The Benign Beginning

I’ve started a new blog, it’s

www.procrastinators.wordpress.com

It won’t be about Uni/Glasgow any more, but it’ll be about some other places, naturally.

See you there!

Missing Glasgow.

The Last One

Alright, so I’m sitting here on the floor between something and something else, with a large bowl of pasta which overnight has become even tastier, even though lost its attractive looks, and remains of mulled wine. Yesterday we had a small party: Rishab’s parents and aunt, Jazy, Ather and Kat, and the day before yesterday we graduated. And the day before yesterday we graduated. (I’m repeating for an effect.)

The graduation was awesome. Awe-inspiring. We came and started rushing around in the attempt to register and collect our robes; I forgot how to spell my family name and was standing in the wrong queue. The tension was growing with every minute. The robes were flying in the draughts. Everyone was so handsome. I felt I belonged to some Society of Outstandingly Uncannily Handsome people. I definitely was one myself, of course, wearing a thin grey woolen dress and enormous heels, complete with my newly born little emerald earrings and a ring, and an invisible golden chain with a microscopic diamond pendant. Of course! We all were stars, a newly discovered galaxy. Aneta was wearing her ethnic Norwegian dress and jewellery, which were unsurpassed. Rishab was wearing a head-turning suit which his uncle gave him in June. Melvin was wearing a kilt. What others were wearing, I don’t remember, but surely something stunning. But even if they hadn’t, they would still have been Outstandingly Handsome. Sometimes you can’t help it.

When they were preparing us to enter the hall, we were told that the Principal will initiate a handshake with each of us, and it would be desirable if we could reciprocate, but not compulsorily so in case if it was against our religion. I loved that moment. I realised once again how incredibly diverse this community of graduands was, and how difficult it actually had been to accommodate everyone’s tastes, beliefs and values; and how successful the university was in that, at the end of the day. It’s such a small thing, a handshake, and so natural and straightforward; yet there might have been people who couldn’t handshake with the Principal, and… You see what I mean?

Then we went for a late lunch/early dinner to Bothy, organised by Dace. And then there was the ceilidh. I came late, entered the hall and froze in the doorway. Warmth, energy, flow. I subdued. I got carried away by the beauty and simplicity of the dance. It’s archaic, it’s archetypical, it’s profane. I wanted to praise everyone around me: they were so beautiful, wearing such beautiful clothes, such elegant smiles. I belonged there, I didn’t want to leave.

On Monday we had a reception. I might be wrong, but I felt as if it was the first reception where students and staff were genuinely united; or at least it was so for me. I absolutely hate parties and functions, I get bored quickly and want to run away. This time it was quite different; when I came in, I got overwhelmed by the amount of people I wanted to talk to. Some of them I approached immediately, of others I was very afraid. I absolutely panicked when the professor whose lectures I (we all, indeed) found the most difficult, started approaching me with a definite deliberation to talk. I think my eyes were round like two teacup saucers. And to my astonishment, I didn’t just survive, but I actually managed to converse with him very nicely, and I didn’t die or anything, which I had quite expected. Then I spoke to other people, students, parents and staff, and our secretary was saying nice things about me, which I was very flattered to hear, but also felt guilty to hear them, and I was very disappointed when some people vanished without me managing to have a word with them. Unlike normally: I usually can’t wait till a get-together finishes and everyone disappears and leaves me alone, or till I can sneak away. I don’t know what happened. I probably wanted to take a revenge on someone or something… Or probably it’s the kria course which I did over the weekend… I don’t know.

Yesterday we were coming back from the city-centre by bus, and Rajneesh got on. The first thing he said was: Ah, you went to the temple. I almost asked him: How do you know?, when realised there was a tika, a large dot made with red paint on my forehead. It’d been there since morning when we indeed went to the temple to do puja; it’s basically the act of worshipping Shiva, but nevermind. Rishab and I spoke to Raj for a wee while, and he even missed his stop. He said he’d applied for PhD in a few universities, and they even offered him funding in one of them (perhaps St Andrews), but suggested he did research in microeconomic foundations of macroeconomic theories, for which he’d replied: thank you very much; I could perfectly see why, and we had a laugh. It’s nice to talk to someone with whom you studied together, actually sat together and struggled through all those things which eventually earned you a degree.

So what else shall I write? This is my last post in this blog. Do I have a clear vision and plan for the future? Nope. Not a ghost of either. But what I do have is a great sense of gratitude and a completed patch of growth, if one can say so, and a firm belief that this will eventually lead me to the path which will be right for me. I’m applying for jobs, thinking of PhD, but I feel that right now the solution lies in something other than whatever I am doing. I mean to say, whatever I do doesn’t hold a solution. I probably need some time, and I will find the path, and meanwhile just do something to keep myself busy, just prepare. Or maybe it’s an illusion, and a dangerous one. Because life is here and now, and never tomorrow, and never one of these days. I’ve already been around for a quarter of a century, and perhaps about one third of my life, and still feel like a newborn baby. Like I only started living yesterday.

Implicit Simplicity

I miss being a child, and miss home. They say if you miss something, you deplete your personal power, and show lack of respect and gratitude for the present moment, for where you are and who you are. Is it so? I don’t know. It would be wrong to say I don’t appreciate being on the Island. Indeed, I do. I think it’s one of the most generous gifts of fate, God, and my parents. But I miss them nonetheless, and I miss home.

I sometimes ask myself, does it actually make any sense at all. Life is very short, and  does it make sense to go so far away and spend these short precious moments so far away from the people you love? But it’s a rhetoric question.

Just as I’m writing this, DHL arrived and brought some papers from my parents. I saw my Mum’s signature on the first paper and burst into tears.

Novosibirsk is at the same latitude as Glasgow, so it’s supposedly as gloomy and dark in winter, only it’s not, because of snow. Snow is white during the day, no matter whether it’s sunny or overcast, and during the night it’s there, it’s present. It covers the city with thick, soft layer. It hushes all sounds, and creates new ones. You can hear the crisp creaking of tyres on the snow, the squeaks of somebody’s feet, you can hear the humming of the motorway. The flats are so well-built (compared to the badly designed hundred-year-old tenements block I’m gradually getting tired of… should move on, perhaps…), so dry and warm; it’s such a fabulous feeling, to come home from the frost, with red cheeks, and be dazzled by the light and the warmth of your room. And the other way round is good, too: rug up in a dozen of jumpers and scarfs, and run out into the street, and walk swiftly to the underground (which looks like an underground palace, rather than a TUBE), or a coffee-shop, to dissolve into teas and conversation. To imagine how the snow sounds, take a Granny Smith apple and bite it hard. Such a delicious sound.

Anyway. This blog is called GlassGo Reflections, not the Sound of Snow or anything.

In Glasgow, meanwhile, winter has settled and a new academic year is at full pace, which we are not part of. Yesterday went to a seminar where Kat was giving a presentation on biofuels, and I realised how much I’ll miss university atmosphere and lifestyle. I definitely have to prolong it. 

Life has been very hectic, even though I’m not working. Rishab and I went to the conference Be the Change in London for just one day, and heard inspirational speakers like George Monbiot and Stewart Wallis (new economics foundation, www.neweconomics.org). Then we saw Crude Awakening, a very good documentary on peak oil, very impressive. After that, we organised a discussion on economic development at our place, and it was an absolute hurricane. We asked people to come up with their ideal pictures of the world in 2050, and there were dozens of issues raised. Very intellectually stimulating, but also so much fun. We’re planning to continue this discussion sometime soon.

Before that, we went to York. It was absolutely hilarious. We left home at 5 a.m. to get to Edinburgh (I loved the bit where Rishab asked the driver how long it would take to get to Edinburgh, for which he got a reply: You’ll see.), and then a train to York, calling on other glorious cities of Northern England. We spent a day in York with two very good friends, Bhav from Manchester and Violeta from Moldova, admired the Cathedral, the Shambles, the pretty York streets and welcoming locals, and a local pub (where we had two portions of apple pie and magnificent hot chocolate with a formidable crown of whipped cream on top). On the way back to Edinburgh, a copper cable was stolen somewhere on the line, and the train was delayed (that reminded me of home). The best bit was that, though ScotRail had nothing to do with our bus connection to Glasgow, they still provided us with a taxi. A completely free taxi from the platform to the door. Very considerate. Especially so as we arrived home at 2 a.m., and at 8 a.m. the next morning were catching a coach to London.

I think that Heima (www.heima.co.uk) was a start of something seriously shifting in my mind. This film, and then Be the Change, and then Crude Awakening. Watching Heima, I suddenly realised very clearly that the life as I’m used to it, and as I’m used to dreaming of it, is too complex and unsustainable. Life, in reality, is simpler and closer, it generally consists of close-ups (my favourite photographic style). I don’t want a car. I don’t want all the stuff that the advertising industry is so keen on selling me. I don’t want to waste so much. I want my life to be as simple and happy as it has been, only perhaps even a bit simpler and happier. That’s something I want to remember and pursue.

blog Eng.

We got our results finally. What a relief. I’m quite happy with mine, actually, not too bad after all.

 So now we can apply for Fresh Talent. I’ll do it as soon as I get letters from my parents  concerning the financial support of their poor (or shall I say lazy and impudent?) daughter.

On the job front, nothing too promising. I’m expecting a reply from JP Morgan in Edinburgh, where I went on Wednesday for an interview. The job is that of a financial analyst, but in fact it mostly involves dealing with the data and ensuring there is sufficient and proper data for analysis, to put it in a nutshell.  I said to them I’d rather commute, but now I realise that if I have to be in the office by 7.30 it might be not realistic, so I’ll ask them if they can find a place for me to stay. Anyway, no point in counting the chicken before they’ve hatched (God… is this correct grammar??). There is also my trip to India pending; as soon as I know their decision, I must buy the ticket; and yet, I have to have all the documents ready for the FT as soon as possible, because without it I won’t be let back into the country, and I want to get an FT before I get an Indian visa… And everything costs such ridiculous amounts of money, oh my God.  Sounds like a mess. And it indeed is. But I have faith it’ll all be right.

Our graduation is on the 27th, and I think it’ll be the day I’ll miss my parents more than I ever have in my life.

We had a visit from the president of Rwanda Paul Kagame, which was a brief talk and a Q+A session in the magnificent Bute Hall, and ended up being quite interesting. A self contradicting Wikipedia article about him is here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Kagame; there are a lot of things I can’t understand, and on reading this article I understand even less. But right now I don’t feel particularly keen on history excursions; maybe sometime later… After the lecture we had a small get-together in Left Bank which turned out to have delicious food, and conversed about matters ranging from the role of the economic profession in the evolution of humanity to… well, it was a wide range of topics.

We’ve seen a few excellent films recently. On the mainstream side, I Do and Elizabeth were not too bad. We saw both of them one day when Rishab was free from work, so we played tennis in the morning, then ran for a Play, a Pie and a Pint in Oran Mor (Crazy Love), and then went to the GFT and Cineworld and watched the films non-stop. On the alternative side, we saw HEIMA, which is an absolute masterpiece. It’s a film showing Sigur Ros’s tour of Iceland in 2005 after they released Takk. This film deserves a separate review, so I won’t do it now. I will only tell you that the hall was packed, the landscapes and the music were heart-stopping, and the message was poignantly compelling; for me, it was a message regarding the necessity to RECONNECT with the nature, the beauty and simplicity of life, and ultimately myself. And the fact that two days later I went to a futuristic business park to have an interview with JP Morgan… somehow it does not actually contradict anything, but anyway, I’m waffling. I don’t know what I’m trying to say, actually.

Yesterday we had a Diwali celebration,  very beautiful with a lot of candles. I made a small walk of candles in the corridor, which looked splendid. We had a few friends and a Russian/Indian Halal/vegetarian fusion. Have you ever heard of Halal borsch? See what I mean.  

What else? Ah, music. We went to some experimental free concert of Scottish Symphony Orchestra; they played contemporary things, some were quite good. There is plenty of chamber music happening at the University, and we’ve been to two: once I listened to Haydn and Beethoven, and the other time we heard Debussy, Strauss and some contemporary piece which, in turn, consisted of six little pieces featuring some elements of Roma music, wind and transistor. Haydn was great, Beethoven is beyond my understanding and Debussy surprised me (ignorant in terms of classical music and many other terms) by being so avantguard.

I feel as if I’m writing for the sake of ticking ’blog Eng.’ off my list. So I think I shall do that for now, and write some more exciting and detailed descriptions of our lives once I get some inspiration.

Marine: Layer after Layer

What I dismissively referred to as ‘marine layer’ the other morning turned out to be a proper heavy machinery for producing a bit of rain, then more rain, and ultimately more and more and more rain.

I’m sitting alone at home and listening to Linda. Now, how shall I describe Linda to you… Let’s say, Linda is my favourite Russian singer. To be more precise and, for that matter, honest, I have to say: Linda is the only Russian singer that I actually like. But for that I like her enough for a couple of dozen Russian singers.

(If by any freak of chance you want to LIsten to LInda, just type ‘Linda Russian singer’ in www.youtube.com, and you’ll get a proper gentleman’s set: Tanez pod Vodoi (which I’m listening to right now… ah no, it’s already Severnij Veter - an environment-oriented, folk-stylised, energetic and liberating song), Otpusti Menya, Krug ot Ruki - all excellent songs which are really worth listening to… provided, of course, you’re in that kind of mood and like that kind of music.)

Which at a certain level signifies that I’ve been home. I went home and brought some music with me, including a 15-track self-made compilation of my favourite songs by Linda.

So now that I’ve said that I’m supposed to say something about being home and coming back. Well… Home was good. This phrase is some sort of a typical English understatement which one is supposed to use when writing in English and thinking in English and means, in fact, other things. By other things I understand feelings of much, much deeper and vaster amplitudes than those which can be expressed by saying that something was good.  In fact, I should say that the feeling of being home was overpowering and overwhelming sometimes; I spent, in fact, a few evenings crying from the realisation that I had to leave.

Leave what? My beautiful, beautiful room with cherry curtains and an enormous ashes-coloured desk, penetrated with subtle fragrances of I already don’t know what. Leave my awe-inspiring superstar-Mum and my super-fluffy cat. Leave my orange paper lamp and a million candles, and the guitar. Leave my nearly re-established friendships. Leave those irreplaceable feelings of comfort, peace, omnipotence, hope. Leave the earth, which gives me strength and nourishes me, which gives my feet a necessary push to move on, the safe and beautiful law of gravity.

Leave for what? A Scotland which there, on my immaculate sofa, seemed no less foggy, dim, distant, unknown and scary than it had seemed a year ago, before I had ever set foot on its (welcoming and miraculous) soil.

And yet I leave. Why?

Perhaps it has nothing to do with Scotland or wherever else I go. Perhaps it has only to do with the fact that there’s nothing back there, that the door has closed, and it did so ages ago. Perhaps if I stayed for longer than a fortnight, I would have discovered that friendships have faded, that my Mum has work to do in the other city where she currently lives, that my spacious perfect room has become too small for me, that it has exhausted itself in its capacity to feed my childhood dreams (of the Radiohead homeland and other Wonderlands), and that the sweet, sweet and bittersweet memories which I have held so dear have become scraps of paper, fading ink.

Or perhaps it has everything to do with Scotland, or rather, the abovementioned Wonderland - the Island which I had been so fascinated by as a child (well, teenager), which I got thousands times more fascinated by in my early twenties, and which has still (though I have claimed the opposite, I’m sure) NOT lifted its charm off me.

Or perhaps both. Or neither… It’s just the road, and once you step on it, there’s no turning back. You have to walk.

I could say more. Describe my little culture-shocks. Tell you about my trip back, and how we went to Manchester and Sheffield, and Damien Rice gig, and … other things, but… I think I’d rather leave it here, cause what I said above is kind of very … Dramatic, so I don’t want to spoil the effect.

I’ll only remark in passing that we’ve enrolled for graduation and now waiting for the results and then graduate on the 27 November, and then what happens God knows. And that this is one of the last posts; I’ll probably write a couple before graduation and after, and then finish it off and close this blog.

xxxxx etc

Tea. (I mean, T. - my initial)

 p.s. One more thing: talking about Radiohead. They have released a new album which you can buy online or just get it for free, and then they’ll release the CD with pictures and other things (I think an LP, too), and it’ll cost 40 pounds. It’s called In Rainbows. I didn’t particularly like it, only this song, it stole my heart:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SlZrzHGWcdA

That’s it, I MUST disappear, because the song is now playing, and I’m afraid that in the mood this song thows me in I’ll write something I will later regret.

thanks for bearing with me

poka/bye

Glasgow (and Oxford) in Dundee

Yesterday, we went to Dundee for some sort of an education fair. This involved a two-hour drive (Scott picked me up outside St. George Cross at 7.30 a.m.), a whole day of handing out undergraduate prospectuses and answering questions, and a two-hour drive back. I don’t know about Scott, but I enjoyed it a lot; I don’t know either whether I was terribly useful, but closer to lunchtime I managed to actually learn something about admissions to Glasgow University and answer some questions to glowing-eyed pupils and their parents, concerned-looking, but pretending to be taking it easy.

It probably sounds like boasting, but I actually felt proud to be under the University of Glasgow banner. Scott noted that most universities had a lot of props (including sweets and pens and what not), glossy prospectuses and perhaps even some Powerpoint presentations. We only had piles of prospectuses on the table and boxes of them underneath, and Scott kept unpacking and handing them out and speaking at the same time (I think he’d mastered a tone of authority, and gave very in-depth explanations and advice; I was musing at how he’d managed to learn all those things). The requirements seemed very high to me; these poor pupils must be going through much stress, if they choose a place like Glasgow, especially for something like Medicine, Psychology or Law.

In the course of all this learning I discovered a great desire to do another Master’s. This time in Arts.

I was amused to see  Oxford there. Scott said that they had been at a similar event in Glasgow some time before that; I wonder why they need to go to these promotional events at all? Bizarre. I saw the Oxford guy sitting on the table and talking to someone quite agitatedly.

Like a Tree

I have just submitted my dissertation. I think I was the second one to submit; at least in the pile there only was one more. Outside the office there were about four or five  nervous people, clutching their works. The submission deadline is tomorrow.

I have a strange and sudden sensation (I love the English language! for the alliteration), as if I’ve zoomed out and am observing my life a vol d’oiseau. I feel as if I am to receive a newsletter from life, some sort of a heavenly update.

I had a coffee in Tinderbox today, while waiting for the secretary’s office hours after I’d printed and bound my paper. I couldn’t help going, really: Tinderbox was the first coffee-shop I went to in Glasgow. You know, how it all is: cities, and coffee-shops, where you idly bide your time, imagining as if you’re a writer or an observer of life. All the cities I’ve been to were seen through a coffee-shop window. Coffee-shops, and then streets, which have a coffee aftertaste.

Tinderbox happened to be the first one in Glasgow, when I was new to the city, and Great Western Road was just ’some road’, full of mysteries, and very long (too long: the new shoes with high heels rubbed my feet so badly!). Somehow, I feel that within this year I didn’t really acquire anything; when I was sitting there, on the exactly same chair, all the people I’ve made friends with, all I have done and learnt since then - all that was already there, it had already happened to me.

You know what it’s like: when you come to a city for the first time, you don’t know anyone, and there is no chance that you’ll bump into someone familiar in the street. And it’s amazing how you grow these acquaintances and friendships, like a tree grows brunches; even a person like me, petrified by a prospect of  social contact, for whom a party is a torture, and talking to a stranger requires more courage than… anything, really.

It’s amazing how you first live in, and  then gradually emigrate from a university, a city as it is described in brochures and leaflets that you are generously supplied with on the first day. First you walk around projecting the campus map onto reality. You  go to a cafe to see if it’s true what is written about it in the SRC booklet. You try to connect your new experience with the previous knowledge: you remember all the emails that people have sent you who have been to the city or lived there. You puzzle. It doesn’t look like they describe, it doesn’t feel like it. The campus map is too simplistic and distorted. The streets and avenues bend and twist, and they are hilly, not flat, as the map suggests. Gradually, you leave the paper reality; new maps are drawn directly in your brain by the mysterious impulse and response patterns.

Then comes the music. The music you hear is linked with the place and time where you heard it first forever; it will take a very dramatic experience to fix a new association with it. The music creates landscapes. It paints, it sews. Like a tree gets covered in leaves, you’re covered in contacts and things you do, and things you buy and see. It becomes cosy. It becomes your comfort place. It first challenges you, but then it becomes  your comfort zone.

Now I’ve submitted my work I feel some slight and head-turning exultation. As if in the fabric of days a gap suddenly opened, and I slid into that gap. It’s a slightly uncanny, dizzying freedom; a statio, a pause in the routine flow of life.

Before I started my Master’s, I hadn’t known what to expect. When I first walked up Kelvin way, stepping softly on the fallen leaves, I thought: I will walk down this road one day, either in despair or triumph. Neither happened; or both. I didn’t do exceptionally well, I didn’t do badly, either. I just did what was required, wrote my essays and sat my exams.

It could have seemed to some people back home that this decision required some courage, but it did not. I simply didn’t have any other option; I HAD to go away and try something other than what was before my eyes, so I did. The only courageous bit was that I couldn’t support myself, so I owe thousands of pounds to my parents now; and not only just money, but something else. They would say I owe them nothing, but a debt is always in your head. If not for this burden, my exultation would probably be complete.

I See Why the Beast

I like this one:

 ‘Quasi-maximum Likelihood Estimation and Inference in Dynamic Models with Time-Varying Covariances’. I think I should start a collection, something like a Hundred Article Titles Which I Find Fascinating. This one sounds like a poem almost, especially the ‘time-varying covariances’ bit.

I have to say, I truly envy the new students of the University of Glasgow. Imagine:

1) new monitors for the Library have been bought and partially installed (I’m writing on one of such renovated computers, very pleasant);

2) the Library opening hours have been increased by some incredible amount: 7.30 a.m. to 2.00 p.m. 7 DAYS A WEEK, God, this is truly incredible. Fancy the Library at 1 a.m. on Saturday? You and the janitors. Spooky a bit, but a truly worthwhile experience!

3) they are building some mysterious ‘Hub’ right in front of the Library, which will contain offices and something else, I’m not sure; I hope it will have some nice coffee sold there.

Now. The main thing. DISSERTATION. I think I would actually name this after the ballet that we saw the other day: RIDE THE BEAST. It was indeed some monster-taming process; at some point, I felt a bit panicked: I was completely lost in what I had written, and did not know how to make head or tail of it. Now it’s in my bag, printed and awaiting the last super-scrutinised attack from my weary eyes. Some 70-page predatory animal, tied down and zipped in a documents compartment of my laptop case.

Did I enjoy it? I actually have to say, yes. I actually have a suspicion that everyone who says things like ‘I’m fed up tired sick of it stupid worthless waste of time’ (which means everyone) in fact are… coquetting (is there such a word?). In fact, I don’t think I’m the only one who has enjoyed it (well, at some point, of course, not all of it). It’s just that I’m not afraid to admit it.

(Hm… familiar situation, has got me into trouble before, hope this time it won’t…)

Well, that is to say, I enjoyed some of it, at some point in time. It might be a childish, immature, worthless from the scientific point of view pile of 71 sheets; but I have to admit it, I feel some warmth towards it. Of course, next time I do it, I will do it in a totally different way; yes, I will construct a model, and I WILL take trouble to collect the data for it, and I WILL use rolling techni… Ok, I shall stop here, before I say something which I will later regret.

(Hm, the ‘next time’ bit worries me… what a slip of the tongue.)

Now, I have to have a look at Rishab’s one to see if he used cApitalIsaTion correctly. We’re almost alone in the whole building, hah, it’s about 1 in the morning I think…

Why the Beast?

‘The rain continued. It was a hard rain, a perpetual rain, a sweating and steaming rain; it was a mizzle, a downpour, a fountain, a whipping at the eyes; it was a rain to drown all rains and the memory of rains’. Something like that. (Ray Bradbury, Long Rain). Actually, I am dramatising, and also being unfair. It has been sunny for a few days.

I wanted to open a new document and start typing my blog; but I couldn’t resist opening the sacred folder called THE THING, and do the wordcount for all the chapters of my dissertation. 8500. Not too bad, actually, considering that the introduction, conclusion, summary, bibliography and references, appendices - all will take another 3000. And also considering that the chapters themselves aren’t finished yet. So I can easily go beyond 12000. I wish the content of THE THING was coming up to scratch though, which I doubt.

Yesterday I only wrote a couple of paragraphs, but read quite a bit, and it was the most exciting bit. I was reading about the role of oil exports in Russian economy, and whether or not it is suffering from Dutch desease. There’s a lot written, and very controversial and exciting. I was sitting there, on the ninth floor (literally on the floor, by the way), and puzzling why I hadn’t chosen it as a topic for my dissertation. If anyone is reading this who is thinking of a topic for something (anything), please, believe me: nothing you choose is too ambitious. It’s much better to choose an ambitious topic which really interests you and then suffer from there being too much for you to bear, rather than choose a small and boring topic, which you will soon exhaust (and which will exhaust you even sooner), and then sit down and sulk.

(Hahaha, so funny, Rishab has just received a letter with the following address on it:

Rishab Khanna
Flat 2/1, 15 White (!)
Glasgow
G3 8PE
UK London (!)

The postcode is totally random, but the ‘Glasgow-UK-London’ thing is classic. It reminds me of: my family and friends, who would ask me how London was whenever I returned after spending three weeks in Oxford; my niece, who I suspect still thinks that I’m studying in Oxford; and my Mum, who calls Scotland England, and when I correct her, says that it’s all the same.)

So we live, spending most of our days glued to the laptop screens. Even though the surroundings change (we study in the living room, kitchen, big blue room with the windows wide open and the precious sun coming in, Adam Smith Library, main Library, Offshore, Tinderbox, Beanscene…), we barely notice it, and the time flies fast.

I’ve finally finished War and Peace. I really loved it, though I skipped quite a bit. I really loved the psychological and ethical components, but not the philosophical one. However, I found in another book (Desmond Morris, People Watching) something which is so well connected with the whole War and Peace philosphical framework. Judge for yourselves:

‘…It is evident that even if mankind does possess inborn aggressive urges, they are hardly going to explain the occurrence of modern wars. They may help us to understand why we go red in the face and shout and shake our fists at one another when we are angry, but they cannot possibly be used to explain the bombing of cities or the mass invasion of friendly neighbours by dictatorial warlords… Self defence and self-assertion is one thing; mass murder is quite another. The savagery of violence in modern times can only be properly compared to the bloodshed witnessed when animal groups become hopelessly overcrowded… provoked by the unnatural conditions prevailing at the time’ and so on and so forth.

He basically dwells on the idea that people are manipulated through appealing to their allegedly inborn agression, whereas in fact it is our truly inborn cooperation that makes it possible to play whole nations off against each other. This proposition makes a lot of sense to me. I also liked what he said about there being a lot of individuals who do not experience parental love the way they are supposed to, all due to this ‘unnatural conditions’ of our time, and then taking it out on ‘parents substitutes’ - basically, on anyone who comes their way, hence all the senseless violence and things like that. This thought also makes sense.

Well, anyway, THE EVENT was going (sorry for the blasphemy) to Edinburgh last Sunday. We went to meet Rishab’s relatives, and to see a ballet (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2007/08/21/btballet121.xml). We saw: world premiere of Ride the Beast (choreography by Petronio and music by Radiohead), For MG: The Movie (the famous Trisha Brown and Curran) and Fearful Symmetries (Page and Adams). Trishna’s bit was something completely beyond my understanding (there were some people standing, running and lying, and instead of music were some very unpleasant sounds of a port town); and the Page’s one was spectacular. The music was fabulous; the anxiety of the violins and repetitiveness of the melody reminiscent of Michael Nyman to an extent. It was a kind of music to which you used to dance as a child, when you simply felt that you either dance, or die; so it seemed as if dancing to this music was a matter of life and death for the dancers.

Needless to say, it was Ride the Beast that bought me; it proved to be… OK. I loved what Petronio himself wrote about it: ‘Radiohead sail through genre and form effortlessly and passionately, and their music demands a physical response from me that bypasses reason. I have chosen the songs for various reasons: personal pleasure, their ability to propel, a desire to hit some peaks in Radiohead’s history, and ultimately their ability to shape a world I wanted to move these dancers through’. I especially like ‘a world I wanted to move these dancers through’. I didn’t think highly of the piece though; I think it was a very personal perception of Petroni’s, and it was very far from how I perceive this music. He put on Fitter Happier, Creep (acoustic), Hunting Bears, Idioteque and National Anthem (two genuine masterpieces). Fitter Happier opened the night, and it was quite interesting to watch; it rests fully on Yorke’s computerised voice, and I was curious to see how the dancers will dance to THE SPEECH; it is later on that some samples of sad and beautiful piano and other confusing sounds come in. When they started dancing, I held my breath; I thought, can it be? Can it be that now they will just simply go and do it, dance to Fitter Happier? Creep was too simplistic in my view. On hearing Idioteque my heart missed every other beat, as always; I figured out straight away that it was his favourite. One could tell. It is my favourite, too, though, so I might be biased. Petronio and the dancers could, to a certain extent, reproduce the despair and chaos that is present in most Radiohead’s works; however, as I see it, there were too many fussy movements, which I think are alien to R’s music. On the whole, I am dissatisfied once again. It’s like reading reviews on Ratchatcher; there is so much more to it, it’s so much subtler, and deeper, and more dimensional and meaningful.

Daft Draft and Dwelling

Haha, I’ve actually started procrastinators’ blog, but guess what, IT’S EMPTY so far… Every time I want to start writing I, guess what, POSTPONE.

 On Wednesday I am submitting the first draft of the dissertation. This means three days of very hard work, because today and yesterday no work at all was done: we went to the North-West, to Rishab’s friend Kat’s ‘bothy’ as she calls it. It’s a small cottage, which is partly 300 years old, partly reconstructed in the 70s of the previous century. It is in the middle of nowhere, so for about a mile you technically walk through swamps and other things, climbing up and sliding down the hills. But the view is definitely worth it. Yesterday evening the sunset was so beautiful, that I couldn’t believe it. I actually didn’t realise I saw what I saw. We walked, and stopped to stare at the sky, and the hills, and the lochs; it’s like in a book, or a film, or the most photoshop-like postcard of Scotland; only in reality the colours are much, much, much brighter. When you see something like this, it feels as if you’ve arrived somewhere you’ve been walking to your entire life, and it seems strange and unbelievable, that anything at all can matter; all those things that usually matter to you, how can they matter? But this beauty is remote, and untouchable, elusive; it’s like a thirst that can’t be satisfied; and you think, what shall I do with it? It’s so bigger than all you think about, and all your ambitions; it’s worth more than all the money in the world, yet you can’t pack it, seal it, bring it back to the city and sell. You can’t even describe it, can’t take a picture of it which would truly reflect it; it exists only there, for a few seconds, in your eyes, and then it changes, and changes again.

On our way back today we soaked through, and I was so happy to get on the bus to Glasgow (in Ballachulish about half a dozen of locals were involved in ensuring that we catch the right bus). I was happy to see the civilisation again; Glasgow polished by rain, looking oily and fresh, with enticing fragrance of food and coffee in the streets, and subtle waves of perfumes.

So now back to my draft. I ran what seems a thousand regressions, and now am going to describe the results. My regressions are of a very primitive type, but the results are actually ok; I anticipate a very painful and slow process though of selecting what’s relevant to my question and what’s not. Once I submit the (daft) draft, I will work on the literature review, and on getting the feedback from my supervisor I will be ready to work on the necessary changes. Sounds so simple. Haha. God, it’s technically three weeks left, I can’t believe it! Horrid.

Long time ago we borrowed Ratcatcher from the Library, a film by Lynne Ramsay.  I haven’t written about it, because I haven’t been able to find a link to a good review on it. The more or less tolerable is here: http://film.guardian.co.uk/News_Story/Critic_Review/Guardian/0,4267,50976,00.html. Frankly, I was surprised by just how superficial all the reviews are. It is indeed a film which is only made ‘tolerable’ by ‘just enough warmth’ diluting the chill (I still have goosebumps). I feel that it’s a very expressive film about the supreme importance of the concept of DWELLING in our lives; how the place where we live shapes us, changes us, twists us according to its own will. I suddenly felt acutely that the house we’re living in is about a hundred years old, that it wasn’t one flat but one and a half, that the people who lived here relatively recently didn’t have a bathroom, that it was all so, so different then, but so much of it remains still, and we are the heirs of what it was like; the flat, the street, the area influences me, changes me, encourages certain thoughts, actions, a certain way of looking at myself and my life. I already dream of  the next place I will live in, and these dreams shape my future, and prepare me for the change the new place will impose on me.