habsburgs were truly inbred. The booklet pointed out details such as “the infanta, aged eight, pictured in painting number 45 was engaged to her uncle….” And at painting 40 we learn that “Habsburg dynastic politics superseded genetic prudence in determining the choice of Philip IV’s second wife, who was his niece….” Of course, the Habsburg genetic issues are hardly a historic secret, but it was funny to see so many misfortunes displayed in one space.
So if you have time and six pounds to spare, i recommend going.
There are a lot of court paintings of the 16th century Spanish monarchy, which effectively demonstrate that the Habsburgs were truly inbred. The booklet pointed out details such as “the infanta, aged eight, pictured in painting number 45 was engaged to her uncle….” And at painting 40 we learn that “Habsburg dynastic politics superseded genetic prudence in determining the choice of Philip IV’s second wife, who was his niece….” Of course, the Habsburg genetic issues are hardly a historic secret, but it was funny to see so many misfortunes displayed in one space.
So if you have time and six pounds to spare, i recommend going.
28.10.06
obviously winter is coming
our place is getting colder and colder, especially at night. it is the end of october, and the season is clearly changing. my furry companion seems to have subconsciously realised this as weel as suddenly she has started eating very large amounts, even of the tapioca and manioc japanese food that she normally spurns. i assume this is some way of trying to bulk up a bit before winter sets in completely? her fur is puffing up also and she is starting to look like a little cotton ball instead of the lean mean tiger who killed mice all summer long. the down side of this sudden furry-body building is that there are more, um, malodourous physical manifestations of her eating binge. her box is constantly overflowing. i suppose this is the down side of the changing seasons!
25.10.06
stress
i havent been writing much lately. i have been very very busy. i have another interview today in about 2 hours, all for the same job. and i still know nothing about finance. i am waiting for them to start laughing at me.
meanwhile, i just got my computer back from the shop...i had been temporarily out of commision sue to a burnout fuse....or something like that. 90 pounds later it is working fine, but who knows for how long. it isnt new anymore, and laptops arent really made to last forever.
ok i am back to studying for my interview. fingers crossed for me, and for masyamba who has her comprehensive today at 5!!!!!!
meanwhile, i just got my computer back from the shop...i had been temporarily out of commision sue to a burnout fuse....or something like that. 90 pounds later it is working fine, but who knows for how long. it isnt new anymore, and laptops arent really made to last forever.
ok i am back to studying for my interview. fingers crossed for me, and for masyamba who has her comprehensive today at 5!!!!!!
19.10.06
oddities
here is a good laugh. after a couple of weeks of trying to find a decently paid job in my field, i get invited to an interview for a job i applied to practically by accident to work in FINANCIAL RECRUITMENT SERVICES about which i know NOTHING.
first they telephoned me, about 45 minutes after i sent the joke application. they told me on the phone that financial recruitment was a difficult sector to get into, and asked why i thought i might be good at it. i was still in a depressed and obnoixious mood, so i informed the interviewer that i was a genius and capable of doing anything. they told me that was an excellent answer and they invited me for a live interview the next day. they said i am what they are looking for and now i have SIX more interviews lined up. but as i was leaving the room...they told me to go out and buy a better suit....although the one i was wearing was BRAND NEW.
time to go shopping, with the money i havent got.
first they telephoned me, about 45 minutes after i sent the joke application. they told me on the phone that financial recruitment was a difficult sector to get into, and asked why i thought i might be good at it. i was still in a depressed and obnoixious mood, so i informed the interviewer that i was a genius and capable of doing anything. they told me that was an excellent answer and they invited me for a live interview the next day. they said i am what they are looking for and now i have SIX more interviews lined up. but as i was leaving the room...they told me to go out and buy a better suit....although the one i was wearing was BRAND NEW.
time to go shopping, with the money i havent got.
16.10.06
moscow retrospektive
lessons on how to destroy your credit card information.... put them all in the toilet and then set them alight and watch them sizzle. fortunately (or not) moscow homes are not equipped with smoke detectors, hence the neighbours will never know (unless they have good noses) what you are up to. furry creatures should be kept away however, as they are likely to get their whiskers singed.these are the results of m last roll of film from the motherland....next dstination: east london?
14.10.06
confessions
i confess: deep down i have no culture and i like IKEA.
harsh words, but i fear they are true. having spent my life passing through 55 different countries on 5 continents (and having spent over a year in 7 of those countries) even i sometimes seek consistency. some people travel and refuse, for example, to eat in a french restaurant in tokyo because they want to "experience" the local culture. then there are people who travel and dont want to "experience" the local culture at all. like the family of my old korean boss, they go to paris and only eat in korean restaurants, because they just assume the local offerings must be disgusting. (i know several french people who do the same when travelling abroad....i have distinct memories of croissant hunting in venezuela and other unlikely spots)
but personnally i feel too disoriented for either approach. one of the best italian restaurants i have ever been to was in bangkok, and i have been to plenty of good thai places in london.
furthermore, i find i shop generally in the same 5 shops all over the world. when i go somewhere and i see them, i am relieved. if they are not there, i feel nervous. i really sometimes like the generic and the globalised. this brings me IKEA, which is conviently located about 20 mintues from my present house. i like being able to walk into the same shop in any country and get the same things. it is comforting somehow. i have bought the same IKEA bedsheets in montreal, budapest (they are now masyambas, she inherited them), moscow, paris and london. this gives me the feeling of continuity, even as i change location. it is somehow comforting to be in the same bedsheets, even if you are in a different place. but then that is just my opinion.
harsh words, but i fear they are true. having spent my life passing through 55 different countries on 5 continents (and having spent over a year in 7 of those countries) even i sometimes seek consistency. some people travel and refuse, for example, to eat in a french restaurant in tokyo because they want to "experience" the local culture. then there are people who travel and dont want to "experience" the local culture at all. like the family of my old korean boss, they go to paris and only eat in korean restaurants, because they just assume the local offerings must be disgusting. (i know several french people who do the same when travelling abroad....i have distinct memories of croissant hunting in venezuela and other unlikely spots)
but personnally i feel too disoriented for either approach. one of the best italian restaurants i have ever been to was in bangkok, and i have been to plenty of good thai places in london.
furthermore, i find i shop generally in the same 5 shops all over the world. when i go somewhere and i see them, i am relieved. if they are not there, i feel nervous. i really sometimes like the generic and the globalised. this brings me IKEA, which is conviently located about 20 mintues from my present house. i like being able to walk into the same shop in any country and get the same things. it is comforting somehow. i have bought the same IKEA bedsheets in montreal, budapest (they are now masyambas, she inherited them), moscow, paris and london. this gives me the feeling of continuity, even as i change location. it is somehow comforting to be in the same bedsheets, even if you are in a different place. but then that is just my opinion.
12.10.06
11.10.06
maybe this world is too small
so a few entrees back i accused moscow of being an overgrown village. in the space of 24hours i had run into my ex-flatmates ex-girlfriend on tverskaia, followed by my ex-classmate who turned out to be working in the same office building as i.
well it seems the same must be said of London. today i was walking in central london when i thought i saw a familiar face. "impossible" i thought to myself....but then the face looked back at me with the same stunned expression and shouted "je crois pas mes yeux!"
it was limou, a senegalese girl i knew in paris. she had been a receptionist where i had worked, and now she is here trying her luck in london, and she was tagging along behind some guy named matheius whose nationality i couldnt figure out, but he obviously didnt speak french. Limou says a couple of our other acquaintances from that time are here.....she said everyone is going out for drinks saturday. i found myself searching for excuses and running off towards the library.
well it seems the same must be said of London. today i was walking in central london when i thought i saw a familiar face. "impossible" i thought to myself....but then the face looked back at me with the same stunned expression and shouted "je crois pas mes yeux!"
it was limou, a senegalese girl i knew in paris. she had been a receptionist where i had worked, and now she is here trying her luck in london, and she was tagging along behind some guy named matheius whose nationality i couldnt figure out, but he obviously didnt speak french. Limou says a couple of our other acquaintances from that time are here.....she said everyone is going out for drinks saturday. i found myself searching for excuses and running off towards the library.
8.10.06
Obituary: Anna Politkovskaya
Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya won international recognition for her passionate reporting work on the conflict in Chechnya in which she sought to expose human rights abuses.
Detained on occasion by the Russian military, the Novaya Gazeta special correspondent was famous for her book The Dirty War, a collection of articles mainly about the second Chechen conflict which began in 1999.
In 2004, she was a joint winner of the Olof Palme Prize for human rights work.
The citation reads that she was "noted for her courage and strength when reporting in difficult and dangerous circumstances".
A visit to Hell
Born in 1958, she graduated as a journalist from Moscow State University in 1980 and worked on the Soviet newspaper Izvestiya for more than a decade.
Living streets full of dead eyes
Anna Politkovskaya writing about Groznyy
In 1999, she joined Novaya Gazeta, one of the few national Russian newspapers to take a consistently critical line on the Kremlin.
She frequently travelled to Chechnya and the North Caucasus where her dispatches described some of the horror of a war where most of the casualties were civilians.
In Hell, an article from July 2000, she describes the ruins of the Chechen capital, Groznyy:
"The city ruins are like a new Caucasus mountain range. African-style famine. Painfully thin children...
"Living streets full of dead eyes. Mad and half-mad people. Streets teeming with weapons. Mines everywhere. Permanent explosions. Despair."
Critic to the end
Her polemical style earned her many critics in Russia but her stories stood out from much of the mainstream Russian media and she pursued them at great personal risk, whether reporting from the war zone or receiving death threats in Moscow.
In October 2002, she was one of the few people to enter the Moscow theatre, where Chechen militants had seized hundreds of hostages, in a bid to negotiate.
In 2004, she tried to go to Beslan during the school siege but fell ill with food poisoning on the flight there. Some suspected a plot to incapacitate her.
The same year her book Putin's Russia: Life in a Failing Democracy depicted Russia as a country where human rights are routinely trampled upon.
Politkovskaya's last known article for Novaya Gazeta, published on 28 September, is a condemnation of pro-Kremlin militias operating in Chechnya as part of Moscow's so-called Chechenisation policy.
"Chechnya was always her main subject," Vitaly Yaroshevsky, the newspaper's deputy editor, told Reuters news agency.
"Everything she wrote was on the edge."
taken from the BBC
Detained on occasion by the Russian military, the Novaya Gazeta special correspondent was famous for her book The Dirty War, a collection of articles mainly about the second Chechen conflict which began in 1999.
In 2004, she was a joint winner of the Olof Palme Prize for human rights work.
The citation reads that she was "noted for her courage and strength when reporting in difficult and dangerous circumstances".
A visit to Hell
Born in 1958, she graduated as a journalist from Moscow State University in 1980 and worked on the Soviet newspaper Izvestiya for more than a decade.
Living streets full of dead eyes
Anna Politkovskaya writing about Groznyy
In 1999, she joined Novaya Gazeta, one of the few national Russian newspapers to take a consistently critical line on the Kremlin.
She frequently travelled to Chechnya and the North Caucasus where her dispatches described some of the horror of a war where most of the casualties were civilians.
In Hell, an article from July 2000, she describes the ruins of the Chechen capital, Groznyy:
"The city ruins are like a new Caucasus mountain range. African-style famine. Painfully thin children...
"Living streets full of dead eyes. Mad and half-mad people. Streets teeming with weapons. Mines everywhere. Permanent explosions. Despair."
Critic to the end
Her polemical style earned her many critics in Russia but her stories stood out from much of the mainstream Russian media and she pursued them at great personal risk, whether reporting from the war zone or receiving death threats in Moscow.
In October 2002, she was one of the few people to enter the Moscow theatre, where Chechen militants had seized hundreds of hostages, in a bid to negotiate.
In 2004, she tried to go to Beslan during the school siege but fell ill with food poisoning on the flight there. Some suspected a plot to incapacitate her.
The same year her book Putin's Russia: Life in a Failing Democracy depicted Russia as a country where human rights are routinely trampled upon.
Politkovskaya's last known article for Novaya Gazeta, published on 28 September, is a condemnation of pro-Kremlin militias operating in Chechnya as part of Moscow's so-called Chechenisation policy.
"Chechnya was always her main subject," Vitaly Yaroshevsky, the newspaper's deputy editor, told Reuters news agency.
"Everything she wrote was on the edge."
taken from the BBC
6.10.06
.....because it is wet and cold and i am procrastinating
the rain is pelting down on top of my attic and my furry compagnion has had the good sense to retreat under the duvet, installing herself in such a way as to leave me no room, even though it is a massively large bed and she is a rather petite beast.
i need to write that chapter.....
publishing a book is a lot of work
when i signed the book contract, it seemed everything what pretty much ready to go. i mean, the work is nearly finished already, and the editors just asked me to make a few final changes before sending it off to the final commission and then the press.
but damn those last little changes are taking me a while. everytime i walk into the library i find yet another book i havent considered but absolutely should, authors i have overlooked, articles, texts, images.....i spent 6 hours yesterday just editing my bibliography, which will be a small part in the back that no one except a few losers will bother to look at.
but things are moving along: i have a new title, some ideas for the cover, the set up , the font and so on. i have been given permission to take stuff out of a whole series of different london libraries since the stuff i need access to is pretty scattered. today i was at LSE trying to get various documents there, then back at my normal base of operations to take another few works out....and now i face the daunting task of trying to actually READ them all....when i will find the time i cannot imagine.
but damn those last little changes are taking me a while. everytime i walk into the library i find yet another book i havent considered but absolutely should, authors i have overlooked, articles, texts, images.....i spent 6 hours yesterday just editing my bibliography, which will be a small part in the back that no one except a few losers will bother to look at.
but things are moving along: i have a new title, some ideas for the cover, the set up , the font and so on. i have been given permission to take stuff out of a whole series of different london libraries since the stuff i need access to is pretty scattered. today i was at LSE trying to get various documents there, then back at my normal base of operations to take another few works out....and now i face the daunting task of trying to actually READ them all....when i will find the time i cannot imagine.
4.10.06
waiting
i have a meeting with my english supervisor in 45 minutes. until then i am killing time in the computer cluster in the building's basement. i am behind on my first chapter and i know it...i am bracing myself for the fallout....
30.9.06
and it's raining again
woke up early to the sound of incredibly hard rain assaulting from all directions. i am sleeping in an attic, so it was pounding on top of me as well as at the windows.
but the rain saved me from confusion: the moment i woke up i knew exactly where i was
but the rain saved me from confusion: the moment i woke up i knew exactly where i was
27.9.06
tallinn
i always feel somehow relieved when i arrive in tallinn. i dont know why. perhaps it is my memories from when i was younger and arriving here always meant a shopping holiday away from russia, where, in those days, there was nothing. maybe because the place always seems so civilised: the streets are clean, the people friendly, and no one pushes and shoves. maybe because my family has good friends here who always showed me around and made me feel at home. i dont know.
the train ride was the usual russian train experience. there were two really cute ethnic russian actors who had been performing in moscow. they were young, and spoke fluent estonian and thus had citizenship. then there was an elderly ethnic russian pensioner who had been sent to estonia to work in a factory in 1970. he never learned estonian and consequently is citizenship, traveling with one one of those grey passports the estonian government started giving out in the early 1990s. it reads "Alien Passport" and announces in estonian and english that "the bearer of this passport is not an estonian citizen" and so on. the dyed gave me chocolat. the guys and i tried to explain to him where my country was. he didnt get it. he had noticed i spoke russian with an accent and assumed i was ethnic estonian. i explained that i wasnt, but i dont think i managed to convince him. slava, one of the young guys tried to draw a map....but that didnt seem to work either because dyed's final verdict was "nu, mi zhe vsye sovietski ludi v kontse kontsov." at that the guys and i concluded there was no point in explaining further.
25.9.06
the lasts all over again
every time i move to a different place (which is every few months) i have to go through this ritual of The Lasts. this is The Last Time I Will Do This This Time Around.
it is a depressing but i suppose necessary ritual.
so saturday was the Last Meal with the Chos. it was already an incomplete meal: hyun soo wasnt there. we went to the korean restaurant in the mezhdunarodnaia hotel and went over board eating. we had all my favourite foods including bibinbop....mmm...then there was a particularly interesting dish: korean pizza (as the chos described it) made from octopus. the little suckers on the tentacles looked a bit odd, but caitlin claimed it tasted alright.....hyun ho was being a little comic and entertained us all. afterwards caitlin and i said goodbye to masyamba, who left a few hours later for budapest.
next stop was Last Coffee with My Supervisor. we met at tratakovskaia and caught up on my research and his institutes needs. i now have a series of requests/ tasks to bring up to my other english supervisor (who is actually australian) when i see her on wednesday. my old supervisor is a funny guy, talking to him always makes me giggle. my favourite part of the conversation was when he asked me what my current supervisors' specialties are. so i told him that my first supervisor is interested in postcolonialism and masculinities. my old supervisor thought about this and asked "muzh est?" ie: has she got a husband? when i told him my second supervisors specialty is child suicide, he just looked completely confused.
yesterday was The Last Brunch and Bimbo Shopping With Caitlin. we over ate and overspent to mark the occasion. we had omlets and sirniki at a cafe near her house and then went down novi arbat to sultanna frantsuzova where i bought a suit and a jumper, telling myself that they would be a lot more expensive in london, and i mean, a girl always needs a suit!
today is The Last Trip to the Book shop, The Last Coffee With Caitlin, The Last Round of Drinks With Igor and The Last Restaurant Adventure With Vladimir and Oleg.
these lasts are tiring me out. i just went through them all 4 months ago when i left london! and i am sure they will all repeat again soon.
but life moves on, next stop: TALLINN
it is a depressing but i suppose necessary ritual.
so saturday was the Last Meal with the Chos. it was already an incomplete meal: hyun soo wasnt there. we went to the korean restaurant in the mezhdunarodnaia hotel and went over board eating. we had all my favourite foods including bibinbop....mmm...then there was a particularly interesting dish: korean pizza (as the chos described it) made from octopus. the little suckers on the tentacles looked a bit odd, but caitlin claimed it tasted alright.....hyun ho was being a little comic and entertained us all. afterwards caitlin and i said goodbye to masyamba, who left a few hours later for budapest.
next stop was Last Coffee with My Supervisor. we met at tratakovskaia and caught up on my research and his institutes needs. i now have a series of requests/ tasks to bring up to my other english supervisor (who is actually australian) when i see her on wednesday. my old supervisor is a funny guy, talking to him always makes me giggle. my favourite part of the conversation was when he asked me what my current supervisors' specialties are. so i told him that my first supervisor is interested in postcolonialism and masculinities. my old supervisor thought about this and asked "muzh est?" ie: has she got a husband? when i told him my second supervisors specialty is child suicide, he just looked completely confused.
yesterday was The Last Brunch and Bimbo Shopping With Caitlin. we over ate and overspent to mark the occasion. we had omlets and sirniki at a cafe near her house and then went down novi arbat to sultanna frantsuzova where i bought a suit and a jumper, telling myself that they would be a lot more expensive in london, and i mean, a girl always needs a suit!
today is The Last Trip to the Book shop, The Last Coffee With Caitlin, The Last Round of Drinks With Igor and The Last Restaurant Adventure With Vladimir and Oleg.
these lasts are tiring me out. i just went through them all 4 months ago when i left london! and i am sure they will all repeat again soon.
but life moves on, next stop: TALLINN
22.9.06
this city is too small
sometimes moscow really does seem like a village.
yesterday masyamba and i went back to our kafedra to meet one of our old professors. i had a funny feeling going into the building and up the stairs, past the stairwells of smoking students, where my group used spend out breaks. things look pretty much the same, some details have improved (there was no shit only the walls in the toilets) but the rest was as before. our professor was a bit strange with us (angry that we didnt stay in mother russia for aspirantura?) but thrust an invitation to the serbian embassy in our hands and insisted we go. i couldnt, as i had work, but masha did....and ran into my old supervisor in the process.
i meanwhile headed of to work. i got to the centre with sometime to kill and decided to stroll up tverskaia which was on my way. as i got to the coffee bean near pushkinskaia i heard a voice shout my name....and there in front of me was my ex-flatmates ex-girlfriend. she had just arrived in moscow the day before after THREE YEARS in new york. so we had a coffee. we never had much in common, and now less than ever. she has developped this annoying habit that many russians who have lived a couple of years in the west have of interjecting english idioms into their russian, to the point where they are completely incomprehensible. this tendancy is made worse when they misuse the idioms. for example "oi, new york, eto bilo vobshe, znaesh, over the top..." or "i potom ya dumala oh my god shto nado delat?" so the conversation went on like that and after 45 minutes i was all too glad to escape to work.
but today things got stranger. i bolted out of the office at 10 am to go to the post office. i was running to the metro and concentrating on my ipod when someone grabbed my arm. it was robert.
robert and i went to mgy together. we sat in classes together with shurik, viktor, masyamba, and ivan, all day every day. but after we graduated, masyamba and i kept up, but we both left the country and lost touch with the boys, all of whom stayed here in moscow....but now it seems that robert and i WORK IN THE SAME OFFICE BUILDING! he is on the 4th floor and i am on the 8th. pity i am leaving soon, i would have liked to have caught up more properly.
yesterday masyamba and i went back to our kafedra to meet one of our old professors. i had a funny feeling going into the building and up the stairs, past the stairwells of smoking students, where my group used spend out breaks. things look pretty much the same, some details have improved (there was no shit only the walls in the toilets) but the rest was as before. our professor was a bit strange with us (angry that we didnt stay in mother russia for aspirantura?) but thrust an invitation to the serbian embassy in our hands and insisted we go. i couldnt, as i had work, but masha did....and ran into my old supervisor in the process.
i meanwhile headed of to work. i got to the centre with sometime to kill and decided to stroll up tverskaia which was on my way. as i got to the coffee bean near pushkinskaia i heard a voice shout my name....and there in front of me was my ex-flatmates ex-girlfriend. she had just arrived in moscow the day before after THREE YEARS in new york. so we had a coffee. we never had much in common, and now less than ever. she has developped this annoying habit that many russians who have lived a couple of years in the west have of interjecting english idioms into their russian, to the point where they are completely incomprehensible. this tendancy is made worse when they misuse the idioms. for example "oi, new york, eto bilo vobshe, znaesh, over the top..." or "i potom ya dumala oh my god shto nado delat?" so the conversation went on like that and after 45 minutes i was all too glad to escape to work.
but today things got stranger. i bolted out of the office at 10 am to go to the post office. i was running to the metro and concentrating on my ipod when someone grabbed my arm. it was robert.
robert and i went to mgy together. we sat in classes together with shurik, viktor, masyamba, and ivan, all day every day. but after we graduated, masyamba and i kept up, but we both left the country and lost touch with the boys, all of whom stayed here in moscow....but now it seems that robert and i WORK IN THE SAME OFFICE BUILDING! he is on the 4th floor and i am on the 8th. pity i am leaving soon, i would have liked to have caught up more properly.
20.9.06
18.9.06
aigul in moscow
this weekend was mainly spent obsessing over my paper. natalia went to St Petersburg with some friends, leaving me a note instructing me "not to over-thesis" which i think represents the interesting addition of a new verb to the english language.my exciting social activity was going for lunch with masyamba and aigul, who was visiting from kazan. we went to a japanese place on tverskaia and i stuffed my self on sushi. actually saturday turned out to be a bit of a CEU day. as i was walking into my flat on my way back from lunch, the phone started ringing. i assumed this would be my fathers routine saturday afternoon call, but no, it was filip calling from bulgaria. i hadnt spoken to the guy in 2.5 years, since i left budapest. it was a bit wierd to talk to him after all this time, but he seems to be doing well, still partying with the bulgarian contingent from CEU. then later in the evening i had a 1 hour chat with marko on the phone. he is in leipzig on scholarship for a month, after which he is going to berlin for awhile. it is amazing how one year can have such an impact on you life, but my year in Hungary certainly did, some of my closest friends come from that year, and i miss them all very much now that we have spread out to all corners of Europe.
16.9.06
need...sleep
went out last night to ZH.Z.L. and Diagalev. Diagalev was way better than ZH.Z.L.....but still they are all abit the same..the food at ZH.Z.L. was really good though. in the end i was the only girl at the party (big surprise) and the guys at my table spent most of the time talking about the women dancing. very few guys dance here (since they are all in suits) so the dance floor generally gets filled with women wearing very, um, creative attire. i went to bed too late and got up too early. i am having to bind all my fotocopies, because the russian post sends only books, not papers (which become books when you stick a plastic ring around them, logically) so i keep having to go to this internet place that binds things together. i think the people who work there have decided i am insane, which is possible. everytime i got there with yet another mound of papers the employees all seem to try to hide. i suppose no one wants to get stuck with the job of making holes in hundreds of sheets of paper, which is understandable. but there is nothing i can do about, other than tell them to blame the babushka at the central post office. i have already sent about 30 kilos of books out of the country, and i have still a mound of 20fotocopied books that need to be bound and sent out as well. by the time all this is dont, probably not only the internet cafe employees will be ready to kill me, but justin as well, since these things are all going to his address.i will put you in the acknowledgements section of my first book, justin, i promise.
but today is a nice day (sunny, although very cold) and i am off to pushkinskaia for lunch with masha and aigul. i have to enjoy these sunny days while they last....
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