susan sontag goes biserk

funny the things people get obsessed about.
there is a woman who comes every day to the national library. my friends and i call her the susan sontag look alike as it seems she is delibrately cultivating such an image (long grey hair with one streak of black in the middle, dresses as badly as possible etc). i have walked by her desk a few times from which i have deduced she must be studying on the indian caste systems...or something like that, based on the books on her desk.
anyway, she always sits in the EXACT same seat everyday, and she arrives exactly at opening in order to secure that spot, which she holds for herself until closing. but today her world was turned upside down.
i was sitting in a seat of my own (choosen randomly) when i heard a loud, animal like growling sound coming from behind me, i turned around to see the womans eyes blazing and her nostrils flairing. i followed her gaze to see what caused this fury and sure enough, the unthinkable had happened, she arrived 10 minutes after opening, and someone had taken her seat!! she flipped, stormed over to the guy (no doubt a first time user) and demanded he move....but his english was apparently dificient as he kept raising his hands in confusion and gesturing with confused raised eyebrows. finnally she sat in another seat and preceded to slap her documents on the desk loudly. a proper freak show.
i hope this isnt what happens to people if they spend too much time in libraries, if i start doing things like that, someone please hit me. hard.

updates

i have been very bad and i havent written anything in ages. i do have a good excuse though: i finnally moved house this past week, which means NO MORE WALTHAMSTOW! thank god!
i am now in the process of resettling into my new flat located a nice 30 minute bus ride from work, yeah!
the cat is still having difficulty ajusting but i hope she will settle down in the next few days, paws crossed! i meanwhile still need to buy the last few things and then i will start to feel that i have a new home.

hooligans

i dont know what it is with this country (england) and its hooligan children. it is really strange, there are so many of them and they behave in a violent and pointless manner i have never seen anywhere else.
yesterday 2 boys came into the bookshop. at some moment, one of them (who was about 9) pushed my collegue, a petite german girl. she looked at him for an explanation, and he said sarcastically that it was an accident. she continued what she was doing. then the boy and his friend (who was about 12) started throwing books of the shelf and onto the floor. at that point my collegue asked them to leave. they spat in her face. she began ushering them out, but even at the front door, with everyone watching, they were throwing things off tables and on the ground, shouting abuse and obscenities. outside the shop, they started laughing and walked off.
this sort of thing seems to happen all the time here. you see it alot on the bus. a few months back a bunch of similar young kids jumped on top of me as i was getting of the bus so that i fell and ripped my trousers. they, again, laughed and ran off. it is quite difficult to do anything. technically the boys in the shop didnt commit a crime (they didnt destroy or steal anything) but they just behave atrociously, and seemingly for absolutely no reason.
of course there are kids who behave badly everywhere, in all countries, but it is this last point that particularly bothers me here: there never seems to be any reason for their behaviour other than maybe boredom. it is one thing to start a fight over some grevance, real or imagined, but these kids seem to do it as a sport. the other thing that is striking is that they are always very young, like 10-16, always white and "ethnically" british, and always seemingly constantly unacompanied. when these guys came into the bookshop it was already after 8pm. what were a 9 and a 12 year old doing cruising the west end alone at that hour anyway? where the hell were their parents? my german collegue and i posed these questions in bewilderment to our head of security, MD. he just laughed at us. "just imagine" he said "you call the parents in here, they will be younger than both of you cause they had the kids at 15, they will be smoking and drinking and fucking a different guy every night...you think they have time to look after those kids?"
scary thought.

london update

i really should be working on my next chapter of my thesis. but i ahve had lots of distractions lately, and not all of them related to work or harry potter.
finnally, i found a new flat so i will be moving in a couple of weeks. thank god. there was a really gruesome murder on my street a few days back...and well....enough said.
other than that, caitlin and yuri have just relocated to london. so i have been hanging out with them. they have a nice place in south kensington, and instead of sitting in the library all the time like a good phd student, i have been going around to museums with caitlin and drinking in their flat.
yesterday we wandered throught the V&A and friday we went to the exhibit on mega cities that is currently on at tate modern. that was really cool. i loved the airal views of mumbai, london, cairo, johannesburg and tokyo. and their were some really great photos from each of those places....plus a video on toilets in mumbai, which having experienced them close up, proved only to be too accurate. i like mega cities, i have always operated on the assumption the larger and smellier the better. i think that is why i love mumbai so much when i was there. or moscow or istambul or cairo. i know i am alone in this view, but parks and green space make me really nervous and uncomforatble. i am sure i suffer from some strange syndrom....but anyway, if you are in london and get a chance to see it, go, it is worth it!

some books and an indian summer

first let me note that the title of this entry has nothing, NOTHING to do with the weather. how can we even hope for an indian summer (in the english sense of the word....ie baba leto to use the less ambiguous russian) when the english one has not even started?
by indian summer i was rather referring to the upcoming 60th aniversary of the "the midnight hour while the world slept" (to barrow from nehru) and pakistan and india became two countries, seperate both of each other and of the british empire.
the hype has been fairly impressive. the library has been doing a big exhibit on Gandhi's Quit India now movement, and even the bookshop has been doing displays on indian literature in anticipation of the great event. additionally, a whole cluster of new books has suddenly appeared devoted not only to independance, but also to the events surrounding the partition...something which indian and pakistani historiography seems to have all to often ignored. meanwhile, trafalgar square has been filling up every weekend with all kinds of events aimed at commemerating the events....alll of which seem to feature beautiful young dancers in saris and loads of food and music.
extra indian books have been ordered into the bookshop and i have been stocking up, even though i should be writing my chapter.
i really like indian literature. i wish i knew enough about pakistani books to comment on them or choose them for a display, but alas i am sadly quite ignorant of their literature, music and art. I do, however, have some notions of indian writing, and i have been learning more all the time.
i read kiran desai's booker winning Inheritance of Loss. i liked it well enough, but not on the level of other booker winning indian works (such as the god of small things). i read mistry's a fine balance, which i liked better. and now i am sinking my teeth (or eyes) into the 1,400 epic a suitable boy. so far, i find it mesmerizing and i am absolutely amazed by vikram seth, the writer who managed to produce such an epic. respect.

the first summer bash

according to the bbc, it has been the rainest three months since records began in the 18th century. it rained literally non-stop from may until this week. several people died in the floodings and property damage reached the into the billions of pounds. it has all been incredibly bleak and depressing....and cold with temperatures around 17 degrees.
so it seemed something like a miracle when 2 days ago the rain STOPPED. and it has been at least partly sunny since. now in a normal country, this would seem like normal weather, but here where we have used to such greyness, it seems miraculous. and it was the perfect weather for the triplets birthday bash which took place last night in Angel. it was my very first ever birthday party for triplets, and it was good fun. we started with dinner,and from there moved on to a bar where various people showed up and we had cocktails and took loads of silly photographs....it was good fun, and it felt like finnally (in AUGUST!) we were having the first proper party of the summer season!

the last of pottermania

i finished the book just before my train rolled into kings cross, so i was still thinking about it as the rafters of the train station appeared and floated past. i liked the last harry potter, although i confess i was a little sad the series ended. i started reading the books 7 years ago, after someone gave me a copy of the first one in the dorms of moscow university. when the 5th came out, i had friends of friends who happened to be flying through heathrow the day of the release bring me a copy in moscow. for the 6th i was actually in england, having come over to attend an interview for the programme i am now in. and for the last i was standing behind a till in central london, having my photograph taken by screaming mobs.
according to rumours floating around the staff room, JK rowlings is planning 2 more books for the near future: but they will not be about harry potter. that should be interesting, but not the same.
meanwhile i need to start working on the next chapter of my bloody thesis...

pottermania III

it was another long night in the bookshop.
things have been basically torn apart for the past several days due to the customers who come in to buy harry potter, but take 300 hundred books off the shelves (and put them on random tables)in the process. it is also july, which is to say stock take time. so the boss asked for volunteers to do an overnight shift of stock taking.
i really dont mind this sort of thing: we got free food and a cab home, plus double time for working aftr midnight, and the work was pretty mindless.
the shop closer at the usual time, and suddenly a mob of about 40 indian guys came pouring into the shop all dressed in identical shirts, trousers and ties, with these strange zapping machines. they then combed through the shop at lightening spped, zapping the barcode of every single book on the way. it was an incredible sight, i have never seen guys work so fast (and they were all guys, i noted, there was not a single girl among them). then my collegues and i went behind them, spot checking the shelves to make sure they got everything. they were pretty accurate, i only found about 5 mistakes the whole night, which considering the hundreds of books i checked isnt much.
it is strange being in the shop in the middle of the night with no customers. kind of spooky actually.

death and the pigeon

somehow a dead pigeon with its head smashed in appeared on my front doorstep.
any theories as to how it got there? did he smash into the door? (my flatmate claims this doesnt happen) witchcraft perhaps? (maybe it is my fault? i havent sold enough harry potters? no, that its not possible, the computer tells me i have sold thousands)or good old east london hooliganism? (but what would be the logic behind that? "hhmmm, i am bored, i know! lets kill a pigeon and put it on someone's front step, YEAH!")
how strange.

potter maddness, part II

this harry potter business doesnt stop. the past several days have been nothing but unpacking convoys of boxes and watching them sell within hours. sales are through the roof and apparently we will all get bonuses...i am certainly not complaining, i am always happy to get an extra 100 quid or whatever the amount will be!
yesterday we sold out too early on in the day, and i spent my whole shift telling the bad news to endless queues of kids, many of whom burst into tears, it was a dreadful scene. this is the first time i have ever thought of my job as remotely...cool? kids have run up and asked for my autograph, one little girl, who looked to be about 7, got it in her head that i not only look like, but actually WAS hermione, and insisted i sign her book. i found it a bit odd to be mistaken for a fictional 17 years old witch, but of course i signed the thing. tomarrow tonight i am doing another "anti social hours" night shift since the whole shop is a bit or a mess thanks to the huge crowds.
yesterday, apparently one of the managers of a nearby branch had some sort of potter-induced nervous breakdown and couldnt work anymore, after doing several double shifts in a row, so some people from my branch had to go cover.....amazing stuff, and all over a book! (which i might add i am now halfway through, and enjoying very much!)

potter maddness from the epicentre

the past 2 days have been crazy.
friday night, shortly after 9pm, i got on the eurostar to com back to london, for one reason: harry potter. from waterloo station, i grabbed the first cab i saw and headed straight for work. i knew when i arrived there would be a huge queue, i had seen images of it on french tv: the dutch teenagers who had waited for several days in the rain so they could be the very first to get the last ever potter book, the endless chains of people wrapping around street corners in central london, and so on. but i was still surprised by how excited people can get over a book. i arrived to a long chain of people who were clearly annoyed i could go inside the shop and they couldnt. inside, the shop lookied like something out of a war zone with boxes and wrappings all over the place. the management fed us pizza, sweets and coke to keep us as awake a hyper as possible, since every one knew it would be a very long night. we spent the hours before the opening setting things up, while the manager periodically shouted out the minutes until midnight. we practiced the till procedures and got paired in twos: one person to face the customers and push the buttons on the computers, and another to grab the books and bag them.
at midnight the crowds outside began screaming adn we turned of the lights, letting the first woman come running in, screaming, in the darkness. from then on the next several hours was total maddness. people came running in screaming. one girl grabbed the first copy of the book she saw and stood there screaming "i touched it, i touched it." a man fainted. other people cried. many took pictures of us, with the flashes of their cameras flashing in our faces annoyingly. the funniest was a group of 30 school children from india who showed up with their scary teacher. they were all dressed identically in uniforms that looked like people worn here when india was still part of the empire. each grabbed their book and went running off , jumping, while their teacher (a white lady, of course) tried to maintain control.
by 3 am i was zombie and the manager finnally locked the door, announcing no more copies would be given out that night. we straightened a little while the managers called for taxis to take us home.
i came back home at about 4am with my bags, and flopped into bed for a 4 hour nap...then i had to get up again to go back to the maddness. the shop was again like a war zone all saturday: people running every where trying to grab as many copies as they could get their hands on. by 7pm, the thousands of copies we had started with were all gone and crying children could be heard everywhere. scary stuff.

paris, 10 years later

yaelle, solenne, and i: the three musketeers.
we gathered tuesday night in a restaurant in the 6th to celebrate our "10th anniversary." it seems incredible, but it was exactly 10 years ago this coming month (august) that the three of us all decided to move en masse to montreal. we packed our bags and hauled ourselves off to that cold and far away city where we spent a year huddled in various bars and cafes pretending to study for our classes (we signed up for all the same ones, bien sur). it was good time. during the school breaks, we headed off to my parents house, since they lied the closest, except for the one massive and crazy trip we planned together to venezuela. we were teenagers then and busy plotting crazy adventures.....and it was all now 10 years ago. we gathered in the restaurant and noticed that we look more or less the same, although many things in our lives have changed. yaelle and solenne still live in permanantly in paris, which is where i always imagined they woudl end up....but i am now seperated and living elsewhere. funny how life sends us in different directions like that....

paris

i was really happy to leave paris in 2005. if you go back to those blog entries, you see i was at the end of my patience with the city and myself in it. i had a rubbish job i hated and was going down a dead end road. i wasnt making enough money to live normally, i was sharing a too small flat out in notorious department 93, more than one hour from my job. a month after i left, my old neighbourhood erupted in flames: two boys died running away from the cops. it was he end of Ramadan and apparently they were afraid of being late getting home. after their death, people went a bit crazy and thousands of cars in my old neighbourhood were burned down in the weeks of riioting that followed. watching everything from london, i was glad i had left.
yet there are things about paris i like and i am glad to come back here to visit my friends and family here. i especially love paris at easter and in the summer, the two seasons i know paris best in. i have spent parts of 3 of the past 4 summers here and i love seeing my "summer friends" every time i come. some of these "summer friends" have become good friends i now see out of the context of either summer or paris. for example, i associate summer in paris with hanging out with aude, who is seemingly always here at that time visiting her huge family. over the years we have spent i dont know how many hours hanging out in cafes around the city (as well as on the couches of her aunt/grandparents house). she has tried to teach how to play settlers of catan, and introduced me to some cool people.
i also love hanging out with adam and audrey, catching up on the gossip of my former work place, and being filled in on the latest on the political and social scene in department 93, which is so far away in many aspects from the rest of paris.
i love heading to the different musuems, in particular the musee european de la photographie. i love going to the opera with my parents to see the ballet, and taking a walk along the promenade during intermission. i love having huge and ridiculous fights with tony and cam about world history and the future of technology. i like walking on the ile saint louis and eating berthillion ice cream with my mother and spending hours in gibert jeune hunting for books. i like having my hair cut by christophe and going to la ferme saint simon for lunch with my father. i miss these little traditions when i am not here...i just wish there were a way to combine them with decent employment and a better living condition than the one i had when i lived here. but no place can be perfect....

paris buda moscow london

i have spent the last 7 years moving back and forth between paris moscow budapest and london. i really dont know anymore which of them is meant to be my home. having visited all 4 in the last 2 months, i can see that it would be impossible for me ever to choose just one of them to live in. there are parts of all four that i need. there are things i do specifically in one of the 4, and i have some strange set of rituals that goes with each one of them. for example, my hairdresser is in paris and i buy my Cds and DVDs in moscow, at gorbushka. i buy my books in london and moscow and i go out most in buda and paris. with the eurostar, easy jet and ryan air these places (except moscow which remains a pain to get to) are not far away, and if i had the money i would visit them all even more often.
but alas, i am a poor student.

updates

i got this from maysambas blog. it seems our brains are in the same century, somewhat to my surprise

Итак, вам лучше всего жить в России времен Екатерины Второй

«Век золотой Екатерины», как пел Игорь Тальков – это еще и Ваш век! Просвещение, стремление объять великую культуру Европы, познать ее, проникнуться и, быть может, самому создать произведение искусства. Вы цените интеллект, образованность, высокие идеалы просвещения. Невежество и пошлость вызывают у Вас отвращение. Массовая культура Вам чужда. По натуре Вы – современный аристократ, цените утонченный вкус, по-настоящему избранное общество. Возможно, Вы и есть интеллектуальная или научная элита нашей страны. Только все же не зазнавайетсь! Помните, что и среди народа попроще встречаются хорошие, добрые люди, а обладать блестящим умом и эрудицией может не только такой замечательный человек, как Вы, но и откровенный мерзавец :)

Пройти тест

east london

my neighbours are having the most incredible house party imaginable. i can hear their music as clearly as if it were on my own computer. they have erected a huge tent structure with all kinds of exciting flashing lights.
then our next door neighbours, "the poles" are having their evening drinking and smoking chats on their back patio. these guys must be really homesick peasants as it seems they have endevoured to recreated village poland here in london. one of them is an incredibly skilled carpentor. he has put various quasi add-ons to the house, and a bit wood shed in the back. then he constructed a huge WIND MILL (yes, like the things holland is famous for) and put one of them on the patio. then an arch-like enterence to the patio was added. then last week a little waterfall appeared. i am waiting for the appearence of some pigs or cows, that is surely the logical next step. our downstairs neighbours are italians with drug habits. the other night they apparently had a massive fight, and i havent heard them since, which is unusual since they normally blast cheesy italian disco pop music every night, which i cant say i miss in this moment of silence.
it was a quiet day in the library, so many people are gone on holiday that it has become a bit depressing to sit there, especially on friday afternoons. so i finished the minimum i had to and left. i grabbed some films on the way home and came back to relax in the calm of my east london attic. i rewatched la historia official, which i hadnt seen in years. it remains as disturbing and powerful as ever. then i moved on to mne ni bolna, which is an incredibly light and funny film for the heavy topics it deals with (poverty, cancer). next up was edgardo cozarinsky's ronda nocturnal, about a (very good looking) buenos aires street hustler. the film was filled withr eally good looking gay guys, and some seriously odd scenes. i very rarely take evenings off like this, but i wish i could more often....

the travel till

i spent the afternoon working in the travel department. all my collegues hate it there, but it is my favourite place to be: calm, quiet and surrounded by travel guides! while up there, observing the people around me, i came up with the following list.

the best places to people watch:
1. London, heathrow, terminal 4: all, and reall ALL, of humanity can be found here. i know, as i spent large chunks of my childhood rushing up and down that long hallway of shops. i once saw brad pitt shopping in the harrods. another time my mother ended up conversing with boy george (having no idea who he was). i think within one hour you could find every nationality, faith and colour of person in that terminal. but it has to be specifically terminal 4, the others dont compare.
2. laduree, the terrace, champs elysees, paris. ok les champs is tacky and i hate it, but the terrace at laduree is a great place to watch the oddest show of arabs and russians anywhere around. flashy vulgar wealth on display.
3. laduree, inside, place de la madeline. same place but totally opposite crowd, watch the dysfunctionality at work. also leads off onto faubourg-st honore, a great street worth of people watching.
4. the fountain at Ohotni riad shopping mall, moscow. i love just standing there and watching the dyevs go up to the fountain, pose absurdly, while their boyfriends/ fathers take photos. this is a strange russian habit i will never get.
5. sitting by the door at Leopolds, mumbai. india is a very odd mix, and you can see it all from one chair, if you choose correctly here. on the street outside you have guys hawking any type of merchandise imaginable, combined with beggers and petty theives. inside, you have somewhat wealthy indians, aussie tourists, lost souls, british backpackers, famous writers, and everything else that ever found its way to india, by what ever means.
6. the Malecon, havana. this street is know as havana's communal living room, and i would say with good reason. everyone takes an evening stroll down this street, stopping to smoke or make out half way down, sitting on the railing, before continuing...only to stop again a few moments later.
7.coffee bean, tverskaia, moscow, actually, it is not the watching so much as the listening in on other peoples conversations that makes this place such a good laugh.....just listen to them! (especially the woman!)
8 any cafe overlooking .the streets of phuket, watch the people, and then try to figure out the relationship behind THAT story. is he married back home? how old is he? how old is she? how many people are living off her earnings?
9. boulevard de sabana grande, caracas. same deal like szechenyi in pest: guys playing chess....but here there is alot more besides...
10 any rave-beach party on mykonos, greece. goa sucked by comparision. mykonos featured some of the most equisitedly beautiful and exotic people i have ever seen.....such a pity they were almost all GAY!!!
11. mall of america, minneapolis minnesota. this is the most stunning tribute to comercialism i have EVER seen. and watch the people. then guess what size they wear....

why do we people watch? of course this is a strange habit, but i think we all indulge in it to some degree. i dont know what exactly is the anthropological explanation for why we want to watch the lives of others. i have neer understood, for example, watching big brother (but then i dont have a tv) but i do admit that i sometimes watch other people in social settings. when i was young, at terminal 4, for example, i think it was out of sheer curiosity. there were so many different kinds of people from places i had barely heard of, and it was all quite thrilling. now, i think it is just about trying to understand. there are so many worlds out there, even within the boundaries of one city: how can we grasp it all? observation is the only tool.

london

i finished my chapter last night and sent it off to my supervisor. ok, i realise it is not FINISHED, but i reached the point where i had written what i had to say at leas for the moment, and now it can sit a bit before i go back to it and change things about again. so this morning, completely unaware that a major bomb had just been diffused by specialists in the very centre of the city, i decided to go for a walk.
i dont know london as well as i should given how much time i have been here. i know london, budapest and moscow much better. the fact that i spent 2 months unemployed in paris one summer helped, with nothing to do i walked all over the place. but here my life is about shuttling between the library and my job and i fear i dont see much of the city outside these two places. that is something i greatly regret though, and i dream of a time when deadlines arent on top of me and i can walk where and when i please. but today i felt that i had the right to do as i pleased, and so i headed for a stroll around mayfair, which according to the book i grabbed from work, is where the Queen buys her underwear (on Conduit street apparently) and where King Jefri, the sultan of Brunei's brother, has sex parties that feature up to 50 prostitutes. it is also a favourite haunt for wealthy russians. actually i would say the area is heavily russian and arab populated.....sort of like the area around les champs in paris. so i walked around the mansion blocks and the synagogue with the intention of getting to know the place better....but then i fear i got sidetracked by the 50% off sale going on selfidges, and it was there that my good intentions got sidetracked by my shopping demons....and into the place i went...
but my struggle to get to know london must continue, i am not yet satisfied with my ability to find things here!

more lists: cafes and bars

i have been yelled at via email for not writing enough lately. thing is, i have been a bit busy, but clearly that is no excuse, and i shall do my best to do better.
so while standing behind the till today at work, i started thinking of the best places where i like to hang out, and have a coffee or a glass of wine...and this is what i have come up with, but i suspect it is incomplete:
1> Freud, london. one of my favourite london hangout bars. they have really great cocktails. i sit on the stairs, no one else gets to sit there!
2.christophers martini bar, london. it is a bit ridiculous....but it is also near my job, and hence a regular pit stop.
3. szimpla/dupla, budapest: i have no idea how many nights of my life have been lost here, but more than i should be able to count. sadly, my other favourite budapest haunt, the goethe cafe, has now closed, and part of the building has been taken over by louis vuitton. it seems so wrong, goethe has the best tez cafe ever, and andrassy ut will never be the same again!
4.leopolds, mumbai. cmon, it is a classic. it has the best cheap food and drinks in the colaba, and the best atmosphere. if you dont believe me, read shantarum.
5.the bed, bangkok. this design of this place is wicked, adn the music is excellent as well.
6. random pit in prague. i cant remeber the name of the place where i spent so many evenings once upon a time in the mid 1990s. if was not far from the main square (and the national museum of rocks, as i called it) and it was undergrown in a wierd cave like construct. you had to climb up ladders to get into some of the rooms. i am sure it was an incredible fire hazard, which is probably why it is long gone, but it was truely spectacular.
7. plato, belgrade. no trip to serbia would be complete without spending hours gossiping with maysamba in plato....
8.the dome, mumbai. such an amazing view, and from the height of the top of the building, you cant smell the shit that fills the water below.
9. VIP room, paris. this place is also ridiculous, but for some reason it became a regular stop over place after work when i was working in paris. i cant even recall the number of times i missed that last metro because of the cocktails...
10. cafe delmas, paris. the location is perfect and they have outdoor heaters so you dont freeze in winter. excellent wine. and the food is good too. what i like about delmas is the odd variety of people: it is open all day and night and at any given time you can see everyone from pensioners to students sipping on coffee or munching a salad.
11. the eagle, cambridge. this place has the coolest ceiling ever, where american pilots carved stuff into the wood during the war. also something (DNA if i remember correctly) was discovered inside....definately my favourite cambridge spot, although the pickerel is a close second!

london

the weather in this place couldnt be worse. justin has tried to convince me that it actually doesnt rain much in england, but he is wrong: it rains all the bloody time. i cant remember the last day when it DIDNT rain, and the 5 days forcast only promises more of this misery. it is almost july and i cant wear any summer clothes yet, or if i try to i have to adapt them with various layers. my feet are cold all the time and i just want to curl up in bed with the cat...and this is summer?
the climate is most definately my biggest complaint about london, it would be a much more livable place other wise.
i need to finish my latest chapter, but it is going soooo slowly. i dont know why: i know what i need to say, but i am having trouble formulating it onto the paper somehow, it would almost be easier if the material i had were less, then i would not be bothered by the problems of selection. but in moscow i picted up tons of extra sources which are really useful, but sifting through them is incredibly time consuming....i just want it all to be over!!!