(3) Fri Aug 29 2008 20:09 Also, I lost my kišobran: All of a sudden I feel oddly disconnected from events in the States. There's all the political happenings, which I seem to find out about only through reading blogs and facebook statuses, despite several resolutions to check cnn daily. Then today my classmate asked why we were working on Monday when it's a holiday (his friend who works at the embassy isn't working) and our teacher was like, duh, why should we have an American holiday off? And I was like, oh, wow, Labor Day. Also, WHERE DID THE SUMMER GO?

I had a dream about packing (hurriedly) last night. I guess I am getting ready to leave Serbia. Hey, at least there was no German army involved!

Anyway, today was such a Friday. Yesterday I went out with a classmate and his host brother who is also a friend of mine, plus so random people to a happening venue where they have cover bands playing the best of Serbian rock music. I love it. A great time was had by all but the force-feeding of several large slices of Serbian pizza at 3 am was not so much fun. Class was as early as ever so I was reallly tired, and also today happened to be one of our professor's defense for her master's thesis, and we split up our classes by going to support her. Imagine listening to a hour discussion of Serbian national poetry on 4 hours sleep (na srpskom naravno). However. My classmates and I plus our professors have a really good rapport going, and we spent the rest of the afternoon joking about things that are probably not very funny in the retelling. (bad turbofolk, and sweaters knitted with the inscription 'srpska zvezda.' told you.) I was so tired I was almost hyper, but it's better to be joking than sitting quietly or something. After taking turns playing our favorite serbian music on youtube, and reading out essays about our favorite trips (which lead to an interesting discussion about sex changes and pedophilia in Thailand. yah I know) our professora asked, "What to do?" We wanted to igraju. (play/ dance) My suggestion of Bingo for practicing numbers didn't catch on, but we did have a short kolo (Serbian national dance) demonstration before settling down to read an text in cyrillic. You win some, you lose some.

The other day I went for a long hike in the fortress and I think the exercise was good for getting rid of a lot of my angst. It was interesting to see the fortress, I haven't been back through the yonder parts since EXIT, and not in daylight ever. It looks so different, it's hardly recognizable. There were houses! People live there! What do they do during the festival? Surely the don't STAY there? I can't imagine anyone trying to live a normal life in the middle of um, southern Europe's biggest music festival. Also, it's huge. I thought for sure I was beyond the span of the fest, but when I got to where I couldn't go any further, I realized I was looking down into the dance arena. On a side note, I am now officially Very Worried that EXIT and the release of Half Blood Prince (movie) will be at the same time next July.

In the morning we watched an interesting documentary about Roma in Belgrade. The movie itself was well done, using a certain type of car used by the Roma to create their multi-tasking vehicles as a hanger for all sorts of issues. It's so hard to talk about the Roma because it seems like it's just too many problems and too few solutions. I think they are better off here in Serbia than elsewhere, though. At least they seem to be less behind petty crime and eeking out a living selling things at the pijaca etc. One guy in the movie said something that got my thinking. He said there was no recycling service in Serbia so they do it instead. So why not start one (long overdue anyway) and hire the Roma to do what they are doing now, only give them actual equipment and decent pay so they can provide for their families? Eh but I don't know what I'm talking about. Anyway it's interesting to see stuff like this, and a outdoor photo exhibit that was on the city center a while ago. Then contrast it with a woman we saw while walking back from our field trip, holding a baby with a 3 year old following her, naked from the waist down and covered in dirt (or something else?). It's hard not to judge: how can you let your child walk around like that?

(2) Wed Aug 27 2008 18:40 Seen too clearly what she can't be: I have been totally slacking on the blog front recently, but if it makes you feel any better I have been remiss on all fronts that don’t involve reading twilight parodies. So here is a quick run down on what I have been up to lately:

Returned from a two week jaunt in Turkey with Jenn. Pictures… sometime. I have an excuse! My computer hates the uploader thingie. It was a great time, but a little more expensive than I thought it would be even though we were cutting all kinds of corners. Prices raised approximately 300% from the ones quoted in my 2007 LP, no joke. I’m through with traveling through Europe for now. No really. Stop laughing. Ok so I have a cheap flight to Florence booked in January, but after that, that's it. I'm thinking Mexico.

Back to the grind here in Novi Sad. I have learned a lot about my limits here this summer. When it comes to something like language immersion, that’s important, because unless I’m working at peak capacity I feel like I’m wasting my time. Or not making the most of it. Something. I got burnt out after about four weeks, and the two weeks off weren’t enough to fully recharge. If I had it to do over again, I’d do three weeks, take a week or two off, then another three weeks. And I’d bring some books and do actual work for a week during the break. Then I’d go back to London.

Back to London on the 9th! Wooo!

Also I booked my flight to the US. 13th to 29th October, flying to and from SF which means I’ll need a ride to SLC at some point, keep your ears to the ground.

I have some interesting classmates this time around. The French girl is still here, but she leaves tomorrow so I’m about to go meet her one last time. I’m in class with two other American guys, one 35 and the other 19, so we are quite a diverse group for being all Americans, but these two have the distinction of their courses paid for by the US government. I actually wonder what percentage of Azbukum’s income comes from the US government. Wish they’d pay for my course.

We have class every day at nine, which is way too early for me to be up and thinking in a foreign language, and sometimes activities in the evenings. On Monday we all watched Gde ceveta limun zut and I gave a little (very little) talk about my research. The movie was interesting but long and the portrayal of Flora Sandes was barfalicious. I wish I’d gone to some of those memorials when I was in Corfu, instead of mudbathing on the beach and crashing other hostels, being bitter about how commercial it was after Albania, but what can you do. You live, you learn.

Uhh yeah I better go do my homework. I have been suck a slacker lately with not doing it, I feel like I'm in high school. The time just literally flies by and I have no idea where it goes. This entire summer was gone in the blink of an eye. I remember the days of yore when summers were endless, day after day romping through vineyards and... yeah.

(2) Fri Aug 01 2008 13:51 Drago mi je: Today is the end of my 6 week Serbian course. Whew! I feel like the last two weeks have be stagnant if not worse... I seem to be forgetting stuff rather than learning it. Today on the test my professor said I got all the difficult stuff right but made a ton of stupid mistakes. At least it's not the other way around! Anyway I have earned a break and break I will. In a few hours I am setting off to meet Jenn in Plovidv and we will couch surf and flexpass it around the Balkans. Should be loads of fun. I'm all travel nerved up. I'll use that as an excuse for this disorganized post. This is why I never like to leave for anywhere in the morning, it's impossible to sleep. Anyway. Today being the last day for everyone (the school is shutting down for holiday) it had the feeling of the last day of school, like high school style. After we finished our tests we picnicked in the classroom, I walked around barefoot taking pictures, checking email, making tea for everyone, then we had a relaxed game for the last two hours of class. It was a bit sad because although I'll be seeing the professors and some of the other students who are coming back, some I won't see.

Now I've done a ton of these language courses (well okay three) and I always make good friends who I know I'll see/ have seen again but this has by far been the most interesting group of people. In fact we have had people flowing steadily in and out for the 6 weeks I've been here but a good group of us have been here more or less for at least a month. And some real characters! The slightly embittered academic addicted to the internet, laid back and hilarious german with his own grasp of the English language complete with helpful and eager host brother hanging on, enthusiastic French girl, fellow lazy American grad student, etc. It's been long enough for us all to get to know each of and to build up a repertoire of inside jokes, etc. Mostly mispronounced Serbian words. Well, I'm trying but I don't think I'll be able to express exactly what it's like to be in this situation, where you have so many people from such different backgrounds thrown together with hilarious results. Use your imagination. Anyway it's really a great time and I'm looking forward to coming back and meeting new people but I don't think it will be the same. Based on the stories I hear from last year it seems like the July group are really where it's at. Wish I'd been there (but I was way too burned out from writing my thesis to be able to concentrate of learning Serbian immediately!) Oh well!

(2) Tue Jul 22 2008 21:03 Stream of consciousness : I know monopolies are supposedly bad and everything, but I have this fantasy. I want google to buy facebook, so my inboxes are the same everywhere and I can stalk people all on one page. I want google to buy flickr, I know it's already owned by yahoo, get out of my fantasy! I want google to buy delicious and librarything so I can click on a tag and have it bring up everything from that tag in books, pictures, blog posts, etc. And I want it all to seamless integrate with my mac so I can jump from thing to thing without losing my train of thought.

wait, where did it go?

I want every word I type to be search able (by me!) so I can find it again.

(2) Wed Jul 16 2008 21:39 Učim da govorim: So I keep meaning to blog and I keep failing utterly. Who is surprised? No one? Here are some things I have been up to lately:

Speaking a lot of Serbian
Hanging out with various Azbukum students
Hanging out with various Serbian kids
Going to EXIT fest with Seb who came out from England
Reading The Sun Also Rises

Probably these will turn into seperate posts. Maybe. What do you want to hear about most? It seems like most of my time is actually spent in class, wandering around speaking srpsko-engleski, or sleeping. I heard that you absorb the language you're learning while asleep, so I don't feel too bad about that.

Fri Jun 27 2008 19:53 Zurka: Finally I met the other students at Azbukum. Until today I had only met one. There are four others in total, two Americans, a Brit and a German. They are all about my age except for the American girl. She is 16. 16! This seems crazy to me. I can't imagine my mother letting me go off to Serbia for a month alone when I was 16, and my mother was pretty liberal about what she let me do when I was 16 (probably because I didn't get up to much!). Also NATO was bombing Serbia when I was 16, but that's beside the point. Maybe she has family here.

After a very difficult class where I had to fill in the correctly declined pronoun in sentences, I had a game class with the others. They are all beginners so I was the most advanced, which was pretty surreal! Anyway I invited them all over to my flat, since I am lucky enough to live along, for a bit of a party. They seemed quite keen so we'll see if anyone shows up. This weekend I am going to work on winning the hearts and minds of the local population. Hopefully I'll meet up with the best friends of Kent fame, plus some other peeps. I'll keep you updated on how it goes.

Thu Jun 26 2008 12:53 Well that's a record: Day 4 in Serbia and my shoulders are now pink. YES I am wearing sunscreen.

Wed Jun 25 2008 15:21 U Novom Sadu: Today was my third Serbian lesson and I am improving by leaps and bounds. I am able to follow the second level book which really pleases me as actually it's pretty advanced. three times during the lesson my teacher said what a good student I am, she could see how quickly I am learning. This is great, sometimes I feel like there is so much I don't know and it's going very slow, but in fact I have made huge progress in just three days so I'm really pleased. I never thought I was good at languages, I always struggled so much with French and when I first started to learn Serbia. But maybe I wasn't applying myself. Or maybe, contrary to all the rumors, grad school does make you smarter!

(1) Mon Jun 23 2008 16:37 Hello to all that: Sooo... here I am. Apologies for lack of communication skills. I will try to do better, especially now that I am living in what my sister calls a "third world country." so here is the dealio:

I have returned to Novi Sad for what amounts to 9 weeks of Serbian classes with a two week break. By the end of it I hope to be really really good. yay. I flew in yesterday from London on a BA flight. The flight was ridiculously early, so after packing up my crap on Saturday with the help of the lovely Jenn, I headed out to my friend Molly's and her husband John took me to Heathrow on his way to work (he was really early for work.) What amazing friends I have! Unfortunately I am saying goodbye to some of them as they are returning to states etc, which made me very sad. I will also miss my friendies and future flatmates very much but at least a few of them are coming out. It was really weird for me not to be uber excited about coming to Serbia because I have been every other time, leaving Bakersfield, but I suppose it is good as it does me that my life in London is great & happy. Hopefully everyone doesn't forget about me! And even though I was so sore about leaving now I am glad I'm hear.

I got into Beograd about noon and Novi Sad an hour later, since I didn't want to deal with bus-train/bus-bus so I splurged on a car to pick me up. only £27! (Serbia is still cheap, even if not as cheap, what with the dinar rising against the dollar (I know right?!) and all prices being quoted in euros.) My friend Kent, who I met at Azbukum previously, had been here all year and just vacated his flat which worked out really well for me (although I was sad not to see him again) so I took it over. Which means no old Serbian ladies who hate me and won't let me do laundry! It has internet and everything! And, perhaps, more importantly, air conditioning. It is hot, hot, hot here, about Bakersfield hot, but with the constant house-car-store-pool air conditioning. Oh well. I am used to it -- right? buck up, California girl. the flat is about 15-20 min walk from the nicest parts of novi sad and about 30 min from the language school. I am thinking about a bicycle if I can get one cheaply. There are bike lanes on all the big roads so it is pretty safe.

There are I think about 5 other students at Azbukum this week. I have met one and seen two others, and the one I met said he is living with an American history student. Imagine! Right now, however, I am the only one at my level, which is means I get private lessons, at least for this week because a bunch of students are coming next week. Awesome! That makes it 3 hours a day instead of 4 for the same price, but I think it works out favorably. I will be having the same two teachers as last year which is great as I really like them and am comfy with them. Today I had a little test which I did ok on and then a lesson. It's great to see how quickly the language is coming back to me because I was afraid it wouldn't, but I really did learn a lot last year.

(1) Sun Jun 15 2008 10:33 Email from BA:

Dear MS RICHARDSON, With less than a week before your journey begins[...]

Sorry I have been so MIA lately. I am still bitter with my computer and I think my subconscious way of dealing with it is to spend as little time with it as possible. Today is a lovely day, surprise surprise, which is great luck as I've planned a picnic on Hampstead Heath with my palsies. Rumour has it there will be kites involved. Afterwards I am meeting up with an old friend from UCLA days. I can't believe it's almost time for me to go to Serbia and I have to admit I'm feeling rather ambivalent about it as London is turning out to be such fun now that the weather is nice. Oh well. Serbia will be fun too and at least there will be good, fresh, cheap produce there!

(2) Fri May 30 2008 18:31 Technology wants my memories to vanish: My little computer is slowly dying, but I took him into the apple store and asked if there was anything they could do to make him run any faster. The guy suggested I do an erase and install which I did, and now I suppose my computer is running faster, probably due to the fact that NOTHING IS ON IT and NOTHING IS AS IT SHOULD BE. Something went horribley wrong with the backup I did before the erase (eiiii) and now I'm missing my latest firefox profile with my updated bookmarks and zotero with all my notes! (Okay so I have a version from the beginning of April. GREAT. I hope it's all in the docs, too... but all that organising gone to waste. I cannot believe hoe stupid I was to not CHECK and MAKE SURE everything I needed was all up to date and THERE) My emails for the last 7 years appear to be missing, AND my pictures from Athens are COMPLETELY GONE. Just, gone. Go figure, I had additional backups of everything else... I thought they were still on my camera but noo.... =( The good thing is I do have Jenn's photos but she was only there for half the time I was. Not only that Quicken has vanished, and Word of course, though I think I can reinstall it, and those updated versions of iPhoto and iWeb that I went through such great lengths to obtain. I seriously cannot believe it. I copied over my entire library, how did it manage to just vanish? Ick ick ick.I want to curl into a ball and cry but ugh, I've agreed to go Karaoke tonight.

(2) Tue May 27 2008 21:10: I kept meaning to write about Eurovision because it was the best time ever, but as usual I manage to fail entirely at things I want to get done, but maybe later today. Amanda is here right now with her bf and they have completely crashed at this point being very jet-lagged. She brought some Ricks Steve's guidebooks with her so we made a reservation for a cheap hotel in Paris and went on a walk from Buckingham Palace to Trafalgar Sq by way of Westminster. Then we got falafel at my favorite place in Soho and I went to a seminar while they came back here.

In other news things are really falling into place for my trip to Serbia this summer. I booked a flight and I'm going out June 22. My friend Kent of Azbukum fame is leaving this week, which is unfortunate as I won't get to see him again, but at least it does mean that his flat is free so I am going to live in it for the summer. It should be really great, in the meantime I an doing half a dozen other major projects such as finishing a chapter draft etc etc... It's all a good time.

(1) Wed May 21 2008 10:26 Exciting dreams: involving secret meetings above a kebab shop. Ideas much?

I went to Oxford yesterday to go to a seminar. What a nice town! It's so pretty! I guess I'd forgotten. It turned out to be a really helpful and interesting seminar and I met lots of nice people who are also doing FWW. All in all very refreshing. Other recent adventures include Karaoke with the nanoers and a mysterious illness that struck me on the way home from Athens and rendered me various stages of useless all week. Jenn was flat/dogsitting at a nice place in Chiswick and I went down there this weekend. We spent a good day vegging out watching movies, episodes of Gilmore Girls and Arrested Development, and old Mariah Carey music videos on Virgin Music on Demand, while I wondered whether eating brie and chevre was a good idea in my delicate condition. Probably not, but a good time all around.

(3) Fri May 09 2008 10:32 The luck of the Greeks: I know some of you have (not least myself!!) been on as many pins and needles about this funding.... we can all rest easy now.

(3) Mon May 05 2008 18:06 All in a day: My cousin Laura is here visiting, so yesterday was quite an adventure. It might not be possible to "do" London in a day but we certainly tried. We took the tube into Green Park, walked through to Buckingham Palace, over to Westminster to see houses of Parliament, up to Trafalgar Square, where we stopped in the Waterstones to settle some small point on Harry Potter, being the nerds that we are. There was some kind of Sikh festival going on at Trafalgar Square so it was really crowded, music and free food! That was a real spot of luck. We were chilling on one of the fountains eating our free lunch when I noticed a media crowd and along walks Boris Johnson!! He was walking through the crowd shaking people's hands and stuff. I didn't put out my hand to shake because I don't really like him and also I was a little bit in shock. It was pretty random. He doesn't like so goofy in real life. Anyway so that done we poked our heads into the national gallery to look at some impressionists and then crossed charing cross bridge and walked along southwark... and walked and walked. We stopped at the Tate modern to go up to the top floor to admire the view and use the toilets, and an a pizza express that had set up a gelato stand. And also at the globe, hoping to buy tickets for today but sadly there is no show! We continued to walk and walk till we got to Tower Bridge, which we then crossed, and examined the tower from the outside. From Tower we hoped on a bus which took us through the city, down fleet street and strand, through picadilly circus and oxford circus and down oxford street to marble arch. We had seats at the front of the top so had a pretty good view of all these things. Got off the bus finally and entered Hyde park to gawk at speaker's corner and sit on the grass and eat a picnic of pb&j. Then walked along the serpentine to the peter pan statue (I remembered, Aly!). Up to Lancaster gate where we got the tube to Tottenham Court Road. We walked all the way down tcr then Euston rd to King's Cross for traditional platform 9 3/4 pictures. After much confusion and ado, we met up with some friends for fish and chips in a greasy spoon. Then finally, exhausted and defeated, home. We walked miles. I must have worn poor Laura out; I know I wore myself out, but it was great fun.

It is one of the first really nice days we have had so far and it felt wonderful to be running around in a t-shirt only, light out till almost nine. Everyone was out, and in such a good mood because it's a holiday and the weather is fine. So nice to stroll along the Thames or sit in the grass at hyde park with so many other people who are in just as good of a mood. I wanted to skip (and I sometimes did) just for the joy of fine weather. One thing living here has certainly taught me is to not take it for granted.

The weather has changed just in time; I'm going tomorrow to pay a visit to my friend Aleks in Greece and "get some sun." But hopefully it will be even better there; I'm going to bring my swimming suit and hope for the best. Today I am just staying in, cleaning, grooming, packing and thinking, thinking, thinking. I am so glad it's sunny, both literally and figuratively.

It's cinco de mayo, so if you have to go on a desperate mission to save France, be prepared. Last year this time I was thinking how strange it is that the world continues to turn when it seems like, for all intents and purposes, it should have stopped. Now I am feel it more than ever, but am starting to feel it might not be such a bad thing. Please let this feeling stick!

(4) Mon Apr 28 2008 11:53 And whiskers on kittens: On Saturday night I went to see The Sound of Music at the Palladium. As my siblings will (fondly I'm sure) remember, this was my favorite movie growing up, at least until I saw The Little Mermaid, so I was really excited about it. Well, it was pretty good and I enjoyed it. Some of the actors were better than others, unfortunately these were usually the supporting actors who were better. Max and the Baroness for instance, although Max was a lot older than he is in the movie so that threw me off! I have to remember the play came before the movie. There were a couple of songs that weren't in the movie, some of them quite good. But there was very little chemistry between Captain von Trapp and Maria, also Maria looked quite a lot like Hillary Clinton which was distracting. Also there wasn't as much development of their relationship as there is in the movie. I suspect a lot of that is those scenes they added in the movie would have been very boring on stage.

Overall it was really enjoyable, though. The main thing that struck me was how overtly political it was; much more so than in the movie. The Nazi question is central in the relationship of several of the characters, for instance it is actually the reason why the Baroness and Captain hastily end their engagement. The von Trapps' flight from Nazis becomes even more clearly the climax of the story; though, to be fair, my muddled view of things from the movie might have to do with those compulsive re watchings at the age of four, when I had no idea about anschluss or Nazis or anything like that. During the music festival scene, all these Swastika banners came down from the sides and the ceilings of the theatre, a very powerful evocation which made me a little bit uncomfortable! Also Rolph. In the play he actually doesn't betray him, but becomes compliant in their escape. A bit unfair on him then! Well, I actually think it works better but the logistics of theatre wouldn't have allowed for the heart-in-throat chase that ensues. Which is too bad because the nuns with the car parts are pretty much the best part of the whole movie.

Anyway a good time was had by all (me) and now I think I should work in a few more plays before the summer. It's globe season again!

I also realized that the Captain von Trapp would have been serving very near by stomping grounds during the FWW. Hmm...

(2) Tue Apr 22 2008 23:39 I miss you: Not a day goes by when I don't, to give truth to that old cliché; but today, especially today, I miss you.

Sun Apr 20 2008 12:35 Opps: I thought I felt something poking me in the night and when I woke up I discovered I'd been sleeping on my iPod shuffle. It must have been in my kangaroo pocket and fallen out. Hopefully it is no worse for the wear!

(2) Fri Apr 18 2008 15:27 Publishing and history collide:

“Oh, Rachel, this should interest you,” says one of my coworkers, pouring over a copy of The Bookseller. “In ‘history, politics and war’... ‘What is was like being a woman in the Balkans, First World War.’” He was joking of course, but I read the preview section anyway. No need to worry, there’s still a unique place in the historiography for my work. In fact, there was not one book on non-western fronts, unless you count "a concise and authoritative account of the entire course of the First World War, with analysis of decisive encounters and landmark engagements. It describes every major battle..."

The entire course of the war? Just the very book I would argue is impossible to produce. A definitive account of the First World War? EVEN if it’s just focusing on military events? (They never come out and say this outright, you have to infer it yourself from the description of battles, etc, but I think it’s a deplorable assumption in this day and age of social and culture [not to mention economic and political] history that a book on a war by default means military history. But anyway.) Let’s just consider the scale of the event. But then, these are publishers, not historians.

What other gems does The Bookseller line up for us? How about one on Marie Antoinette’s daughter? "It includes previously unpublished evidence that lays earlier conspiracy theories to rest." Previously unpublished evidence??? Who ever heard of such a thing? How exciting, really. Except that finding and interpreting primary source evidence is, um, yeah, the job of historians.

One book drew my attention, seemingly about the foundation of the Imperial War Museum and the end of the First World War. Since I spend a fair few of my days at the good ole IWM a book about its first days was intriguing to me. But – go to the Amazon link and lo and behold!: “Including archive material published here for the first time…” Why is this such a big deal? Not only that, it looks like I got the wrong impression from the Bookseller. Just another book on remembrance….

Now don’t get me wrong, remembrance is all well and good (and important)… However since Jay Winter it has been done over and over, and in one section of my thesis I remember (haha) arguing that this over-emphasis on remembrance might be just another way of our co-opting First World War experience for ourselves and devaluing the experiences of those who actually lived it.

(2) Wed Apr 16 2008 14:56 Just me then?: I wonder if everyone frequently has post-apocalyptic dreams.

Mon Apr 14 2008 20:11 Delicious tuna wrap:
1 tortilla
1 can tuna
handful of spinach leaves
5-10 thin cucumber slices
1 tablespoon hummus
1 tablespoon pesto
3 tablespoons plain yogurt.

Spread the hummus and pesto on one half of the tortilla each. Place the spinach leaves in a layer on top, and arrange the cucumbers in strategically placed rows on the tortilla. Drain the tuna, stir in the yogurt, and spread half of it as best you can on the tortilla. Roll up tortilla, cut in half and place in sandwich Tupperware. Retain rest of tuna for tomorrow's lunch.

Thu Apr 10 2008 13:52 Success and failure: I'm working from home today, so I went out exploring some more of the West Indian grocers on a nearby street. Finally I found some black beans I can cook, which is good news for burrito time. I love cooking black beans because for a little more than the price of a can you get 4 times as many, plus you can make them however you want and it's really not the much effort. I just can't bring myself to buy a can for 50p knowing the beans are saturated in salt and will only make about 3 burritos. I have been pretty much living off of lentils recently so this will make a nice change. I've been craving protein since I started running.

I also found some white vinegar and baking soda in containers bigger than tiny. But they were still quite expensive. £2.79 for 900 grams of baking soda and 79p for a bit more than half a litre of vinegar. I wanted to start using them for cleaning as we use up our current stash of cleaning supplies, and I guess it is still cheaper than buying more but it's not really the huge savings it would be if there were a smart and final around.

In other news I found a place that has henna just off the tube stop, so now I'm a red head again. As are my flatmate and my friend Jenn. 99p and enough henna for all of our hair. Once again I recommend henna to all who want to dye their hair red.

(3) Thu Apr 10 2008 12:44 QOD: What's more important, buying free trade or buying organic?

Discuss. Link me. Just don't tell me it's all a sham. I'd like to hold onto some of my idealism.

(1) Wed Apr 02 2008 23:27 The Ulimate Contest: BL vs. NA:

National Archives perks:
Free internet
Better and cheaper food
picturesque area
quick(er) document delivery time
higher ratio of cute guys to general reader population
no pound coin required to operate lockers (seriously what is the point of that?)
no undergraduates
You can take in a camera! they even have camera stands so you can photograph documents
Less stringent rules about ids required to get a reader's ticket

British Library perks:
Newer and nicer building
Not on the other side of the world
Greater likelihood of running into friends and thus an excuse to escape to the cafe for a break
Or for that matter your supervisor so she will see for herself how hard you are working
Fewer dragons pacing the floor to make sure you are not mauling the documents

BUT BL put "Ms R" on my card and NA put "Miss Rachel." Guess which I prefer. I went to my friend's flat in Wimbledon for dinner (which, coincidentally, means that I transversed London from zone 3 to zone 1 three times today, but you know, it was okay, I had a Julia Quinn novel) and we had a long discussion about the importance of titles in this country.

Tue Apr 01 2008 21:47 Dear National Archives: Your catalog sucks! What the hell does "Scope and content: Serbia. Complete." mean???