Jug Unplugged

Because Sandra asked..

2009-06-04T19:01:00.006+01:00

I was fizzing over with blogging fervour last night and perhaps I should wait for that feeling of compulsion again- but I have laptopping rights right now and I ought not waste them. I've been assured by Sandra my endlessly generous Bosnian teacher (I know she reads this now so I have to be nice ;) ) that there are people who remember me and have some lingering curiosity about my fate.

Firstly, loathe as I am to disappoint her and the rest of the gang u UMLIP-u Bosnian has had to take a backseat since I started my new job this week. Although I was still emotionally attached enough to buy the big blue BCS Grammar and Sociolinguistic Commentary book last week and walk around with it like it was my best friend for a few days.. or like it was a hunk of mouldy bread and I was the hallucinating hungry guy from this video:

But I've been made to realise that what's needed now is Arabic, Italian, Spanish and French in that order- and unfortunately that is an order which inversely correlates with my ability. I'm interviewing people who have no English skills at all- they can only join this Pre-ESOL course if they can't string together basic sentences or read or write, but at the same time I need to ask them about their work experience, skills, education, job search activities and all that jazz. So you see having a few Lingua Franca under my belt would be pretty handy. It's exciting for me though- I have a reason to research random languages like Tgrinya and Kurdish. Kurdish is really intriguing actually- I'm only at a wikipedia level of knowledge at this point but it seems like the name Kurdish is just a convenient label for outsiders- it's more like a dialect continuum with three main dialects, and the language policies of the countries with Kurdish regions vary from total repression in Turkey and Syria, to official state language in Iraq. Apparently Turkey even bans naming children using Kurdish consonants that don't exist in the Turkish alphabet...

Anyway it's really amazing to have a job talking with real people as opposed to crazy angry people on the other end of a phone line. I see the Sarajevo gig as being more like a working holiday- done for love not money- so it doesn't count. I've never had a non-soul-destroying job in Manchester before but we'll see how I feel in a month or two though. The only tiresome thing is having to handwrite all these documents- it feels so stone age in this era of copy-and-paste.

I plan to get a bike with my first paycheck so I can halt this slide back into an indolent, indulgent lifestyle and start riding to work. I remain undeterred by my experience on Monday which left me with slowly blackening bruises, including a particulary ugly gash over my right knee which makes sujood a painful position. Well the short version is that my first ride in years involved me being chased around the street by an eight year old girl I'd never met before and ended abruptly with me having to scrape myself and my dignity off the pavement and retire, cowed, to the house.

I've been learning lots about papercutting in the last week- helping MD make her final project with pop outs and other exciting things. It's been highly satisfying watching old Osama's face slide into a photo of baby Sophia and her proud Somali momma on her JIHAD page... There was a whole photoshoot thing in Slimey's wild garden as well which was fun, cause I got to embody different sides to Duale's cool - although MD quickly turned into an alarmingly diva photographer. Conversation was a little difficult, as whenever I opened my mouth to comment, I was quickly shtummed with a shocked "why is the model speaking??" and "why does the model have an opinion??!"
I would link to her blog with photos but I can't be selective about who clicks through.. I liked the rugged look most though- even if it caused me to channel my inner axe-murderer according to Slimey and the Dude..

Speaking of those two I have to give them props for showing me this awesomeness:

This is how they do it- London Style...

2009-05-19T15:35:00.002+01:00

I'm still in a blogging frame of mind after all- perhaps I just need to round things off with an account of my return..

I'm not exactly pining because I'm all busy reconnecting with folk here, but I have been going over many moments and conversations in my head. At first I was fizzing with energy when I came back, talking a mile a minute (in a Slavic accent according to Mrs C, but no one else said so..) and practically bouncing off the walls. At first the London scene seemed suddenly exotic and novel with it's sushi bar next to a pizza place opposite a Cafe de Paris and a kebab house, with an African supermarket and some Thai cuisine place also a natural members of the street scene. It's good to be back where I'm not conspicuous in any way unless you count the knitting- I'm not outside the norm because it's kind've impossible to find a norm round here..

Poor Sir Smiley is currently being inducted into the next level of Bengaliness, preparing for the summer trip- he was gagging over the paan we made (we casually described to him the carcinogenic/ hallucenogenic properties beforehand, including stories of Cow's Bengali Dentist's Paan Cancer Book of Horror) and bolding biting into the 'bhut' or naga chilli he insisted on getting from Worldwide. Young Ray put the whole thing in his mouth like a madman and spent the next half an hour guzzling water and milk and sugar and all kinds, bellowing "PITY ME!" as my mother scolded.

We all looked like such tourists in the mishti shop as well oohing and aahing over the lacy patterns being formed by the jalabi-maker squeezing the batter into the vat of ghee. Bikey insistently recalled Sir Smiley's attention when the jalabi was lifted swiftly out of the oil and into the syrup- "you're missing the best part!" We're so hopelessly white inside..

Anyway I feel I triumphantly passed Sir Smiley's Bosnian testing- I mean my intonation and cases are pretty poor still but he acknowledged that I had picked up some conversation skills. I'm losing it already though so I need to find a Bosnian buddy in Manchester stat. I made a friend on the plan who didn't speak English but we still managed to sustain a conversation in Bosnian for 2 hours despite my limitations- I only resorted to drawing one picture, of a boat, to explain how Bengalis sometimes manage during monsoon. I think we didn't understand each other about 40% of the time but 60% comprehension turned out to be enough for happy social interaction.

I know I've been promising to put up photos forever and most of you have long stopped reading but they will come soon, soon. Because I'm not one for doing a whole slideshow description of my trip and I'd rather just integrate it all with stories of various events and refer people back to it if they're interested.

If I wasn't Muslim

2009-05-16T07:28:00.000+01:00

We watched this in Bosnian class to learn about the conditional and feel despondent.

Vidimo se

2009-05-15T22:36:00.000+01:00

I’m having a little trouble letting go- it wasn’t like this in Rome. Sometimes I feel like it would be best to secretly steal away like a thief in the night rather than undergo this painful goodbye process, even if it involves being showered with gifts. I was following Sehida and her husband around on their household errands all this evening like a stray dog that just won’t go away- from the supermarket, to another store to buy a kettle, and then on to delivering batteries to Djermana... But it’s more sad with those I know I will probably never see again, or at least not for years by which time they’ll have relegated me to some self-contained memory- the Anthropologist and Juliana are in this category even though I spent so much time with them. It happened like that with the Frenchies in Chateau Chinon and I lived with them for 6 months on a frozen and isolated mountain. Until around Wednesday home had seemed like an abstract, distant notion and I still had all the time in the world to spend here.

I know I was never patient enough to properly describe my experience in an intellectual way but really I was always learning from everyone and we would be continually exploring questions about language, culture, religion; comparing our experiences and our understanding- whether it was Physics Aida, or my Bosnian professor patiently translating Bosnian songs for me and explaining the psyche of Bosnian love songs (the lovesick boy will never directly address the object of his affections, he’ll chat to a bird instead, or write a letter only to erase his words- and so he goes on dreaming and yearning hopelessly for some angelic creature who has no clue he exists..) to the joyful and perhaps fanatical gleam in Suada’s eye as she takes me, at 2am, through the historical phonetic transformations that bring some order to the chaos of Bosnian’s 16 verb types. Not forgetting the crash course in The Macedonian Question I received through having coffee with the German crew.

So this will be my last blog from Sarajevo and possibly my last post altogether as I only started this up again to share stories with my people back home. Perhaps I have a few silent readers in Sarajevo but I doubt they’ll take an interest in my mundane Mancunian life. I was going to write this post in Bosnian and show off my newfound skills but my vanity is a contrary creature and fears mockery at the same time as wanting to boast and thus restrains me. The ultimate test of my ability will be if Sir Smiley doesn’t scoff at my attempts as he was wont to- I guess I’ll find out when I get to Manchester on Sunday. And if you’re reading this Sir Smiley tell me now if you’re pining for anything relatively lightweight – it will be your birthday after all...

Anyway all this scurrying around town bidding farewell means I must still tidy, cook, knit, wash, hoover, launder, and most of pack before 1am tomorrow and still make time for a few final meetings. In other words I must stop blogging.

Goodbye my Sarajevans, I will miss you all too much.

2009-04-30T09:42:00.002+01:00

When there’s too much to say I’m most tempted to simply let photos do the describing- even though I was not paparazzi enough to snap people turning up carpets at the hotel and suspiciously checking through bins and rifling through the reception drawers and even brazenly trying to crack the safe in search of Physicist Aida’s passport. So yes photos alone would give you a false portrait of magnificent canyons and rivers taken en route to Albania, and various happy snaps atop ancient castles and beachy/ meadowy idylls. They could not convey the spooky reality- it felt like we were characters at the start of a horror movie, innocent and hopeful but with an unshakeable feeling of something sinister lying below the surface of our colourful, hollow new home. As our Elvira, Queen of the Night, put it, it was “creepy and creamy” – perhaps in fairness I should spell it as crime-y but that’s not how I heard it...

I’m hoping the Anthropologist is going to start an insightful, thorough blog which will remove the burden of having to explain everything, including the reason behind the thousands of tiny concrete bunkers peeping out of the rocky meadows like sudden patches of smooth grey mushrooms. I only ever received abridged translations of the tour guides interminable histories anyway so all I can tell you is that the resident Communist dictator forced the bunker sellers to test drive their product by climbing inside and being bombed for at least 15 minutes. Fortunately for them they seemed to hold up and so he ordered 350 000 and sprinkled them about the country.

We did manage to strike up a few friendly conversations in broken English/ Italian, which immediately brought some feeling of relief and reassurance that it wasn’t the chaotic, incomprehensible and impenetrable world it seemed at first. I lost my group at one point and sheltered from the rain with some copper workers who made beautiful cups and jugs and suchlike. The girl there had studied in Greece for 5 years but saw this place, which had a Bascarsija-like atmosphere, as her future- the business had only been set up one generation ago, by her uncle, but she saw it as a secure and definite future and showed me around the workshop under the store with the thick rolls of unworked copper- the proof of their skill. I also watched the rug makers weaving on their huge looms, although that kind of simple, painstaking work appeals to me less than the delicate, speedy silver filigree work I saw.

Somehow we became separated into fairly fixed groups from the beginning- a consequence of the geography of our coach positions I guess, because the first 10 hours of journey time must have been a crucial crucible in forming bonds. The queenly Ikbala taught me many Bosnian tongue twisters, and now I’m greeted by cries of “Screwdriver!” wherever I go. I have become her obedient performing monkey- my spirit resists the foolish recitals but my will is utterly submissive.

Photos will be forthcoming eventually I promise.

Pain in the Neck

2009-04-23T00:46:00.000+01:00

I feel like Anne Shirley- I hopefully built up such a beautiful dinner party, carefully planning to eke out my meagre resources and stretch my £1.50 budget to the max. And in the end I have a mouse in my pudding and Diana Barry puking in the bushes. Or, in my version, an Anthropologist gagging on a fishbone and a grand tour of Sarajevo hospitals at midnight.

The day started proudly enough- I accomplished my market shopping without freezing with fear whenever the stall holder said ‘izvolite’ but actually spoke Bosnian to ask for my ridiculously small quantities. Somehow I managed to get carrots, mushrooms, onions and cooking cream with change to spare. I also had the fish that Nermina bestowed upon me while it was still flipping about in a bucket. So, thus armed, I was able to test a couple of the recipes I’ve been gathering from people at school- tarhana soup with pre-prepared dough rubble, and a dubious mushroom recipe that involved spices, cream, soya sauce and honey but turned out impressively successful I think. And I managed to do it all and still make it in time for my first class.

I booked my place to Albania- about 50 quid for a 5-day trip with friends, including transport, food and board is really and offer too good to refuse. I also bought my ticket back to Manchester for 16^th May. It’s not been long enough for you to notice my absence particularly perhaps but it feels like forever to me (though I wouldn’t mind forever lasting a little longer)

My final ‘lesson’ with my tall Physicist friend was a trip to the house of Sevda, a place that has gone through many metamorphoses in its time- from storehouse for medieval caravans, to WW2-era restaurant, and has recently evolved into a museum and cafe dedicated to classic Bosnian music.

Bosnian class today was a trip to the annual book fair, which was set up as an publishing house convention, like the Twisted Thread show for books, rather than the flea markety haphazard piles that I was picturing. I managed to get Death and the Dervish in Bosnian and in English for which I’ve been unsuccessfully hunting for weeks, plus a book of lyrics to lots of Bosnian nasheeds that I actually have on mp3 somewhere. Suada my Otokan linguist buddy is an expert on this story and promises to be my literary guide, which is great- something to look forward to during my idle weeks here- and maybe my fellow Bosnian classmates will want to join in so it’d be like those book clubs you hear about.

So the dinner guests were collected at various points round town – Juliana at the fair, the Anthropologist at the eternal flame, and we came across the Otokan outside Merkur. Suada just started wearing a scarf last week but the fact that she was suddenly hijabi didn’t register for a good 10 minutes, not until I noticed that she was wearing it in an uncommon style. We talked about it plenty though while sitting around in hospital waiting rooms as doctors peered down the anthropologist’s poor throat.

My lord it was a farcical process getting her seen by anyone. We went from one hospital to another with our fishbone emergency- but without personal contacts more powerful than a med student friend and a doctor relative in Mostar it didn’t seem like she’d be deboned anytime soon. We had already tried olive oil, plain rice, bread at the flat and we’re currently holding out hope that a good night’s sleep will magically disappear it.

Before dinner they were all predicting that I’d end up poisoning them and considering how to handle an emergency situation- sometimes I think Fate has a very dark sense of humour...

Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood

2009-04-11T15:44:00.005+01:00

I just returned from a protest opposite the law faculty here against domestic violence. It was an unexpected turn – I had just finished having a chat about TEFL with the teachers at Djermana’s school, fulfilling my end of our deal, and my Bosnian teacher invited me along to the demo. I was quite surprised to hear of such doings actually as I’m continually hearing about how Bosnian people take a very passive approach and organised public activism is non-existent and they only come out into the streets to cheer about football victories.

This was a simple but striking demo- just people standing silently along the river bank with black cloth strips over their mouths or eyes and cloth banners pinned to their clothes. There were a few cameras and my teacher says it’ll probably be on a lot of the news as the issue ties in with a recent story about professors taking advantage of female students, promising them pass grades. I didn’t hesitate to join these guys today but at the same time I wondered if I might have become a little more timid than I would be in Manchester, cause I'm not sure what constitutes a social faux pas round here. There was no whooping and cheering back to cars that honked in support and I wore the cloth over my eyes instead of my mouth which lent greater anonymity, although that didn't occur to me til later. There weren’t any other hijabis in the line along the bank but there was one present with her little boy in a group across the road.

I saw a girl in proper Turkish-style scarf and long coat combo with a guitar strapped to her back earlier today. Only in Sarajevo..

2009-04-11T05:58:00.003+01:00

I’ve reread the last few posts and really they’ve become far too one-note in their effusiveness. The blog needs a little leavening...

So- I can think of at least three things that are wanting in my situation. Firstly I’ve become suddenly insomniac- I had about 3-4 hours sleep last night and the night before but this wakefulness is not abating. At least the sunrise is pretty- right now the sun is a luminescent Irn-Bru orange disc.

I’m struggling with the dried chickpeas they have here. They’re not all precooked and ready to chuck into your chana moshola- these are some tough busters I got. I soaked them for two days, boiled for about 3 hours in salt, and then cooked in the moshola for maybe another hour or two and still they’re not exactly soft... I wrote ‘masala’ at first instead of ‘moshola’ but it sounded alien to me. I also haven’t located tamarind or soy sauce here yet, and I don’t have to time to grow my own fresh coriander or green chillies so everything lacks its usual zing. My diet is mostly meatless now too which is probably healthier in many ways but I don’t much like getting my iron through pills.

I said three things right? Ok well the whole foreigner thing works a treat when everyone is treating you as a guest, but not so much when you haven’t paid your tram fare and the inspector makes a beeline for you and strongarms you into paying the fine. There’s only so long you can feign confusion..

And then of course there’s the fast-approaching prospect of a long summer of call centres or unemployment- I’m not sure which is worse.

That’s enough of the trivial sad stories now. Speaking of sad stories though I’m spending my lessons with one student having the Bosnian opera Hasanaginica translated. It’s so tragic, in a way that kind of parallels Othello, with the Iago-like mother-in-law playing cruel mind games to destroy her son’s marriage.

Good Friday

2009-04-10T19:42:00.005+01:00

It’s been a funny week. The weekend was lovely- the weather has turned to what they call spring and I call perfect summer- I had a fine four-course supper with the Smileys, and spent Sunday lounging with the Anthropologist from one cafe to another all the way from my flat to the town centre (a journey that takes about 40 mins by tram so a fair distance really) I had to repeat the 1 ½ hour trek (I’m slow) the next morning, minus coffee breaks, because there was a transport strike. I’d bought some flashy shades the day before but I couldn’t bring myself to wear them for more than 5 minutes at a time for fear of looking attitudey or having a glasses-shaped tanline. I don’t know, I’m not used to handling all this sunshine...

I also acquired a new student this week who happens to be the Arabic professor of just about everybody in the city. We walked to the shiny new shopping centre- it’s like one of those commercial temples like Boshandara City or the Trafford Centre which attracts people from all around, with familiar stores springing up unexpectedly like Lush. And then you go to the top floor and suddenly you find you’re in a spacious, well-appointed mosque. The professor, as I said, knows pretty much everybody in town, so i was introduced to another highly accomplished former student every two steps from one girl who was a hafidha at age 9, to a neighbour of mine who was officially the Best Student of her Generation. Sometimes the conversation would be in Bosnian, other times in English, Arabic or even Sign Language. I think I’m going to be learning far more than I teach...

The tram journey home today was slightly bizarre. My spice dealer buddy was with me and somehow she views it as A Disaster (many of her stories end with ‘It was a Real Disaster!’) while I just thought it was funny. So I’ve previously described the kind of undignified scrum that takes place when entering a tram. Well, an older gent took a shine to us and vigorously protected the empty seats beside and in front of him so that we could sit out our journey like elegantly idle ladies. Then he proceeded to inform my friend in Bosnian of how cultured and intelligent we must be- I’m not clear what his opinion was based upon. So my friend responded in a “that’s very kind of you sir,” kind of way while also translating his fulsome compliments into English for me but she was also like ‘hey man, personal space!’ and ‘omg everyone is looking- Disaster!’
I was standing again cause an old lady came (I like how mostly everyone here jumps up off their seat when an old person enters- they don’t wait for a reproachful glance) but when our gallant old man was leaving it seemed he would fight everyone off with his cane so I could take his seat. So yes perhaps we were causing a scene- but I was happy enough at any rate :)

There have been other interesting goings on but I can’t piece together a narrative for them- they’d work better as a conversation, only I haven’t had a conversation with any of my Mancunian people since forever. On the other hand it seems all I do is talk to people here, possibly too much, which may surprise those among you who can attest to the fact that stringing a coherent sentence together is sometimes entirely beyond my powers. Sometimes I feel slightly fraudulent- especially when I spend the lesson in a dissection of Snape's character- my friend says he's 'nice' and he's her favourite, I mean seriously, ma daj! Although I see that he's the most intriguing antihero I just couldn't accept that all his petty spite and meanness was a clever pose.

The last few weeks have flown by- only two weeks of lessons left! It’s nothing! I’m still hoping to go to Albania but the time for booking a ticket home is looming... I have a trip to Mostar coming up and possibly one to Tuzla. This Sunday apparently horses and carriages await in Ilidza, and in the evening I’m dining with the Dealer, Malaysian style...

La Traviata and the Steampunk Cafe

2009-04-03T23:53:00.002+01:00

The title covers the main settings for tonight’s dazzling entertainment. My first opera- of course I understood neither the songs (Italian) nor the subtitles (Bosnian) except for the occasional keyword like love, insanity, and weird. The music was beautiful though and I was reliving it with tuneless humming afterwards until the jazzy beats of the steampunk cafe made me forget how it went. As it was a spur of the moment gatecrashing of my friend’s night out with her cousin's cousin I hadn’t brought my spectacles. I’m told that the heroine was played by three different actresses, one brunette and two blondes but I was struggling with the storyline anyway and had given up trying to distinguish between the soft focus faces. The hero Alfredo was played by a Chinese or perhaps Korean guy and there was a smiley guy standing behind us who might possibly have been his proud big brother videotaping the whole show.

I won’t waste too many words describing this place- the photos speak for themselves. My lord how I dream of having such a place- even just a little room filled with such glorious junk.

Later outside we found an abandoned umbrella which seem positively Providential as my good friend had been pondering the question to buy or not to buy a new brolly all day. On the one hand, she already had one at home, on the other thunder was crashing all around and the poor child was getting a little bedraggled. There was a little soul-searching over the ethics of taking the umbrella from the street- whether it was stealing, or depriving a homeless person from much needed shelter. I, having fairly hoboish instincts myself, saw no problem as the street was empty with no one laying claim and the eternal fire nearby to warm people’s hands. Eventually she was convinced that it was Fate providing her with a slightly broken brolly in her time of need.

The only fly in the ointment is the growing fear that I am becoming an irredeemable Minnie the Moocher. Take today for example- upon discovering that I had only foreign currency on my person the proper thing to do would be to politely refuse dinner and refreshments and survive on gum right? But I am far too weak, so I gobbled up the dolma at the restaurant, and even allowed the Tax Inspector cousin's cousin to pay for the juice at The Cafe of Dreams. As well as the bus fare home. I hang my head in shame. But I'm also singing the waltz from La Traviata inside that same incorrigible head.

Stormy Weather

2009-04-02T17:59:00.002+01:00

Seems like Sarajevo is aspiring to cover all weather bases in one week. We had the height of summer yesterday, and now we have dark stormy thunder and lightening- I was soaked in the two minutes from tram to the flat and it seems like most people have been huddled under various tunnel and shop roofs for the last hour. We've also had pristine snowfall and an earthquake to boot so far this week so I'm not sure what there is left- spring, summer and deep winter have all been covered nicely, only autumn hasn't joined the party.

Happily I am able to document photo footage of the varying landscape and it's oddities thanks to the extraordinary generosity of my new norwegian bosnian antropologist friend who has lent me her 8mp canon. I have also sourced a spice dealer within the school- a teacher who studied in Malaysia and is well-versed in the asian culinary arts. It's not easy to find this stuff but she gave me a jar filled with elachi, bay leaves, coriander seeds, aniseed and other things that fill me with gladness. Contacts are everything..

Earthquake!

2009-03-31T07:34:00.006+01:00

Or at least I think so.. There's no news about it this morning but at about 3.45am the building was definitely shaking violently.. It could have been a dream I suppose cause I also recall Bikey telling me it was 5.6 on the Richter scale but I assume that was once I'd gone back to sleep (I typed school because my brain is telling me to eat breakfast and leave the house instead of typing) There was an earthquake earlier in the day when I visited djermana's interpreting/ language school. My dastardly good fortune continues: she has offered an exchange of Bosnian language lessons for advice on English language learning resources on my side. I'm definitely getting the better end of this deal..

Unfortunately my timetable means I have to take the advanced course rather than beginners and, if last night's session is any indicator, I am way out of my depth. It seemed like the teacher had to cater to 4 students with completely different levels- the first a Brazilian who I thought was a native with a non-standard dialect, then a dude from Arizona who said he'd been learning the language for a year 'for no particularly good reason'- he was also unimpressed with the Ronelle Alexander textbook I had but it's definitely better than any other options so what can I do? The next student was a girl who had been studying in Sarajevo for a month and was probably feeling almost as frustrated as I was but seemed like a patient type. And then there was me, two weeks in the country, first lesson. All in the advanced class together! The class began with some insane family tree with in laws, step families and halfchildren sprinkled about until I'd be at a loss to explain the relationship in English- especially cause they do the whole labelling everyone differently on the maternal and paternal side. The teacher then kindly brought the level of the lesson down for me and did a nice basic family tree.

I spent Saturday gadding about from Mrs N's to Djermana's to spending the blackout of Earth Hour wandering the streets with Suada. I'd only met her once before but it didn't seem like it- she's a fellow linguist and we spent two hours non stop geekily breaking down Bosnian, English, Spanish and German grammatical semantics- not just how definiteness is conveyed in Bosnian but why it's done in this way, the philosophy behind adjective order, compound nouns, collocations and culture.. Good times :)

ps. Mrs N's daughter lent me her Bosnian 1984 and after unsuccessfully attempting to read it, I discovered an English copy in the house last night! Rock n' Roll!

(edited to correct a couple of minor injustices)

2009-03-24T21:14:00.002Z

A long day, wow. I was on a post-teaching high riding the tram until I began listening to Forget Her and watching the snow falling thick and slushy which made for a more pensive mood. I only got through the song 2 and a half times when the tram died. We were all in denial for a good 10 minutes and remaining stubbornly in our seats unwilling to face the cold wet night- but the driver began leaping about before us bowing sarcastically and pointing at the door... I considered calling Mrs Smiley to find out my options since the tram had essentially become a beached whale blocking the way for other hopeful tramlings. Well the phone had a pin code I didn’t know so I considered my other options- either taking the tram back to school at 7pm or perhaps I was walking distance from Otoka but probably not and anyway I had ridiculously soggy shoes already. So for once I did the right thing and stayed put until our lifeless tram was pushed along by another heroic engine. The next tram that came along was also a deadbeat being dragged through and then the third was heaving with people- it seemed to be bursting at the seams with the doors continually reopening as if it was trying to disgorge some passengers. I gave it a miss but the next one was almost as bad and some grandpa was bashing into me as I squeezed in. So I was pressed against the door as it was – and at the next was a crowd of hooting hollering hooligans all recklessly determined to get on as if it were Hillsborough stadium. It was worse than being in the middle of a Rome language school scrum on a Monday afternoon.

All of which slightly dimmed my high spirits but I had cooked dim bhuna the night before so I was able to make a hearty meal when I got home and I have four classes instead of 9 timetabled for tomorrow. I was slightly surprised to find the advanced sessions were so much easier to plan than the intermediate – but that might be because I’ve had double sessions with the intermediate so that’s quite a lot of time to fill with one to one conversation. It’s kind of like high pressure socialising- and my pitiful knowledge of science is possibly a little limiting- but I feel comfortable enough with them to chatter fairly effortlessly so the main thing will be working in the grammar and correcting their mistakes. Mrs N and Mrs Smiley were fun- they had plenty of tales to tell and sometimes it felt more like they were encouraging me to speak rather than the other way round! I met the art teacher today and she’s great- our next class will be a guided tour of a Sarajevo gallery :)

eta: I just remembered I cracked the phone pin just before the tram was towed. I was proud of my decoding skills but also glad I didn't have to play damsel in distress.

2009-03-23T13:11:00.001Z

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fire poi

2009-03-23T13:10:00.003Z

fire poi
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2009-03-23T13:10:00.001Z

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Originally uploaded by warmastoast

2009-03-22T22:10:00.002Z

I’m sorriest today that I have no camera as I really have no words to describe the magnificence of the snowy mountains here with their great Christmas tree forests. The last few days were quite grey and snowy but the day dawned clear and bright with the sparkling pure white powdery new snow blanketing everything as far as the eye could see. Truly wondrous – my wonder was something akin to the boy in the Snowman as he flew above unbelievable sights.

The gym yesterday was a neat place- we didn’t go to the aerobics class but to the room with all the strange machines. The place was an all round leisure centre,just round the corner from here, with language classes (including bosnian for foreigners) and jewellery making and all kinds. I did 10k on the orbitrek and then tried to experiment with the various weight/ resistance training contraptions- I lasted roughly 2 minutes with each but I feel much stronger now :) Mrs N’s lovely daughter was there too but sadly she had an impending dissertation and couldn’t stay to undo all our good work at a restaurant in Travnik for lunch.

I do have photo evidence of the great restaurant Mrs N took me to, but it’s on her phone so I don’t have it on hand- it was pretty cool anyway with interesting details, like using old fashioned sieves as lampshades. I was hungry after our 1 ½ hour chatter/drive + exercise, so I quickly gobbled up their specialty Tarhana soup which contained a satisfying kind of doughy rubble. I also munched away at some yummy rustic cornbread while waiting for my main- which was dumb of me because, of course, no matter how enthusiastically I attacked my juicy roasted potatoes and veal to begin with, the portions were inevitably too big so I end up being like the last kid eating lunch in the school cafeteria; slow, plodding and pleading with my dining companions for help. The sad story repeated itself today at the smart, well hidden Feri restaurant we went to in the mountains today. Everything is delicious but I’m not a Bosnian giant/ giantess and yet I still receive BFG portions. I was entertained by the Smileys mind-boggling revelations of physicky phenomena- including some freakish stuff about the idea of left and right which I can’t even begin to explain. Speaking of Physics, Mrs Smiley was full of beans over her team's triumphant win over their archrival school in yesterday's competition. Sounds like it was hard fought and there will be glory awaiting them at school tomorrow.

I must plan my first lesson now- fortunately most of the teachers are roughly the same level so I can teach my lessons 7 or 8 times over to different people, suitably adapted of course, with Monday’s Aida being my weekly guinea pig, poor dear. I like the fact that their needs differ so widely- from the Maths teacher who is chilled out, secure in the knowledge that her symbols and diagrams are “the same in every language” to the RS teacher, who not only needs to get into thorny ethical issues with her students, but also adores the Premier League, London life and has a globetrotting son, and therefore is interested in a wide range of social language functions. Should be fun either way though- I’m being encouraged to explore the town with the teachers and get them to take me to cafes and museums and such. Not bad work if you can get it hey?

Zdravo!

2009-03-20T20:10:00.004Z

I think I should give up hand sewing because needles are not friends with me. But I have long raggedy trouser hems and even longer non-raggedy ones that are impossible to wear. I don’t know if Italians are tall or I’m short – I need to lop off a good 6 inches at least before they begin to look respectable.

Anyway I don’t care if needles and hems aren’t my friends- I’m making plenty of people friends in Sarajevo, and managed to catch up with my dear giantess Šahida today. I’ve been here since Tuesday but only went about Baščaršija today for some cevapi (Sir Smiley will be wholly unimpressed by my managing only 5) and then cake and tea at the Book Club, which is a nice library/ cafe with fairly indie music (Portishead and such) in the background. Not grungy enough to be like a Northern Quarter dive but it was my kind of place.

I start classes next week- I feel like I’ve just been chilling out, maxing, relaxing all cool in the staffroom all week so far and I’m ready to start earning my keep. I’m being overwhelmed by generosity on all sides not least by the House of Smiley who are planning a trip to the mountains on Sunday. I’m also scheduled for Mrs N’s Ladies’ Fitness class tomorrow, which comes not a moment too soon. By my second day here I was coasting along on the tram to school and back, and grocery shopping no problem. Of course it would be better if I could actually speak to people but until then I just smile :)

The school itself is incredible- I was awed the moment I stepped up the marble staircase. Most of the teachers are quite close to my age, roughly the 23-28 range, and came to work here soon after graduation. Many also have a wicked sense of style- one girl in particular has a tailor create her own designs and they are Amazing, seriously. One was a knitted dress of white laceweight kidsilk like stuff with black ribbon trim and looked so cool I told her I wished I could get the pattern, and she said I could ask her tailor. Then, later she put on her coat and I actually broke of my conversation with, I think, my supervisor, to turn and stare at its magnificence. It was a kind of heavy, velvety cherry red fabric (kind of like the texture of Mrs C’s turqoise sofa) with webs of silver streaking around. Definitely arresting, and her being roughly 10 feet tall certainly helped add to the effect.

Apart from the fashion though, the school is like the kind of visionary place that our Mrs Ross would love AGGS to be, but it's not because she is building a business image not a community. This place on the other hand really seems to invest in both their students and their teachers; it seems like one class or another is constantly involved in some kind of cultural excursion or competition- just this week one group of biology students came back from the World Water conference in Turkey, some others are going to Zagreb in a week or so, and there's talk of San Remo, Albania and all kinds. They have both a day school with the national curriculum and another full afternoon timetable of IGCSE and Cambridge certificate students. So it's challenging stuff but the students seem eager judging from the RS discussion class I took. I got them to pretend to be a trial of a Bible translator, with a priest who opposed him and the judge who decided the translator should be burned at the stake- the kid who started off talking said "I don't think it was right to burn me alive" so clearly William Tyndale's ghost was presenting the argument for his defense.

I met with the Director as well who was very kind and gracious to me, while I continually thanked and praised everyone. I really need to stop doing all this kowtowing appreciation though cause it’s getting tiresome I’m sure- but people keep being nice so what am I meant to do? Like for example the Director invited me to join their trip to Albania- I mean seriously that’s awesome, it not like a small thing... And Pops has okayed it already so whoop! Also a good example of delightful kindness is the fact that the Smileys remembered my love of cherry juice last winter and had the fridge ready stocked with the sweet sweet (well, sour sweet really) nectar.

The flat is in itself a new experience of luxury- especially, but not limited to, the luxury of solitude. There is also cable tv which means I'm watching many strange and intriguing things on National Geographic, as well as learning to cook from the man on Bosnian morning tv. The tv cooks all wear the poofy tall chefs hat which is nice. But then they always splash a ton of some mysterious sauce over everything which renders their cooking demos useless. Chefs, if you're going to use so much sauce please tell me what's in it! I bought Vegeta so I'm hoping that's it..

To go back a few days to my last night in Italy- Jumi khala did a typical Ammu-style stressing out to the max to cook me a magnificent leaving feast. Mmm it was lovely and I thank her. I invited Valeria to eat with us- the kids were all agog with curiosity, especially Yusuf who was amazed at the idea of her eating with her hand like the rest of us. He kept a critical eye on her bhat-management skills during dinner and rebuked her when she used her left hand at one point. My little Fievel Mousekevitzy Fatima took us (well guided us in hopeless circles really) to the Uncle’s bead store, where I stocked up on some treasures. Val broke my heart a little when she told me a movie was going to be shot nearby the day after I left and were hunting for Bengali extras.

That was part of my Italy dream, though not many people knew- to get to be a movie extra. If I had only picked a flight on Thursday instead of Tuesday... Like the way I forgot there was a Venice Carnival going on and I booked my flight to Italy for the day it finished. Anyway these are minor regrets and I’m sure my chance will come again :) And if all my choices in Life and Transport were wrong before, at least the one to come to Bosnia seems blessed to the nth degree.

Day in the Park

2009-03-16T04:22:00.005Z

I woke up at 5am and in a blogging frame of mind. For some reason the bathroom is currently singing "Happy Birthday" which is appropriate given I just realised I've recently been telling everyone I'm 22 when in fact I've been 23 for over a week now. Clearly I'm having difficulty adjusting- soon I'll be like one of the Oscar Wilde women for whom “35 is a very attractive age. London society is full of women of the very highest birth who have, of their own free choice, remained thirty-five for years.”

I was letting my lovely last Sunday in Rome waste away with only a sketchy plan to visit the Pantheon and perhaps catch the flea market. In the event I did neither unless you count seeing the Pantheon as the result of this conversation in the car or maybe bus: *someone points to a shiny dome in the distance* "what building is that?" "St Peter's Basilica right?" *much laughter* "No! How long have you been in Rome? A year?" "Actually maybe it is St Peter's..." etc until eventually, long after passing it by, we concluded it was probably the Pantheon and I checked it off my to-do list :)

None of the quotes were me I think- they were Vale(ria who speaks perfect english but goes into despairing teacher mode when I take advantage and stop making any effort to talk Italian) and Fede, her flatmate, plus assorted members of Fede's clan- brother sister boyfriend and dog. I took the wise step of calling to see what Vale was up to having packed my knitting and Teaching Tenses I thought I'd probably just sit in a sunny park- which some might view as a criminal waste of precious Rome time, but it's whatever makes you happy right?

My luck was in Vale & co were already lounging in the beautiful Villa Borghese park. They were playing a kind of vollyball circle game which brought painful memories of playing with the athletic giant Bosnians and my noodle-armed efforts to join in the fun, when really I should have followed Nemo's example and just sat looking pretty - a respectably idle female rather than a pathetically weak one. Happily these folk were more about fun than sport and at first we only lasted passing the ball around twice before retiring to the picnic blanket to recruit our strength with extortionately priced crisps and popcorn. Speaking of popcorn, according to young Fatima it's strange that we eat sweet popcorn in England. I told her that we know salty popcorn exists.

Our conversation prospered wonderfully because although Vale was the only bilingual speaker in the whole group she managed to unflaggingly provide simultaneous translations as well as encourage and facilitate our fledgling efforts to construct sentences in Italian/ English. Of course whenever she left the situation would deteriorate dramatically but at least friendly relations were well established so we were able to weather her absence with cordial smiles. At one point Fede(rica) asked if I remembered her name- of course I disgraced myself by clearly not having a clue and furiously trying to rewind back to the memory of our introductions while they laughed reproachfully. I did remember them all without prompting eventually.

They were all curious about various things about Muslim culture for example the widespread dog phobia. Fede's dog was a little golden scottish terrier and very good, not at all scary, but at least until I prayed Asr I couldn't touch her. Afterwards when we played ball she would fetch the ball whenever it rolled down the hill (frequently) and proceed to chew out chunks of sponge until someone rescued it. Which left the ball somewhat spitty but it was post-Asr so what the heck. V says she has plenty of questions cause she's teaching mostly muslim guys all the time, but it's awkward or inapproprate to ask the students. I'm not one to filter what I say when I like a person so if she asks me something I try to answer although it generally peters away to ".. I don't know"

We sat in the park idling away in this manner until the sun dimmed and we were too cold to continue sitting forever. We decided to get some food, which naturally involved taking a car, bus and walking for an hour to get out of the pricey tourist area and find some pizza.
All in all a lovely day. This is my last day in Rome - I don't guarantee blogs from Bosnia but we'll see how it goes.

*edit to add* I completely forget about the drama on the bus home last night. There was suddenly a whole lot of Italian cursing and damning of the Spanish and it emerged that a pickpocket woman who looked around forty had been discovered with her hand in a Spanish woman's purse. The Spaniard was like "what the hell are you doing?" in her manner, but either too genteel or too inarticulate in the Italian tongue to defend herself against the torrent of abuse the pickpocket directed at her. Then some guy in the back jumped in and fired back a fluent comprehensive takedown while the rest of the bus cheered and clapped and the pickpocket jumped off the bus hollering as she went.
I learned a lot of new words.

Before I forget..

2009-03-13T20:55:00.004Z

A few minor stories that slipped through the cracks..
When I find the camera cable I promise I'll go back and illustrate these blogs.

Firstly was a strange, alien interlude during my birthday-traipsing that somehow slipped my mind when I wrote the birthday post only to burst bright and luminous in my mind as soon as I switched the light off to sleep. It was a kind of Hunky-Parker Demon Headmaster experience (who, incidentally, I now picture as Jack Straw) combined with the zombie brain melting that happens when you get absorbed in the zooming starscape of old screensavers. I've been giving my new Italian acquaintances this blog but sometimes I think that they will not follow half of what I say you know..

To try for a more material description then of a fairly abstract experience-
I think just after visiting the eco-alt craft store RE(f)USE I was noticing a lot of huge bright FUTUROMA signs on the buildings until there was a whole series of them alongside one stately looking building. So I was walking and looking at the posters until I walked past an enigmatic glass door. Enigmatic because behind it was a long empty marble corridor and nothing connecting it to the signs outside. I decided it would be harmless to step in and enquire- I eventually reached a desk with two young receptionists who spoke little English but pointed to the left. Another long corridor- tall and red, this time reminding me of the surreal labyrinthine tunnels Willy Wonka led people through (in the 70s film)

There were posters on the walls of this corridor describing Futurism and 'the confusion between man and machine' and that the futurists' prophecy of the mechanic man is complete: man uses machines as a prosthesis of his mind and extension of our mental possibilities.

So far so Star Trek.

I know that's a lazy reference but I gave you the Demon Headmaster before so give me a break :)

Ok so I eventually reached a red enclave and got pointed into a dark room by a lone bellhop. This is where the screensaver stuff comes in- basically it was like a movie hall but with randomly placed leather sofas dotted with a few zombified people staring at a giant glowing, eerily intoning, musical mosiac square. Plus some pile of glowing rubble beside it. Feeling foolish but willing to submit to the noise, I sat down and waited to see if anything happened.

Well it was mind-numbingly boring- the glowing mosaic pulsed with light and strange otherworld sounds and slowly shifted colours. I wondered how long the other people had been sitting there enraptured, and why I was still sitting there staring at this silly square. But still I watched and listened to the mechanized music and thrilling shift from electric blue to violet light and emerging kalaeidoscope as if the day wasn't beautiful and sunny and a-wasting. It required the catalyst of a newcomer to our Matrix cocoon to jerk me to my feet. If the artist wanted to avoid 'the abyss of abstraction to which academic music arrived' I'm afraid he failed miserably.

(All quotes from the 'PRESENTISM: Time and Space In The Long Now' leaflet)

This stuff builds up so much! The other couple of things were also just in passing- a conversation with a French Save the Children guy and also I went to see Slumdog again with my new teacher friend Valeria. 'Valeria' is the aunt's new favourite word, replacing 'sopracciglie folte'. The guy Vincent was doing the subscription gathering gig which is always difficult especially if the conversation starts with either an apologetic or an abrupt refusal. However we met Vincent and his comrade Jin outside and let them into the building. I was going to get the lift up with the aunt but decided since the guy spoke English and was a traveller doing good work, it would be a pity not to converse a little. My aunt sometimes despairs and thinks I wouldn't recognise a smooth-talking con artist if his jacket was lined with gold watches, but I like to think charity workers are more likely to be humanitarian types with a vocation than criminals.

This Vincent was full of movie recommendations from the get go- political stuff like Road to Guantanamo and Michael Moore docs. He also wanted my opinion of a couple of Urdu songs he had on his flashy Nokia n96 phone. He lived in Dubai or somewhere and said he really loved it there which kind've surprised me cause I generally had the impression that the Emirates were quite decadent and dull. He made an interesting point though that I hadn't considered before- that it's a good sign that the citizens are enjoying the wealth of such an oil-rich country. He said that there are other resource rich countries like Nigeria which don't allow the wealth to filter through to the public, so corruption keeps the people poor.

The aunt is curious to see what the cinema experience is like so we might go on Sunday. My wild ways are clearly corrupting the household- the bengali community will possibly be shocked by such bold behaviour but she can always use me as an excuse. On Monday I may take Valeria round the asian shops to check out saris and sparkly things. Look at all this cross-culture stuff I'm facilitating! ;)

Ok that's enough old stuff.
There are two posts to come. One all about today's eventful events (trip to the grand mosque! A new busker-buddy! Other new friends! One of whom knows my family from Aligarh, India to Cambridge, UK, Sarajevo, Bosnia to Dhaka, Bangladesh! Protest in the People's Square!)

Also coming: a series of street graffiti photos.

News

2009-03-13T20:15:00.004Z

I've been leaving you all out of the loop lately. It's not that I've run out of steam or stories- but only that I realised that the young gremlins bounding around the room with questions about homework, the entire world, life and everything, was directly related to my late night blogging. The only way to be rid of themearlier than 2am would be to switch the computer off, make my bed and switch off the light. Sure I stay awake in the dark for an hour or two thinking about my day instead of blogging but it's peaceful. You may ask why I don't blog a little during my idle days- I can only plead the artistic temperament..

I will have to split my various news and anecdotes into separate posts but I think I should start with the main headline news:

- I booked my ticket to Bosnia and it's all arranged. Many thanks to The Smile-a-Lots, Bikey and miei genitori for helping me sort it out so fast. I'm told that my teacher-students are all young and friendly which hopefully means they'll be forgiving of a raw newbie teacher and not consider me a fraud.

- Young Y+F wore their poor father down with their begging for some kind of furry or feathery addition to the household. Their teacher was giving away her cat- some kind of tiny species that wouldn't grow above roughly A5 size. They wanted me to reassure their teacher that whatever unfortunate accidents had befallen their previous pet chicks were all their mother's fault and that they were wonderfully responsible. I refused partly because I was picturing the teacher as Rachel giving away her evil bald sphinx cat- she must be desperate to be flogging the poor thing on any hapless 10-year-old.

Anyhow we now have two chirpy budgies, grey, streaked with turqoise and yellow feathers, and a hamster is coming next week. Poor uncle seems to have an instinctive (rather Bengali) aversion to pets but the aunt added her voice to the insistent pro-pet chorus so he was rendered powerless. At first he tried to laugh away the suggestion, then to enlist the baby's support, citing her health as a concern, but it was to no avail. The kids ran to the shop two days later and bore their budgies home triumphantly.

Indecision2009

2009-03-09T12:55:00.006Z

I'm still in a wretched state of indecision on whether to stay in Rome or go to Bosnia at the end of this week. This is a chance for all you silent readers to make a contribution. I don't often have Bikey-style dilemmas but this certainly qualifies and I'll try to put the case to you all clearly.

Option 1- Continue Roman job-hunt
Pros:
-I have no-strings-or-guilt-attached free living (food and board) in Central Rome
-Related to above- supportive family base so I won't be lonesome
-Am learning Italian quickly- averaging around 3 hours free lessons a day and up to 6 hours if i want.
-Have made a couple of fledgling friendships already- Valeria, whose teacherly instincts means she wants me to forget she speaks english, but if i spoke in italian alone conversation would progress at a painfully slow pace. With young Arafa I can have a more equal language exchange though her english is far better than my italian we both need practise.
-EU country so I can stay for an unlimited time.
-I can earn far more money because the job won't involve paying over 400 quid in plane tickets.
-I have at least couple of job leads.
-If I get a job I can work for a few months at least.
-My aunt is happy to have someone around for general chatter, shopping and help convincing her husband to buy a sewing machine. I don't actually say anything but she can use me as an argument in building her case for one, cause I definitely wouldn't let it just gather dust.
-I'm already here (duh) so there's no bustling around sorting tickets and documents and other headaches.

Cons:
-Everything is very indefinite compared to the Sarajevo gig.
-I've done the touristy thing here at least and I'd really like to try Bosnian living.
-I have family support but they live in a generally isolated immigrant community so it's harder to integrate socially. And I'm not the norm within that community either so there's the extreme of excessive curiosity and unwanted attention (eg, guys in language school) and wariness (the better-heeled Italian public)Young Arafa says that there isn't even a young muslim's type circle except for arab girls who keep things exclusive. Enquiries about socialising, movies etc drew a blank expression at first, then an explanation of her peers' strange fashionista attitudes. (Upon her commenting on a beautiful moon, her companion confusedly asking if she meant that thing up in the sky? Why? It's not like a painting or anything.. Which confused Arafa in turn)
-I won't have anyone looking out for me professionally- employment will be more sink or swim.

Bosnia on the other hand is a much simpler prospect. A short fixed term job in a city where I will have both professional support ( from Not Mr Bikey's mother) and a good social network who will give me a chance to be active in the wider community with their various community projects. The environment is just the kind of place and people that I would want to be part of- trying to be open and engaged, decent and academic. I'm obviously making it sound more utopian than reality but that is my overall vibe. I also have the whole free accomodation deal, and I would really welcome the peace of living on my own for a little while (I know I'm disgustingly fortunate - and I should take advantage of it right?) I like cooking anyway and could experiment with yummy Bosnian recipes for soup and pita and those walnutty syrupy apples. And cherry juice! Wow cherry juice.. I tried to find something like it in Manchester but it was a travesty of the Bosnian real deal.

There are two main BUTS which are
1) the cost of going and returning would absorb mos of my salary as it's only a 5 week deal. Which also means I'd be back in Manchester by May probably doing the call centre grind once more. Although I'm also thinking I should apply for a PGCE next year as it's probably what I'm most qualified for and I've generally gone for the path of least resistance form-wise.
2) The other BUT has i think mostly been overcome because miei genitori are now saying it's fine and 'if you must, but what if a robber climbs through the x-storey high window?' respectively.

It's also something I must decide asap cause the job would start next week!

Anyway my plan for today is to bake a belated birthday cake for myself using some bruised apples that are languishing in the fridge, and make it to language school. Also possibly check out a local yarn store I spied the other day.

2009-03-08T00:13:00.005Z

I want this to be short...
My birthday was slightly befogged by a bad headcold but I managed to have a full and happy day despite the streaming nose. The plan was to check out an old book and engravings market near the fontana di trevi which closed 1-ish and then do a touristy wander. I found an amazing store called RE(f)USE which had stunning recycled art. I'll upload the spectacular(!) chandelier made from thick old-school NHS glasses- the kind i was too ashamed to wear in primary and most likely started my whole walking-the-world-blithely-blind thing. It was on a totally haute couture street where I'd be afraid to go inside any of the shops in all my dirt but this place seemed a little different- though no less immaculately presented.

Well I went inside and saw that it was all amazing, out of my league, craftwork but I was brave enough to engage the elegant counter lady in conversation and she let me take photos and when I went upstairs another girl took me into a special room of repurposed things turned into strange and amazing crockery and bags and all kinds. It was like entering a giant vault- I confess I had flashbacks to Princess Diaries 2 or something like it when their crown jewels are suddenly revealed to them. Seriously though it was pretty cool and hi tech. I asked the girl if their stuff is ever just art or if everything, like the crazy, scottie-like shredded magazine armchair, was useable- she said that if the stuff wasn't useful then it would just end up as another kind of refuse. They discovered their artists from all different places, including the internet- but they didn't create things themselves. Seemed like an interesting set up- the alternative, ethical craft scene at the high end of the scale- and apparently unique in Italy.

The antique book market was just a few little stalls with postcards and old pictures and leathery books in a sunny piazza. I spent forever browsing happily and nobody felt impatient when I finally plucked out one measly half euro postcard out of the pile of antiques. I'll show you tomorrow- It's three men on a tandem bike out riding a steam train.

Later in the evening the aunt and I bought around 20 bottles of shampoo and stuff and a long window wiper which i twirled about on the way home like Dick Van Dyke doing his chimney sweep routine.

edited to add: I saw the fountain and it was big and crowded- I was more excited about my delicious ice cream. I tried eating it in MUJI but the tall black store guys said salaam nicely then threw me out..

2009-03-05T16:43:00.001Z

yay! My Amazon UK delivery came- in just 4 days! I'm way impressed- delivery cost about 7 euros for three pretty heavy grammar books..

2009-03-05T11:59:00.001Z

Food

2009-03-04T21:57:00.003Z

Discovered strange and wonderful foods today. My throat is still sore from dinner but it was worth it.

Earlier in the day my aunt had me peel and chop long stems called 'kuchu' and she was surprised to hear that I was unfamiliar with them. Turns out I shouldn't have rinsed them before chopping- once wet they begin stinging like the devil. They may look like leeks but they have the heart of thorny nettles. The aunt advised me to hold my hand over the fire to cool the stinging pain.

Naturally I was a little apprehensive about eating the blighters, but they had melted down into an unrecognisable brown mush and after a tentative pinchful proved to be amazingly tasty I piled my plate high with the stuff.

Later on as my gobbling slowed down I began to noticed that my tongue and the roof of my mouth were itching like I'd sucked too many pear drops or eaten 6 kiwis. I asked my aunt, worried again, but she assured me that's it's fine if it hurts a little- you should only stop if it begins stinging so bad you think you might not be able to eat again. Man that scared me plenty, but young Fatima helped me out with the rest of my meal so I'm fairly sure I'll be in a fit state for breakfast.

Bengalis, man- this happy frog on slow boil attitude is way too common. Like teaching us how to crush our fingers into tiny bangles- just stop short of breaking your bones ok?

The uncle also bought home some wondrous Malaysian lychee-like fruit that looked like a small wild-haired tropical monster. The aunt also says she'll cook waterlilies or 'shapla' at some point.

Baby's Day Out

2009-03-04T12:37:00.008Z

In which no mention will be made of puking in McDonald's (it wasn't the baby either..)

The baby as per Bikey's request. Taken during one of the aunt's baby shopping sprees while the rest of us are already dropping with fatigue. I took the kids out for some air while we waited and am sure we were mistaken for gypsy beggars* by not a few passers by: I the distraction/ pity plea, a young mother carting a little baby and two mischievous imps to do the thieving..

Silhouette of Basilica di San Pietro in Vaticano

(Edited to add- just realised the photo should rightfully be captioned "Fiddlers on the Roof" These figures are mostly on/ holding crosses it's true but still- Rome, fiddles, people on roofs, it all works!

Splashy fountain

almonds in a shop window. These street photos were taken while walking because no one would stop for my nonsense. Forgive the blur.

The Mikis Vive poster was pasted all around- I just looked it up and apparently "Mikis Mantakas was a Greek neo-fascist student who was killed in Rome more than 20 years ago. mikis vive = mikis lives" Anyone have any more info- I'm still not great at reading the Italian sources.

i liked the elegant spider web pattern traced out by the cables

These pictures unfailingly provoked guffaws from the young gremlins, and, inevitably, favourite question: WHY? "Eeeew! Dustbins! Oh my goodness! WHY? WHY?"

Earlier in the week: School Carnivale- Japanese style

*I know this is a stereotype and I wish Roma people well*

2009-03-04T11:33:00.008Z

Clearly I was too optimistic in reading the EFL scene in Rome. Thankfully it was a beautiful sunny day for once, or else my foolish wandering around the streets of Piramida searching for this school could have been a much sadder experience. I gave myself 30 minutes spare to find the place which was 5 minutes from the station. After a detour which I admit was entirely my fault I was finally on the right path and two minutes from my destination when I decided to check the direction with the school. Big mistake.

They assured me I was walking the wrong way and should head right back to where I started, while the bar lady who had previously helped me kept coming out of her shop and vigorously pointing in the opposite direction, frustrated by my obtuseness. Eventually, half an hour later, they despatched a lackey to hunt me out in the street. Not the most auspicious beginning and all for a job that I knew didn't exist. All I got really was a pep talk on how it's wisest to come to Rome in August/ September..

On the plus side I've started the advanced class- chiefly cause the intermediate is always overflowing and though I was lucky enough to find seating space on a radiator, it was still painful compared to the luxury of an advanced class Chair.

Me and Jumi khala were totally fine anyhow- totally at home with the snappy pace and sharper wits present. 'Advanced' is a very relative demarcation- referring to confidence more than actual substantive knowledge. Perfect for an impatient student like myself.

I'm afraid I'm a bad influence already- I was surreptitiously giving a knitting lesson to the guy behind me. He seemed confident when he asked if he could continue my Saturday-in-the-Park jumper- but his skills were sadly unequal to the task and I was not in knitting missionary mode. I gave him undue credit for speaking in Italian when he could have just used Bangla- undue because he didn't realise I was bengali, even though I was translating half the lesson, probably incorrectly, to the guy next to me.

The teacher Mario was a volatile character, with a fun but slightly terrifying Jekyll and Hyde personality- his laughter quickly turned to booming outrage when the aunt didn't remember the meaning of thief. There was lots of role-playing cops-and-robbers stuff which was a little out of my league but much more fun than the passive nature of the other class. We had to describe people, eg the thief, and the aunt sketched the most alarming portrait of a tall bald man with a moustache and monobrow, upturned nose and almond shaped eyes. She just enjoys the funny words and keeps saying sopracciglia folte and nas all-insu around the house(monobrow and upturned nose respectively)Not so long ago she was continually rolling 'cherrymerry' over her tongue like it was a delicious aniseed ball..

Cryptic tales/ Tales from the Crypt

2009-03-03T10:54:00.006Z

Turns out I am still too much of a baby for the high flying school- but Welsh girl sounded sad that this was the case so what can you do..

I called up another 5 or 10 schools, and, because I'm steadily losing confidence in my Italian language skills, there was often a daunting language barrier between me and the receptionist. One girl seemed to think repeating pronto 10 times before hanging up was an effective way to handle recruitment. I don't know..
Happily one school asked me to come round this afternoon for an interview and if I seem promising she says they'll clear a space in the afternoon for me. She sounded encouraging, but she's also Italian which adds that extra dimension of anxiety.

Class yesterday was a nice blend of hilarious and mortifying. Like that thing where you can see yourself and the class from the outside and laugh, but you're also inside yourself and, really, it's sad times. It was my teacher's fault or maybe mine for making her my new friend before class. Ah, I suffered for it.

Picture this place with rain and at least 50 mostly Muslim, often Bengali guys hanging round. It's paradoxical perhaps but somehow the more similar your backgrounds are, the further the distance you want to create..
La mia scuola:

(I changed the photo because Val tells me that the last one had shocking obscenties scrawled all over it)

I'm trying to think of short version of events but I can't organise my thoughts so we'lll just see if this flows. Concise was always my forte in school essays but somehow this never applies with blogs. What was once called thinking is now thought of as writing a blog post in my head- like yesterday I was writing a whole long piece comparing the strangeness of my current literature, Stuart Little, to the range of myriad anthropomorphic rodent stories I've read in my time from the Deptford trilogy, to Pentecost, from the Rats of Nimh to the wistful A Rat's Tale, not forgetting our darling Fievel Mousekevitz. It's just that Stuart Little plays fast and loose with our suspension of disbelief- it doesn't try to create a new universe at all but bends the rules of our own willy nilly, so at one moment it is entirely practical and reasonable in considering the problems of a mouse living a human lifestyle but at the same time seems to demand we accept that no one is more than mildly surprised to discover his human mother somehow gave birth to a mouse. The Rats of Nimh at least had mutant genetic experiments to account for their lifestyle and Pentecost was the most naturalistic of all once you discount the Brummie Rat Mafia.

I don't know if I want to talk about the class- it feels like I'm avoiding the tale talking about talking mice. Anyway I'm going to wear glasses today.

I went to the Colosseum and roundabouts yesterday. I'm no archaeologist or even a historian. My reference point looking at the ruins of the Roman forum was Shelly's Ozymandias:

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
`My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

San Pietro in Vincoli had the same ornate ceilings, white marble statues, and vast Biblical murals as St Peter's in the Vatican. Not the same of course but I didn't have a guide to tell me the stories and anyway it sometimes feels uncomfortably blasphemous when I see this statue is supposed to be Moses and his wives or some such. I don't like to take too many photos when I'm inside a church cause it feels intrusive, even if they are trying to catch all the tourists they can, I expect they probably hate the necessity at the same time. But the place had a few ghoulish touches that appealed to me..

2009-03-02T15:59:00.002Z

I'll get round to the touristy stuff eventually but you know they're not really stories and I was too lazy to dig up the histories before I came, so most of my knowledge comes from one or two glossy picture-filled pages from my guide book. Man I spent so long picking that Baedeker guide book- opening out all the maps and comparing content with about 50 others in Borders but having lived with it a week I'm not in love with it. I think I got distracted by the shininess and detail on the map..

Anyway I went wandering today on my own tour and I have one question I want to put to the Jehovah's Witnesses:

How do you learn so many languages? Seriously I want to go to your school- your people's range is really impressive!

Bead heaven

2009-03-01T14:05:00.006Z

I see you're all bored by the endless chatter now so I'll just put up some photos with mininum captioning. The boy didn't want me to talk about his birthday either so there wasn't much story besides..

I visited the uncle's shop for the first time and was completely unprepared for it's magnificence. A gleaming Aladdin's cave of swarovski crystals and pearls in every shape and size.. I expected ready made jewellery only but no this was a craftsters' paradise.

A few examples of the glories within:

Interview..

2009-02-26T23:56:00.002Z

The interview was fun- aside from the sour note introduced by a tricky grammar test. The conversation flowed swimmingly, in fact it seemed to devolve into comfortable chatter covering Welsh language learning, British bilingualism, Bengali cuisine, knitting (of course), comparing HSBC sari/ turban uniforms to Roman racial tolerance, and other sundry topics. She said their school wouldn't ever allow hijab or race to be a sticking point or issue which was reassuring.

On the other hand it seems like quite an upmarket school handling mostly corporate, govermental clients and many of them stipulate that they want teachers who are at least 25 years old and have 5 years experience. They're bigwigs who don't want to be taught be a wide-eyed naif who may get burned out or homesick halfway through the course. But she seemed to feel I had potential I think or she wouldn't have spent so long explaining their courses and system- we were talking for 1 1/2 hours. They send their teachers out to different sites- a few hours with one business then across the city to another maybe. She'll let me know roughlyhow much work might be available for me if any.

I think part time hours with a good school would be more valuable than 40 hours in some cowboy sweatshop school. Although I'm attending one such school downstairs as a student, and though the space is sweatshop like and the methodology very ad hoc- not much lesson plan, just going through conjucations and random words so far, I think she's just a local uni student- the atmosphere is friendly and low pressure. The students really appreciate their teacher's efforts to help them understand and don't demand more than that really.

2009-02-26T01:18:00.003Z

I have an interview for a decent sounding language school tomorrow so if I get the job I could picture staying for a good few months. I can be useful for the family keeping my aunt company especially in her overcrowded (come 5 minutes late and it's standing room only) as in bengali man-filled italian language classes, and tutoring the kids and learn plenty myself at the same time. The class is quite fun - they all seem to love the teacher who really tries to explain things in a thousand ways so everyone understands. The guys all have random words and phrases they picked up at a restaurant or on the bus which make her laugh/ wonder what the heck they're talking about and try to teach us all these oddities (I'm not much of a note taker so I can't check for an example sorry) I'm picking up plenty of vocab and my aunt is pretty good- the grammar is familiar fromspainsh so it's easy to catch on and keep up. In fact it goes pretty slowly and it took only one session for me to replace my notebook with knitting.

My one venture into an Italian shop so far has given me a taste of the xenophobia that seems to be the attitude prevailing in this city. I don't think it's an excuse to say that the Italians' experience of dark immigrants is bad, so naturally they'll tail a you with a security guard as soon as you step in. The difference between thinking all Bengalis or coloured hijabi people are likely to be thieves, and racism is too fine a distinction for me. I'll smile at the guard and be polite when he takes the eyeliner i'm looking at from me and checks if it's a tester or I'm taking a new pencil, but really I'm angry and not sure if I should show it. I think I should on principle but the wiser course for a stranger is to prove them wrong by being an exemplary customer. Always a degrading experience though - one I don't think I've had in the UK so you forget what it feels like.

Actually just spoke to my aunt and she says this is more a train station attitude because people are constantly flowing through from everywhere and the staff there are more distrustful than the norm. So perhaps I should reserve my judgement of Italian folk generally (although this kind of thing totally happened to me in Verona a few years ago, plus my aunt's apartment hunting woes: constant rejection and refusal to even look at their perfect decade long rental record because they are a Bengali family. My aunt seems to think this is natural but seems shocking to me.

(edited to add: please note that was just an initial reaction which sounds harsh in retrospect- probably the culture-shock of such an incident coming from manchester. I'm always meeting lovely Italian folk whenever I go out and I'll give the haughtier ones the benefit of the doubt and assume their more averse to the shabbiness of my coat than anything else)

2009-02-24T12:34:00.003Z

Thank the Lord I'm not actually a benefit fraudster.

I was worried for a bit but was brave enough to check with the proper authorities that it was ok that I absconded to foreign parts without having cancelled my JSA. If I get a letter to them in time they'll even pay me to the night before I left..

Building my nest..

2009-02-24T01:13:00.004Z

.. and it's far more comfortable and filled with possibilities than I anticipated. My aunt spells her name Zhume which seems bizarre given we pronounce it 'Jumi' so I'm unsure about how to go about cyberfying her name and am open to suggestions from my nonexistent public. But her house is awesome- not only is it literally opposite, as in no, honestly, straight across the road from, the central Rome station but it has a free Italian language school on the floor below her flat to boot. Granted it's a jam-packed school for immigrants and asylum seekers where young Yusuf says the polizia would have a field day, but I'm happy enough to go there and double as a buffer between the encroaching crowd and my aunt who is put off by it.

The family all had colds, down to the new baby, who pulls off the cute scowler look. It is not really cold weather, although it would definitely have been worth rescuing my lovely Bosnian wool gown during that sad hand luggage debacle. I've alluded to that painful scene before but really it's just one of those typical tragic stories that happen when Azmis and airports meet and I don't feel up to delving into the gory details.

I spent the evening being challenged to a mental duel by young Yusuf on every subject from Ancient Egyptians, to World War 2, world languages, cultural vs national identities (the whole Bengal v Bangladeshi question rearing its head), subcontinental religion shifts - I bring up the partition of India but he refers back to the Mongols, comparing world population density, the most important discoveries of mankind (I tentatively mooted the Germ Theory as a highlight but he scorned me for my limited vision and declared the discovery of Fire trounced Germs)
I was seriously starting to feel out of my league with the 10 year old so I brought up my fail safe ego booster. Yes, I mean the Dictionary Game.

You know it's amazing what a bad teacher can do to a kid because despite the evidence of his conversation the boy claims he hates geography and history and doesn't see the point in them at all. His teacher yells at the students to get out of the class and they do, gladly.

Going through the digestive system, Magic School Bus style with the girl (we had to use our imaginations as there was no Szalinski zapper to hand) was far less of a strain on my exhausted mental faculties. The boy spent that time exploring my ipod playlist and classifying everything from Damien Marley to Artic Monkeys as 'rap music' His spontaneous breakout performance of 50 cent "go shorty, it's ya birthday" was as hilarious as it was unexpected.

Anyway I have been given the internetted living room - the computer has unlimited net but went mysteriously mute about a year ago and though the best minds of the Italian clan have tried to cure it, it seems determined to remain so. I'm going to try my hand at it too, while the boy shakes his head at my naivete and says it will never happen.

I don't mean to write with this blog with all the dull daily minutiae on a regular basis but it's my first day in a new land so it's excusable right?
I seem to be on course for my usual holiday minimalist diet and my uncle is already alarmed and pressing bananas and glasses of milk in my hand. My aunt is chilled out though and has a funny, almost zany streak so you know I think we will understand each other. I'm predicting good times.

I didn't mention yesterday night's abduction and surprise party. It was wonderful and a complete shock- I don't think anyone has so totally obliviously sleepwalked into their own leaving/ slash birthday party before. It's like the awesome version of when Cow drinks all my Vimto while I'm not looking and tells me I drank it myself and I believe her. I'm not crazy just too trusting..

And I'm Feeling Good..

2009-02-24T00:44:00.003Z

I'm sorry it seems like this will be a photoless blog at least for a while as I didn't manage to excavate my camera. This journey could have been it's whole purpose in life but it's not meant to be- maybe it'll motivate me to draw travel sketches the oldfashioned way instead of clicking snaps.

I made a plane friend which is always a promising start to a trip. A courtly,cravat-wearing, older Italian gentleman who stepped aside to let me and my fifty handluggage bags tumble into the two seats near the window. It's lucky no one claimed the extra seat cause I needed all the seat and underfoot space available for my, as I said, fifty bags. Anyway we exchanged a friendly (and on my part apologetic) smiles and settled in with our books to determinedly ignore the safety spiel. As we took off I had that usual enchanted moment with the patchwork land and sun rising over pillowy skies that you feel whenever it's been too long since your last flight for you to take the magnificence for granted. And then I went to sleep.

In fact we both slept for about 2 hours until the plane began to descend and we both looked out at the suddenly Italian view. The gentleman pointed out to the farmland below and proudly said "that's my land" and I was unsure for a moment about whether he meant the precise farm we were flying over because it seemed amazingly coincidental. But despite my confusiom it broke the ice and with about 10 minutes before touchdown and constant interruptions from the pilot chatting about the weather and changing our watches, we managed to discover much in common and briefly sketch out our Manchester lives and Roman ambitions. He happened to be a former Italian Consulate something and current MMU and Stockport College Italian teacher. So naturally we talked about languages and English and Italian dialects and culture and by the time we reached baggage we were matily chatting in Italian (well he was, I was unabashed speaking incomprehensible cod-Italian which was actually Spanish with what I considered a Italian twist) He had no luggage to collect so he just taught me about five goodbye and good luck phrases and went on his way.

2009-02-22T04:27:00.006Z

It's 4.30am and like MrC almost 2 years have past since my last post. I have been lying awake writing a blog post in my head so I should just get these reflections out of my system. My brain (or perhaps my spine) is juddering slightly from sleeplessness and so far i have not followed the lines so eloquently penned in my mind before the fight to create a physical manifestation (from basic huddling out of bed to start up Cow's laptop, to having to work around her illegal Windows Vista finally being held to account for its crimes (I cunningly clicked the activation link which grudgingly allowed me access to the net) and then having to dredge up my ridiculous one-off password that I created for this blog) Anyway I think I should start again..

In short I was reflecting, not for the first time, on the virtues of the blog compared to the ubiquitous facebook. Perhaps it's partly about control and privacy- it is your own personal domain and your voice carries far above any comments. But I feel the greatest appeal is the unique niche a blog can carve out, with a personality, a story, and a natural flow that the superficial information explosion of Facebook (where most of our talented and entertaining blogosphere - yes Bikey i mean you- migrated) cannot match. From Fudge, to Mad Cow, the Cs, and Slimey we had tales of their adventures told with brilliance and high drama (or if you're a C with elegance and urbanity)

Perhaps I'll be able to articulate this better another time but somehow it seems that facebook has created an emotional distance and voyeuristic aspect even with close friendships as day-to day-life is reduced to an information stream accessed without any interaction and received alongside a hundred other friends and acquaintances. It is a medium that doesn't lend itself to introspection or story-telling or sharing life experiences with more than a tagged photo. Everything and everyone is often public property- you are communicating your personality in lists. It's almost like an extension of the kind of overexposure once reserved for celebrities where pointless trivia such as favourite movies and books is given to people who barely know you and have no reason to care. It's a useful tool for connecting groups of people but it's all too much.

For example, I added new friends from my CELTA course as we reached the third week of our brief but intensive acquaintance. The contrast between the natural acquisition of knowledge about these guys and the sudden overload of hobbies, photos and unknown friendships felt somewhat intrusive and awkward to me. One guy had a horror of social networking and although he was a funny House-like misanthrope, I could sympathize even while uploading photos to preserve our transient friendship.

i'm tired and incoherent as usual I know but at least this time I don't have an audience!

Anyway my insomnia was tinged a little by the panic of thinking you shouldn't have given up that snug secure year long library post for thankless EFL work- or at least that 'adventure' could have waited a year and perhaps if you ask nicely you could get another internship. My other angel/ demon then rebukes me for being so lily-livered and assures me that so long as I save enough money to fund any artistic dreams then i have a sweet and free-spirited life, and that I am a rare, fortunate creature to have free living in Central Rome. But then I also hear whispers of concern that the iron is cooling rapidly for graduates and I should try for something with potential beyond scraping together enough for food and board. If I were to go back to July 21st though I would have taken a month to get travelling out of my system secure in the knowledge that a respectable university had given me a worthy librarian traineeship in an Art and Design library out of perhaps hundreds of applicants.

I don't know. My choices always seem wrong with transport and Life. I'm fairly content to chalk it up to experience but I fear my nature (at this point Windows officiously logged me off for illegality- but blogger magically saved the draft so I didn't have to silently shriek curses for long) rebels against obvious wisdom. I could list the ways but it's a sad story: my transportation choices are too often cause for regret- the wrong bus, the worst route, always, always.

Meme

2007-01-30T12:12:00.000Z

Because Knitmedic/ Mrs C tagged me..

6 wierd things you probably didn't want to know about me
(although since half of you lot are family you probably know everything anyway)

1. I cannot wear in-ear earphones unless I wind them around my ear and use a hairgrip to keep them in place- they don't have that hook/ ledgey thing that holds them in most people's ears.

2. Between them, my eyes have a power difference of at least 6 1/2 points- ie my long-sighted eye (aka blackboard eye) is +4.25 last time I checked a few years back, and my shortsighted one ("book eye") is at least -2.25. Despite this I am able to function for months at a time without glasses- though perhaps I am not at the peak of my abilities.. Also my feet are different shoe sizes but, again, I manage. My advice to you is go for the smaller size and the big foot will stretch it in time.

3. Like Reese I like to sing in my head, it sounds much nicer and it seems like I know the lyrics much better because there's a vague dreamy space that doesn't register when you skip a word or two. I often sing aloud in the streets although it's hard to judge when your out of earshot or not- you think you're safe but then you realise you can hear the dude's footsteps from the other end of the street.

4. I am a dictionary game whiz kid- although I'm all of 20 now and 'whiz kid' will never apply again.. Family members reading this post will recall our desperate Eid dictionary gaming and think I'm blowing my own horn unbecomingly, but remember that this is the outside world where such an admission is mostly one of geeky wierdness and loserhood.

5. For the last few years I have been gathering friends and noting relatives who are potential architects and carefully instilling in them the idea that in The Future I will need Someone to build me a house and a magnificent Library. My dear old buddy Fledo is my architect of choice and I have great hopes of her- I feel we share a vision. Aisha Architecture would be next on the list and is already 2 years into her course- I introduced myself to her and the library plan when we first met last year and she seemed perfectly amiable to the idea. Then there's young Ruby who is far off yet and a few others who are more distant and might be harder to persuade.

6. After every movie I have to go to imdb, check out the cast, read a review and probably make a trip to wikipedia too. I also go through what I like to call 'phases' but in reality they are deep obsessions facilitated by the Internet. When I latch onto a cult tv series or movie or occasionally book that's exactly what it's like for a while- a cult in which I read everything there is to know about it and watch all the interviews on youtube and sometimes venture into forums and have downloaded scripts and ugh too much. There are too too many cases in point and TWOP does not help but I can tell you that my current 'phase' is Ugly Betty. I do still manage to have a life though! It's wireless internet and a laptop in my room that is my undoing- and now peekvid.com d--n it.

2006-11-01T23:33:00.000Z

Inertia setting in again but I have to at least plug that Muslim Jewish Youth Theatre was so amazing today and they still want people. You get free tickets to all the Royal Exchange shows too as if the cooless of the project wasn't incentive enough. It was exactly the kind of thing I wanted to get into post- Bosnia and I'm so excited! I'm also newly motivated to do a cool theatre project with YM girls cause one of the guys was telling me how he ran something like that for girls about 14- and it was all about them leading the way and totally the kind of thing i meant. Just means there are people who know how it can work and can advise me at least so there is hope once more. Yesterday I was feeling sad that i would have to relinquish the dream of an interesting dynamic project altogether and fall back on reworked Disney- now don't worry Tab, i just need a little time...

2006-11-01T23:04:00.000Z

yay that totally worked. I'll bullet point the coolness of the last 24 hours because there were many things:
-Sunderland and I went to the movies to use up my free AMC tickets. Sounds simple enough but we made it um, not. I was designated leader so maybe it was my fault we ended up at the wrong cinema. At first when I saw the times at the Filmworks I thought the Metro had lied to me but then I noticed Ben&Jerry's and it clicked. AMC has no B&J's therefore we were not at the AMC. Happily we had time to get ice-cream and the dude serving us was extra generous and gave us free fudge and chocolate sauce. He almost insisted we take advantage of the freebie icecream toppings but now we wonder if there was something in them which would account for the giddy high that followed.

For the second time I was taken through Next and again the same confusion (see post below) set in. The warmest route to the AMC would have been through arndale- a short straight trip to Boots. Which turned into an twisted loopy eventful journey in which one lady grabbed our hands and made our thumbnails shiny, a ice-cream spatula fell to the ground and refused to be picked up again. It seemed to insist it had found its final resting place and resisted all the efforts of my, Sunderland's or the Arndale cleaning lady's cold finger. Eventually the clever cleaner whipped out her dustbin and handbrush but we were all three sitting down and scrabbling at the shiny floor in front of Costa until then. Some Barclay's guy tried to appeal to our Muslimness to sign up to a credit card too- Assalaamu alaikum sisters! 2
months interest free! cause i know you don't want interest..

The film was The History Boys- reminded me of a lot of what i disliked about my school. The whole grooming for Oxbridge process irritated and attracted me at the same time. I can still never decide whether I'd want to be in that set or not- I wouldn't feel out of place I think but kind of uneasy about the idea of it. Seeing the headteacher fawn over her special Oxbridge girls was a very off-putting example.

ok this bullet point thing is clearly not happening. I'll do a new post about today then.

2006-11-01T22:58:00.000Z

testing to see if blogger works from home. also had an incredible day and was buzzing with details to blog before dinner but now i'm sleepy.

21st Sept

2006-09-27T11:51:00.000+01:00

It's been an eventful Fresher's Week for me. Far more so than last year- I feel excited about it now and active- my pre-Bosnia momentum has carried on and gathered a new level of energy from my experience in Bosnia. What prompted me to blog now, apart from the Talktalk ppl not blocking blogger, was not to publish the results of my brief stint as KnitSoc founder at Manchester Uni (60 members! Alhamdulillah! Minimal forcing and bribery involved! Not even candyfloss!-though I tried- And in only around 4 hours stall keeping! Bless MD for bringing me a table!) nor to discuss either the ISB and Women&Co life-consuming goings-on. The reason was that 'A Scanner Darkly' left me far more disorientated than I usually am. I don't think I've watched a trippier movie, and I can't pinpoint my feeling about it. But I did feel different after seeing it- I think my friend Architecture A shared this- and walking through the new Next and the new Arndale felt strange. We walked straight across the shop- a long way- and ended up at doors next to the ones we'd just entered. Things are constantly shifting around the city centre, and new areas spring out of nowhere- I get lost where I should be completely at home. My buddy Architecture A rocks by the way- she seems ready to be my partner-in-crime. She has the time and the easy-going spirit to come with me into anything from circus skills to sign language class, to street graffiti. I love that she's not one who anyone would realise is unusual and so funky- you can't tell from her dress or her manner, but only that she understands where your coming from and is up for it or wanted to do it already. With most people it's the opposite- their manner is kooky but their activities are quite conservative. The most important thing is that she's majorly accessible which is the rarest thing of all- she's even living in Pink's house, which, despite their protests, has become my second home. Young Ray is coping ok with the redesertion of the household- He reads his new history textbook (which is really good stuff and he sometimes reads to me about the Vietnam War etc whike I knit) and sings along to Nazeel's stuff. Or he plays his gameboy and sings. Actually since he's started the singing thig he won't read aloud anymore which is sad for me.

Ps. I lost my purse which dampened my mood a little- a didn’t mind about bank cards, but losing a provisional license is a definite setback. I suspect I left it on the bus so insha’allah some kind soul will find it like last year.

2006-09-06T02:07:00.000+01:00

Daily Show Correspondent Aasif Mandvi

"I guess not everyone knows how to respond when opportunity knocks your house down"

Many things incl ITN, demos, joy of new friends and our club, Bosnia

2006-08-07T23:11:00.000+01:00

= Life after the London Raid of my Manc Folk (i missed the c of Manc at first- I did not mean that. then I wrote 'men' that. Dunno, it's strange)

I feel now like leaving the post at that- though I was forming eloquent posts on the walk home. I call them eloquent but perhaps my mind drifted more than I thought, into snatches of song and the like. As in dreams where the exciting mission-impossible-like plot where Adelai Niska presents you with a deadly poisonous injection to be self-administered as punishment for failure on reflection doesn't quite fit in with sitting in at some gangster rap recording studio spying on the messages they record. Seamless in the dream, but raises questions on waking. But I digress.

So I went to the demo- read tab's blog and comments for my general recollection of that. I went without muslm folk- who were significantly lacking sadly- and had an entirely different demo experience- the one where all kinds of people and cultures come together and discuss the situation at hand, and of Britain, politics, religion, language, culture, knitting, the works and socialists and respect party ppl earnestly work on recruiting you to their causes (or as Ray would say 'causii') My coach buddy was a gentle soul- not much addicted to politics but a pacifist rather and a vague world's faiths encompassing spirituality. She had children my age and was very kind to me, to which i responded with an endless flow of prattling conversation - mostly about my family. I tried to be conscious of the need to ask her questions in return- when tired she simply requested a moment to sleep and dozed off occasionally :) It was a very comfortable arrangement though- no holding hostage to anyone's ear. Unlike the certifed Bore who had collared the poor sleepy boy next to her. Oblivious or merciless i know not- i expect the former, but the kid's monotones ruffled her not. She didn't stop until he actually in desperation asked if he could use her shoulder ( a complete stranger i assure you) as a pillow and fell asleep on the surprised lady.

Man I'm too tired too talk about the ITN iterview anymore- though I will say to you all this one thing and listen close: Do Not Trust Journalists. They have Ulterior Motives. ALWAYS. Whether they are sweet and charming and aquainted with your uncle, or chain-smokey and snoopy- they are as one in their aims. They are for the Story. The one that they have pitched to the producer and will dovetail neatly into their programme- whatever that maybe. However innocuous your comments may be do not misguidedly feel glad that the world will hear such sweet moderation. When mingled with shots of shadowy blurry folk, voice-over solemnly speaking of Angry Young People, and parks turned freakishly alien purple, you become nothing but an Other. I gave Miss Emma Murphy the benefit of the doubt- pretty, sympathetic and patiently encouraging she seemed. The reason we're frustrated by the media becomes so easy to understand when you glimpse how they work it. I think this piece is what we were slotted into http://video.msn.com/v/en-gb/v.htm?g=12d834fa-4333-4e34-a783-e727a1e27195 - Alhamdulillah she found us to talk to and not the 'radicalized 7/7 supporters' she was looking for.. That's one of the few reasons it's worth it- if it's not us doing these things and being portrayed badly though we say positively gentle things they'll find some loser who'll happily rant ignorantly on camera for them.

Once more unto the breach dear friends, once more

2006-08-07T22:20:00.000+01:00

Yes it's been a while. Since the latter days of uni the lethargy had descended upon me but lately it has been lifting lightly away. (Alliteration seems to have seized me by the throat. I will fight him off)

I have by found that Etsy was not in fact The Way Forward, at least not for me. Hand-crafted commerce requires a more personal touch I feel, an old-school tactile market scene is called for. Perhaps it was the giddy riches that Marrakesh revealed, the open sweat and blood craftsmanship that produced the wonders of Fez- a laser etched plate may look neat but it cannot compare with brass that has been worked on for weeks. The leather tanning and zelij factories displaying what unbelievable and beautiful feats we can achieve without machinery, Alhamdulillah- (which so dazzled our party that we fell delightly to our knees in their rubbish tip of fragmented tiles, greedily gathering the so despised and discarded treasure. The locals pointed and laughed.) Mrs C's knitting lore was also passed on during that time in Marrakesh, and- though the many tales of Knitdom must be shelved until my knitblog-in-process is open for business- I can now see first-hand that the finished article must be at least seen to be appreciated. Far better is it to see the craftsman at work- it enhances its beauty no end- and to practise yourself brings the understanding higher still. Morris- I so get your Arts&Crafts movement.

None of this is what I wanted to talk about though- I got side tracked. I'll make a new post because these things are so not related except to say that I have returned today overcome by the momentum gathering in my young life. Bring it back to that lifted lethargy stuff. I will expound in the Part II: Feeling active- het up enough to care again+ our Myf Club of fun and acting as young or younger than our age. As you can see we need a real name..

2006-05-29T16:10:00.000+01:00

I've just discovered a cyber Holy Grail (is that a blasphemous term? we don't believe in it at all so i don't think it counts) and I was dithering over whether to share the link- I mostly want to keep it to myself but I think Mrs C definitely should share, and maybe Pink too. The rest- well u might appreciate but if u don't it keeps it more special for me.

http://www.etsy.com/

Magic

Murder on the busfloor

2006-05-18T19:25:00.000+01:00

Well not quite, but I was reflecting on what-might-have-been and what-could-be..
The scene is top floor 192, a colourful place to be filled with Longsightians and Levenshulmers, topped off with scally Stockport.
To cut to the chase, a skinhead who I would judge to be at least in his late 20s, yanked my scarf from the back as he was passing. My first assumption was that it was a friendly tug from a galpal, but on seeing a white guy in scally uniform (full on shiny green trackie) I decided to revise my opinion. We exchanged martial glints but nothing came of it and he and another metallic trackied baldie went on their way.

I was shocked at his rudeness, and annoyed- but not so much cause my headband had been decent about keeping its grip. What occupied my brain however was what kind of people there were around me, trying to sum them up, and who might be a hero/ heroine should the occasion arise. Perhaps it's all the Lost I've been watching but it was interesting stuff:
A white guy, hard to judge his social class as he was right in front of me and I couldn't see much. He wore a whitish shirt though- i don't know how the middle classes are with chivalry. So I examined, the white chicks, asian guy, african couple... figuring out likely candidates (on faces as well as race :p). I also thought about if I'd do anything to defend myself- answer: probably eyeball the crowd and demand rescue. People will follow an order/plea like that however diffident they are about just jumping in. I think they're just too polite to interrupt sometimes..
I could go on but I'm hungry and Mrs C's making roast dinner..

High-larious

2006-05-15T21:22:00.000+01:00

Had to share this with the world...

http://www.shinyshiny.tv/2006/05/london_cab_driv.html

His face says it all. He blagged it so beautifully :)

2006-05-12T13:54:00.000+01:00

I'm searching for some kind of post offering but the few incidents of interest have been allowed to grow stale- like the tale of the glasses-pinching punk. Well he was more scally than punk but swooping down and snatching my long+short sighted specs seems quite a wanton act of abandon. Worry not, all is well- I think I might of mentioned before how I like a blurry world. It's making this delicious sunshine even shinier- kind of dreamy and unreal. I'm feeling nostalgic for these days, and a few more friends and ice-creams and ginger beers would make things perfect.

2006-04-08T23:25:00.000+01:00

I need to do some damage control and blog before Dazey- or Fudge or Pink for that matter as they all delight in mocking me...

(3 hour break - clearly this wasn't such an emergency but I'll talk anyway)

Thankyou very much whatever brother picked up my purse at the conference and announced to all the event-goers that a sister has lost a purse (i wrote person by accident, don't know why) Can JUGHEAD please collect her purse (um- I wrote person again!)

No thankyou to the guy who kept repeating the announcement. It was not necessary- I'd already thankfully retrieved my cardly life.

I don't think it so excruciating a story- I'm in London and a Nobody here. In Manchester where I'm a Not So Much, or an Oddity at Most, it might've felt bad- but I was more happy that I'd lost the purse in a place full of honourable people. But my friends/ wannabe tormenters, are trying their best to make me feel the pain and the shame. Merciless teasing and pity aren't my favourite mix...

ps. Yes, Slimey, DD and Dazey I forgot my (Mrs C's) jumper when I went to get the purse- but if I had thought about it I'd have felt confident that you'd bring it for me. There, inshallah I've left nothing for you to pipe in with. That's not an invitation.

2006-04-02T22:32:00.000+01:00

long time no blog. Partly cause of extreme net deprivation but also ingrained inertia. I'm battling the latter now because I had a very cool day. The inspiration's not quite flowing- this isn't a witching hour can't-sleep-must-blog post, more from a feeling of duty and slight guilt. And I missed the best day of the cyber-year yesterday tho maybe only Ray'll get how sad that is.. *fighting inertia and tendency to ramble* So-

Everyone should go along to the Dawah Exhibition at Didsbury Mosque- It's super swish and not just because they now have under floor heating. They had lots of flashy poster displays and gorgeous Islamic artwork- real funky work by up-and-comings. Then there's the Mini- Morroco lounge and everlasting baklava and other food I don't know the name of yet. I only heard about it when someone suddenly hauled me off to do henna- and I'm feeling quite happy and pro now :) But it's for non-muslims really, the food and henna and everything, and they were very cute though we (me MD and her crew) were mooching around looking for approachable types before we decided to approach them anyhow. It was easier for me to talk when I held them captive tattooing their skin.

There was an aspiring artist kid who had a pile of amazing islamic graffiti artwork. I love how such a guerrila form of art is evolving with a Muslim reflection. I think it's down to graffiti and calligraphy being based in the power of the word- and that graffiti also has a social aspect, articulating what cannot be said or is not being heard.. The dude was very diffident about it all and seemed to feel bad asking for a tenner for some amazing piece. We told him he should charge double, though not now of course. I was feeling like a wannabe for a while- being wistful is stupid when I have resources enough to try myself. Anyway now I'm planning to transform the last ugly stronghold in our house, my bedroom, into stencil heaven, insha allah..

The Dawah exhibition's on til thursday, 10am-8pm and I think lots of ppl are going to be there wednesday afternoon. Bring non-muslims.

Warning to all motorists

2006-03-09T14:05:00.000Z

News Flash>>>

Be extra vigilant on the roads this morning- Ibnat Battuta has been let loose with a hired vehicle. That's right our Bikey has got hold of 4 wheels and is driving a leetle craaazily.

Crazier than my mother's driving(if you know what THAT means then good- you're suitably petrified) but with the judgement and concentration of Cosmo.

She doesn't believe in stopping until someone has sucked in breath and screwed up their eyes ready for the smash, and prefers to turn at high speeds and fearsomely sharp angles.

It is the cavalier approach of a Nonesuch, yet she is in reality a quivering blancmange behind the wheel.

Anyone who is planning to travel to London this weekend our advice is TAKE THE TRAIN. Giving the poor girl a clear path to swerve through will be the safest form of damage control.

Hopefully Bikey will quickly be restored to her gentle cycling habitat in Cambridge.

Until then- anyone up for a road trip?

Today

2006-03-02T02:47:00.001Z

Time: 2.45 am

At 2am I couldn't sleep so I wrote a long (3 A4) letter to MD which I may or may not post. A sizable chunk* of it sounded just like a blogpost about my day so I thought cause I'm still not sleepy and have to be up at 4 anyhow and Slimey'll start on me soon lazy bloggers (even sham blogger's posted and he's, like, a sham blogger!) Speaking of Pink my class on 'Valley girl' speak ie Clueless style bimbo talk was a classic- learning the deeper meanings of "As-if" and "totally"
• "As - if!" (used to express scepticism demonstratively)
You expect me to wear that? As if!
• Emphasizers
"totally" ('very', but used anywhere, even
syntactically awkward positions even before verbs)
I totally paused!
Pink says it's all- the whole linguistics thing- faltu dossing but I have a feeling there must be a purpose to it all. That dude in my last class didn't shove a mirror and a camera AND a torch down his throat for no reason other than to produce obscene videos of the glottis. But I totally digress.

Letter excerpt:
... Anyway like I said I was pondering on folk and normally I would write a blogpost if I had a witching hour urge to write but the blogworld doesn't need to hear about the stars in our young Azmi galaxy. Though I'm already feeling the release of writing and am not sure I need bother you with pointless ruminations either [Oh my Bob I'm beginning to see why people think us lot write wierd]
-wrote a School Rep manifesto for Student Union Council. Feel like a fraud cause I know NO ONE in my class even, don't want to 'listen' or 'stand up' for rights and am only here as Slimey's personal puppet. [I also don't know why I feel honour bound to write this verbatim 'cept Slimey's name. I don't think I have too wide an audience anyway. Take with a pinch of salt. Ray don't tell them about Sid the Slug] But it's kind of a rite of passage and I might get to pretend to be Johnny Bravo which Rocks "No one as good AZMI" ("No one as PRETTY AZMI" :) ) [Mrs C, Bikey bringing a tear to the eye hey? Never thought I'd want to follow in your ginormous footsteps yet here I am. Mainly cause I had no time but I don't mind either.]

-Went to Princess Ali's house (halls) today, which is a haven for Surma junkies + me + Slimey emerged with gothified black eyes (Swiss Style) [Anjeza tells me the girl tries pushing the pretty black powdered stuff on everyone. All I know is that it is very addictive and hard to know when to stop]

-Meeting then for nominees, am the only one for my school, boring blah about 'are staples part of campaign costs?' and dumb stuff. Don't want to be there but Anjeza + others also running which is nice.

-Afterwards excellent coolness a la Anjeza's house. There's prayers, quran, talking, pizza, dried delicious fruits [from the delightful Columbians at Cranberry, Picaddilly train station- go there they let you sample all of their magical treats from an array of real turkish delight through to kinda strange fruit hybrids] baklava, oranges, and much much more food. Lasted from 6.30-11.30pm. [Her] halls were what uni life was made for- it would be nothing without them. Man this is such a blogpost! Blogging has destroyed the art of letter writing- I write as if to a mass audience, always the subtle barrier barring intimacy or engagement with the (object?) of my writing.

End of excerpt.

Vastly exciting was it not? The last sentence was sadly clumsy I know but you see what I mean. Blogging is becoming an insidious register- personal correspondance used to have a different tone as did private diary notes and the 370 chronicles was a different beast altogether. Not to mention newspaper article writing/ journalism whatever. It might not have encroached on the latter so much but a lot of it is beginning to sound the same. Maybe linguistics is making me hypersensitive.

Ok Slimes I know this post is too long. Sorry y'all.

Time 3.28am

*a fleeting worry that I was using the kind of stale phrasing, ie 'sizable chunk' Orwell so disapproved on but I won't bore you with that.

also if anyone want's to see my highly enjoyable and joke of a lecture these are the slides.. http://ling.man.ac.uk/Students/CourseUnits/LI1162/TheWest_Canada.pdf begins around page 4- man i love that class. I tell ya Americans can be a hoot.

2006-02-15T17:01:00.000Z

I would write about the wondrous balletI saw last night- the first I've ever been to (DD you are a bounteous queen!) - but words will only dull the vision of snowflakes and dolls and dance in my mind. Also laziness prevails but I found something cool on the net anyhow-

http://www.funtrivia.com/quizzes/literature/authors_h-k/georgette_heyer.html

Yes that's right! Georgette Heyer quizzes- and good ones at that. Now PP can understand how I come to while away my time at halls... For comparison's sake for those with the time and expertise to try these my scores were Regency novels:8/10, Historical novels:7/10, GH+books:13/15, Quotes:8/10, Name game:14/20, and Rejected suitors 9/10 respectively which I think are pretty decent cause they kept asking about the books I didn't like over much like Lady of Quality and the Quiet Gentlemen. Esp the latter where the girl was just not attractive as I recall.

It's a coincidence this quiz coming up- kind of.. I mean yes I was googling Heyer but on the other hand India Knight was randomly plugging her (along with zaftigness which is another subject) in the Sunday times review I scrounged off a bus.

What's far more worrying I'd say is that I deliberate much more before answering these multiple choice questions than those I sat at uni a couple of weeks ago. Both were fun but I have more background knowledge to sift through with Georgette Heyer.

Cyber identities

2006-02-03T04:59:00.000Z

Since I'm being kept awake to disastrous (for uni) hours and this blog post being written in my head is partly responsible I might as well have it out.
I was kinda incoherently trying to articulate this thought to MD today- about how cool it is having different roles and identities on the net. It's the same as in real life where one person is at once a student, a family member, a YMSer, etc and I'm not sure exactly where the difference lies. Is it that Real Life roles often intersect and there is a lot of your 'identity' that you can't be separated from ie, your looks, your name..?

I'm not questioning whether anonymity and internet friendships are healthy or trustworthy or dangerous- I mean they're an inevitable phenonmenon and result of us all being connected. There are just different rules to that kind of relationship that's all, like how well you know them before sending a photo and revealing details of your RL life.

I'm starting to ramble I think cause I don't have a definite point to make except that I'm curious to know what all your cyber-identities might be outside of our little family+friends blogging community. You don't need to say names but are any of you active and actual personalities of forums, fandoms, yahoo groups, etc? I know some of you used to frequent the old ym and uni isoc boards but I'm more interested in stuff a little less close to home. Maybe your an entrepreneur or a noisy political commentator? Or a Trekkie geek?

This wondering came on partly because a relative just told me to check out their activity on a particular discussion board- and though the posts didn't exactly surpriseme I think I was more surprised that I was asked to read it. Not only because the reaction from fellow posters was usually very hostile but cos it felt vaguely voyeuristic. The other reason is because I'm pretty sure I'm being sucked into another fandom and I want to know if anyone else I know has had this experience- I don't think I'm the only one. It's a crazy addiction- one that's kept me awake til 5.30am today- but the best thing about it is the people you meet and, though it sounds geeky enough, the community of it and the friends you make, cause many of them are talented and funny beyond belief.

Ok I'm going to sleep.

Passed on from MD

2006-01-16T22:07:00.001Z

Uh-oh I really shouldn't be doing this now but I have nothing left to procrastinate with... I can only justify it by the slow clutch of coursework-panic that is being galvanised by this idiocy:

10 years ago: That would be 9 years old and in the Ruling Class of our tiny Muslim prep. We reigned from years 4-6 cause we were the Elders from the start- never anyone above us. I was an unabashedly bookish door prefect- nobly seconded in this task by my greatest intellectual rival, to whom I take my hat (but not my scarf) off. Good times.

5 years ago: I believe that this was when I reluctantly transferred from the witty and brilliantly eccentric circle at school (sadly, I was not up to par) and became slightly more peripheral and nomadic where classmates were concerned. This mainly stemmed from a fastidious disinclination to join and be classed with the Freaks & Geeks - though mixed among them were some very sweet and sensible folk whom I was honoured to call friend. It also led me voyaging over to 9-5 whose world was far less stratified and more card party. Their Slam Tournaments were legendary; though they played a distinctly different variety of the card game I knew, it was still violent and lightning fast.

Middle School: Just before the above period when I was among a fantastically creative and funny set who, despite- or more likely because of- how cool and entertaining I found them, I remained rather shy around, and wasn't as lively a contributor as I might've been. A pity perhaps but it was still lots of fun.

5 bands and artists: this is difficult mostly because I don't have a list of favourites so much as a series of Obsessions which I do to death, ie replay continuous until I can sing and hear them perfectly well in my head (Sami Yusuf therefore qualifies as does much of DWA as well as Amy Winehouse, Norah Jones + Evanescence) - also see prev post on favourite story/tv characters- but I do have a current obsession which is Muse's album Absolution. It's one of those that just clicked and it was like I knew everything and had heard it all already somehow because it was just right. Fit with what I was reading and it all seemed to relate so neatly... I expect I'll have killed it within a month though.

5 things I'd do with £100, 000, 000:
£90 million charity which includes poverty relief, environment preservation and development, medical and academic research, islamic studies sponsorships, funding islamic mosques, schools, societies and other projects, funding Chechnya's cause if the cultural genocide is still happening, and what/ whoever else I think needs money for a good cause.

£3 million setting up the ultimate cafe/ library/ bookstore/ confectioners/ theatre/ beauty parlour/ gym/ DREAM ever

£2 million helping out the family cause there's loads of them and inshallah loads more to come.

£1 million a gift to Fle for building my beautiful house- it's not payment it's a present Elf.

£200 000 I would keep so that I can be generous gift-wise and go travelling and make a beautiful garden and afford to live environmentally.

The rest can go towards saving a forest. And some sharks for BSE's sake.

5 places I would run away to:

Geneva because the Swiss sisters have the most wonderful + cool family that I know exists.

Verona because Sadia also Rocks my Socks.

For general purposes I would probably stay at Dazey's though Pink's and MD's are options I'd be happy to pick also.

5 movies I like: Serenity - I have no one to share the greatness of this with.. Crash, Fiddler on the Roof, and because I saw it recently and it's still eating my brain, Legends of the Fall. That was in many ways a preposterous film- the girl should've picked one brother and stuck with him!- and I'm mad at Brad Pitt now and think he was well served being eaten by a bear in it, but I really
liked the second brother and felt bad for the dude. And my cockle-warming classic is 'It's a Wonderful Life'

5 people I'd like to meet: The Prophet (pbuh), George Orwell, Noam Chomsky, JK Rowling, Helen Keller

(wow how do ppl get through this whole thing- it's taken me an hour!--- going to FAIL---)

5 biggest joys of my life: living across the road from Anjeza (and on my own)= receiving much kindness, random gifts+ fridgeduls of food, islamic recharge Anjeza-style, beautiful solitude, though I can still go home whenever, + a nomadic life in which spontaneous Pink sleepovers can happen. Yep Alhamdulillah halls were an unmixed blessing.. internet doesn't count as a negative cause I procrastinate far far worse at home.

Tagging Mr C- and I hope Mrs C makes him do it :)

2006-01-16T21:45:00.000Z

Yikes I've just wasted a scarily precious day of revision- this internet got fixed waay to early for my wellbeing. Strolled through the minor rite of passage that was my first uni exam today. The first section was good, stuck nicely to the book i skim-read the night before (though this wasn't my only preparation- I'd also been to at least 2 of the lectures) however the latter, 'psycho'linguistics half most definitely did not- it was practically all unguessable (lecture) stuff which I guessed anyway and probably killed all the points from the 1st half. And I actually read that book cause it was nice and chatty and skinny - talked about poems, Henry Higgins and a chimpanzee called Nim Chimpsky. Though to be fair 'who was Nim Chimpsky?' was the last question of the paper so I guess it was worth reading in the end.

Multiple-choicing is fun though- just tick what you can and leave an hour early. I like it, though I may not like my grade..

The Cockroach King

2006-01-04T17:39:00.000Z

He has usurped my place as head of the Azmi household in my parent's absence. Mice playing while I'm away I don't mind so much but cockroaches multiplying?? Ick, yuck and ewww! BSE being a clever little cash cow forked out straight away for dial a kill- so now we spend our time cowering in the conservatory while the carpet soaks in poison. No going upstairs at all today. Our house is so beyond dead now we're actually systematically killing whatever's still left alive.
Naturally I've fled to my city crash pad- I didn't come back from B'desh for this!
Wandered into Jrul and picked up Kam-X, Diva and Zoo, among others. Received much sage advice on living a full uni life from Diva (smart girl, I don't like to disappoint her. Maybe I will introduce myself to the people in my flat. I would call it my new year's resolution but if I did that then I wouldn't do it.)

In other news my original phone number that I was so proud of at the beginning of the year is in fine fettle. Anyone who has it feel free to call!

The New Evil: Pink

2005-12-20T18:01:00.000Z

Nothing against Slimey (your new name m'dear, until you drop the Ms Floozy thing) but
Pink is emerging as the EVIL. This realisation came naturally to PP and I after a day of extreme Pink exposure at her house- via Bratz (horror of pink horrors) Mean Girls and PP's own aggressive use of the colour- encapsulated in her cyber-identity: the Pink Pistol.
The Bratz colour condemnation was most explicit- the chokingly bimboish Bratz wore any shade but pink, thereby apparently claiming some measure of street-cred. These preposterous, and literal, dolls then have the gall to mock a pair of equally airhead girls as fashion victims- because their dresses are PINK. But that's just a taster. We then cut to the Arch Enemy of the piece: fluffy pink incarnate. And she's terrifying, a power-hungry, pink-loving empress of evil. At least that was the impression I got before escaping the lunacy of that film.
Then in Mean Girls it's also very simple: wear pink=enter b**** world
Nanny Mcphee takes a slightly different but no less negative attitude towards the colour pink. The vulgar, grasping widow dresses and decorates lavishly in shocking pink, reflecting her crassness and tastelessness. It's bold- too bold.
One last example and I need only one word: Umbridge.

Case closed?

2005-12-15T11:30:00.000Z

Ok I had nothing to say so i decided to trawl Livejournal for some good memes.

1. Post a list of up to 20 books/movies/anime/TV shows/video games/etc. that you've had an obsessive fannish love of at some time in your life
2. Have your friends list guess your favourite character from each item.
3. Post in your own blog.

1. Gone With the Wind Rhett Butler, Fudge
2. Harry Potter (surprise, surprise) Fred Weasley, Designer Dentist
3. Everwood
4. ER
5. Little Women through to Jo's Boys
6. Anne of Green Gables series
7. Malory Towers/ St Clares
8. Neighbours
9. North and South: John Thornton of course, guessed by the Designer Dentist
10. The OC
11. Fiddler on the Roof The Rabbi's Son, Bikey! (excellent- I'm impressed)
12. Blackadder (Goes Forth specifically)
13. Georgette Heyers
14. What Katy Did series

Some of these were more obsessive than others, and then some are not a little cringey, but, as I recently explained to Pink, I and my whole household, do tend to become fixated and wholly immersed in whatever our latest phase is. I guess what we do is absorb it all until it's part of the establishment. Like when no one knew Firefly it was sad cause there was no common ground in the family community: we need to be to be at a point where we can share quotes and refernces. It's all very neat if you look at it in terms of linguistics..

ETA: I just removed Sweet Valley, Cecilia, Firefly, Anna Karenina, Lucerne Symphony orchestra, Dexter's Lab because Pink Pistol said the list was too long so I got rid of those which almost no one knew, I couldn't think of a favourite or they didn't qualify as obsessions. Ray if you read this you know Jayne Cobb wins hands down...
If BSE were around I'd be betting on her
When someone guesses right I'll put the answer on the post

A glimpse into my confused state

2005-12-05T12:49:00.000Z

This morning is a fair example which should illustrate the slightly-lostness that made me miss the first few weeks of uni. What MD calls 'challenged'

To be brief then, I started the day very sure that it was Monday, and now I'm not so positive. I still think it is but a couple of things have thrown me off.
I woke up extra-amazingly early 6.30am, having decided to take advantage of the winter nights, and finished readiing The Scarlet Letter. My head is full of this book now which I didn't expect to be- somehow Puritan Salem drew me in and became my weekend obsession.

Anyhow I hitched a lift with Ray and Abbu and was of course late so I didn't try to go to my Mon 9am lecture. That there was my first mistake - going to my halls instead of classes meant my concept of time wasn't confirmed.

I then redeemed my room from it's deadly inpenetrable war zone status up to Visible Floor level- and indulged my shameless geek by listening to a couple of Leaky podcasts.

After a brief debate with myself on whether the upcomin 12pm Sounds of English tutorial was worthwhile my sensible side won and I left the room careful to remember my keys and purse. But there was a small victory for the foolish side because I left all papers, notes and the like in my room. So I had to go buy a notebook and waste 55p and be even later...

Except the class wasn't on and I'm sure I went to the right room. And I was 5ish minutes late so I couldn't be too early! Time: check, place: check, conclusion- wrong date. Also I'd seen many Student Market Day! flyers, which are only around on Tuesdays. It was like the tragedy of my GoF mix-up all over again except I'm not sad today.

So I logically go through my head of the markers that today IS monday (isn't it??) -
1) Ray went to school this morning so it can't be Sunday.

That was all I had. So you see the evidence is stacked up for Tuesday but I'm still pretty sure it's Monday. And that's the timetable day I'm going to stick with.

Review Binge

2005-12-03T17:05:00.000Z

I'm sorry for the word binge- it's ugly and I don't like it but I've been intending to review a number of things; only each time something new happens and it's all snowballed now. But I have a lovely lazy post-coursework weekend so I think it is time.

Going backwards from Now:

I have finally, after much dithering, decided that going to Bangladesh is the right choice. Mainly because I know Scrooginess is what's holding me back and I don't want any Christmas ghosts visiting. So it looks like I'll be leaving Christmas day insha'allah and hopefully the world will look very pretty and twinkly from up in the plane. I do like all this winter sparkle. Yay! I get to go to weddings 4 & 5! Sorry Boz, that's what they're called.

Speaking of sparkle, Tab's Spectacular concept is sounding wonderful. I was feeling a bit sad that our big YMS dream wasn't quite getting off the ground but if this is a smash then we're all good. (Btw Tab, it was Mrs C who advised I shouldn't let it stop me from going to B'desh, though I'm sure you'ld say the same, it's not like using paltry exams as an excuse)

As for Harry Potter- I don't want to recount the sad (in many senses) story that resulted in my watching it so late- but it was The Most Magical. It actually looked real- I could just accept the underwater task and Voldemort's rebirth and everything. Wow, Voldemort was terrifying. And I felt worse about Cedric than I did when I read it. I thought I'd heard and read every review and it might be overhyped- plus I saw way too many clips- but it still topped my expectations which after PoA were pretty low. For The Review click here: http://www.livejournal.com/users/arabellasq/2377.html#cutid1

On the other hand I saw City of God last weekend at the C's and that is just on an entirely different level of amazing. It's no magical fantasy world but anyone who can handle the brutality watch it- it's unbelievable.

I ought to do a proper review of the Chechnya conference but I'm not sure how to present it so I'll think on it first...

The Chinese dude's Arabic calligraphy workshop- I can only shake my head in wonder at his skill. He'd do something you'ld expect to take hours as a mere five-second illustration of how a certain pen works. I'll put a picture up of my prize for writing the best noon on the board (compared to two others) Sure it wasn't much of a competition but I got my name written out beautifully so it looks like a bird. And Dude, I thank you for pushing me to do it and for shouting out that mine was the winner so it was a short step for him to agree to it :)

Hope that'll satisfy y'all for a little while!

Ps. I have successfully drawn Ray into the Firefly fold. The rest of you don't know what you're missing but I won't try to convince you anymore- I just needed someone to share quotes and references with. What's called 'common ground' if you want to get technical.

Ahem..

2005-11-18T22:58:00.000Z

Well it's been a while so hopefully no one will notice I shamelessly backtrack on my previous post. I do still have the utmost respect for bikers, don't get me wrong, but my own honeymoon period is quite over really. The cold would kill me and I'm in a happy location where the metro/train/bus lies ready to whisk me from my doorstep to whichever five-minute distance I choose. I'm also having a little trouble breaking in my new folding bike- it's stiff and I dont know if they work the same as shoes because steel seems kinda less malleable than leather. My original plan of two normal bikes- one for uni and one for home- was cleverer I think: next time I'll post for outside imput so I can deliberate with your comments in mind (young bikey has a brain cell or two up there.) And most of all I should strive to remember that I always make the wrong decision and get someone else to do it for me.

In other news I'm sure you are all aware of the increasing state of desolation chez Azmi. In the space of one year life has been falling away from the house like petals from an aging rose... It may still be a base- but is no longer the centre. Internet and ntl left the building. Then we all did- Mrs C, Bikey, BSE and I opting for nomadic lifestyles. And today it shrank even more: into a one-car household. No more the malachite green honda. The insurance is not to be renewed and we are excessively law-abiding folk (with the possible exception of myself) I don't know what else is left to complete the current desertion- perhaps when the remaining members fly to B'desh for the winter.

Although I'm planning a Home Alone style happy time when that happens- minus the burglars insha'allah. Friends you are all invited over for christmas :D

ps. I just remembered the initial point of the post which was that my big plan is to be able to drive in time for next year's course, insha'allah. But I will find a way to be carbon neutral if I do drive.

Shame on you drivers.

2005-10-04T15:55:00.000+01:00

Recently I've been hearing a lot from irate drivers about how cyclists are the bane of their lives, and a wretched nuisance. This surprised as much as it pained me- I always felt people would value or at least pity cyclists as performing a small service which most are too lazy to perform, manfully bearing bad roads and worse weather. I know I always felt proud claiming my strip of road. To put it bluntly- I don't see where smug drivers get off hating us- we're the vulnerable ones!

I found this article by Lionel Shriver who Mrs C at least will know as the writer of We Need To Talk About Kevin (an excellent if decidedly disturbing book: read it) which I hope will enlighten y'all:

London: the city that hates cyclists
Lionel Shriver
Tuesday July 26, 2005The Guardian
It's a known fact that drivers hate cyclists. Yet it may come as a surprise to the droves of Londoners who have flocked to bike stores since the city's public transit bombings that London cyclists hate each other. A bicycle has been my primary transportation for 40 years, and I've never encountered a cycling "community" more antagonistic and lacking in camaraderie than London's. Regardless of pace, London cyclists consider any bicycle in front of them an indignity. When gluts collect in rush hours, they compete viciously to lead the pack.

Obviously, cycling's athletic component excites the ego. Yet the capital's push-bikers resent one another to an exceptional degree because the city has made such nominal provision for their existence. London cyclists negotiate a perilous Darwinian universe, jockeying for dominion of a narrow passage that is constantly vanishing altogether. Abusive, hostile drivers rouse hostility in return, and in a state of blind rage everyone and everything in one's way is naturally subject to indiscriminate loathing.

What else is unique to London? The 10ft-long bike lane. I do not exaggerate. All over the city, you have these bizarrely weeny segments of green grit two feet wide, nicely inlaid with a picture of a little white bicycle. Arbitrarily, they start; bang, 10 feet later they stop. They end in a parking space, with a car in it. They do not resume on the other side. For city planners, what is the concept here? A cyclist is meant to a) ride over the top of the parked car; b) go home and cry; c) lie down and die; or d) swerve abruptly into passing traffic.
Bingo! Expect indignant motorists to lean on their horns and sideswipe your handlebars, but the correct answer, if you ever intend to get anywhere, is d.
Worse than nothing, these ludicrously brief segments of "bike lane" are insulting. I often come upon metropolitan work crews labouring over tiny spot projects meant to gesture towards "alternative transportation" without making it one whit safer to cycle. Round the corner from my flat is an insanely elaborate pedestrian signal for a lone bike path that intersects Borough High Street. I have never seen a pedestrian stop for it. I shudder to think what that signal cost.

Likewise, I recoil at the cost of the cheery TV adverts Ken Livingstone has run this year sponsoring perky commuters who've discovered the joys of London cycling. All that money should have been ploughed into an overhaul of the city's bike routes - one that facilitates these cherry-cheeked citizens covering a reasonable distance in a reasonably direct manner without getting killed.
Of course, a large proportion of London roadways have no bike lanes at all. Instead, the cyclist is to ride in the bus lane. Are any two vehicles less suited to sharing the same space? Bus drivers revile cyclists, and seem to relish corralling them into the kerb. Worse, cycles and buses often keep the same rough pace. Yet since the bus stops and surges, the two vehicles play perilous leap-frog for miles at a go.

How is it that parking is allowed in bike lanes on evenings and weekends? When I tell my American friends about this policy, they go, " What ?"
I've yet to witness a policeman issuing a ticket to a motorist because he has violated a cyclist's right of way (assuming there is any such thing). It is presupposed, even by law enforcement, that if you get on a bicycle you want to be treated like rubbish. Cars routinely commandeer bike lanes for left-hand turning lanes and loading zones. Why not? No traffic cop will ever do them for it.

When construction or public works obliterate cycling lanes, the lanes are never restored. Westminster bridge has been under renovation for, what, four years? The fact that the fencing around the repairs has completely eliminated the northbound cycling lane hasn't bothered any transit official, though all that would have been required to replace it was a tin of paint.

New York City also suffers from Disappearing Bike Lane Syndrome. Continuous bike lanes along Manhattan avenues are reliably bunged with pretzel vendors, delivery trucks and wandering British tourists who (understandably, given the contempt in which the lanes are held in their capital) fancy that bike lanes are extensions of the sidewalk. But a few years ago, New York constructed a dedicated bikeway on the West Side that goes all the way from the southern tip of the island at Battery Park City to the northern end at the George Washington Bridge. This is not some dinky goat path. It is nicely paved. Its two lanes are each 5ft wide. A double yellow line runs down the middle like a proper roadway. This artery alone has transformed biking in Manhattan, which is now vastly safer, not to mention faster. Plans are under way to construct a mirror artery on the East Side as well.

On the West Side Bikeway, sure, cyclists are still competitive. But they don't hate each other. There's enough space to overtake, and they're not foaming at the mouth because some overweight jerk in an SUV just cut them up while they were doing 30mph. Instead, bikers' communal antipathy is reserved for in-line skaters (aka, evil incarnate) and $2,000 prams the size of Hummers.
Why is there no similar bikeway along the Thames? The Embankment's bike lanes are as fitful and farcical as everywhere else. If Livingstone is truly committed to alternative transport, he needs to establish sustained north-south and east-west routes for cycles whose lanes do not sporadically vanish and force pedallers into the path of (justly) consternated motorists. He needs to get the Met to regard violations of cyclist's rights as ticket-worthy infractions, and to clarify firmly that those green-gritted pathways with the cute inlaid pictures are not car parks - not even at weekends.

Until then? Go away! We don't need any more little friends! Don't you believe that guff about how cycling makes you fit; it makes you tired! The weather is terrible! Ooh, ugh - you get dirty and sweaty, and drivers will lean censoriously on their horns when you're obeying all the traffic laws just because you exist! Maybe cycling does save a whack of money, but can any amount of cash compensate for the fact that bike helmets are so naff? So what if a bicycle is the fastest and most reliable way of getting around London, especially now that the whole tube system shuts down whenever a greasy chip bag gets abandoned on a bench. Haven't you ever heard of being "fashionably late"?

Ramadan Mubarak!

2005-10-03T23:39:00.000+01:00

Just a quick post to say Ramadan Mubarak and also celebrate the liveness of my hall's internet. Pray you all have an amazing ramadan!

Everwood

2005-09-28T06:15:00.000+01:00

I am compelled to introduce to you all the awesomeness of Everwood. I am not saying compelled lightly either- I have just been writing this blog post in my head for possibly the last half hour, planning to write it up in the morning after my post-Everwood fest rest. But it's 6.17am now and I clearly can't sleep without doing this so...

I'm no good at blurb's so perhaps my own story of how I discovered Everwood will explain enough. It was just a couple of happy accidents that made the show catch my eye. Kam-X's doppelganger is known as Amy Abbott and I wanted to know what this TV version of Neelofer was like. But that odd Tuesday evening showing couldn't hook me- it was only when I stumbled upon the day/nightly 1.50-2.40am slot that the obsession began. Friends and family can testify- I became hardcore after only two nights. I'd stay up late for it (which played merry hell with my body clock) Or I'd more sensibly take a nap beforehand. At MD's house I even sacrificed a perfectly serviceable bed to crash on a non-sleep friendly sofa for it.

Yet all this time I was on my own- seen as a lone fanatic by those I raved to. All that has now changed. I was overjoyed to receive my ebay-pirate Season 1, and I'm now delighted to declare I have company. The Kalam clan, most notably a certain Fendi-flogging Dentist, embraced Everwood to the same unhealthy degree that I did. Of the past 72 hours at least 20 have been spent in Everwood fests- the last of which ended for me roughly an hour ago. The Designer, sorry, Quality-loving Dentist has already taken on the mission of acquiring Season 2 (new dvd released today in the US which is clearly fate. Also 3.25am showings from next Weds on Livingtv, and the download option) as well as of introducing her Gold-Trafficking Mama to it all.

So if any of you is curious to know what the fuss is about call me and we'll work out when to have our next Everwood Fest. I'm afraid it must be a Fest for reasons that will eventually become clear. And believe me this is worth it- I haven't been killing myself (and missing lectures) over nothing. I can't explain the story to you or even begin to give you a hint- I'm not the person to sell it to you... but I guarantee you would appreciate.

Wow it's 6.59 now.

Totally Tubular!

2005-09-14T23:54:00.001+01:00

I might be wrong but Tubular is something the Ninja Turtles said instead of cool right? Well I just googled it and yes it was so this works as a title. Because my trip to London was totally tubular and I'm a sucker for puns.

Tube-wise it wasn't so great though cause half of them were shut down for repairs. Also I felt kind of like a rat scurrying through huge (hot!) drainpipes which is always a nice feeling. But they led to very cool places that I'd not discovered on previous touristy trips. The Aladdin's cave of make-up that Diva briefed me about was discovered in Covent Garden to be Lush's sister company B never too busy to be beautiful. A silly name but don't let that put you off- this is everything you ever dreamed of when you dreamed of glitter dusts, powders and pouting. The pictures below are a small sample but are nothing to the reality of it. And each little pot of beauty stuffs we bought was popped into little gold organza bags and tied with a ribbon before being put in a bag.... ah, so much specialness...

Mrs C was practising her baking skills for BB's wedding as well as for her future role as our cafe's patissiere extraordinaire. The sugar roses took us (Me, Mrs C and Mrs C Snr) the whole first half of Gone With The Wind to roll out- we only had 18 between us after 2 3/4 hrs of deriding the pathetic saddo cad Ashley. I was NOT impressed with that guy at all! He could have nipped all Scarlett's nonsense in the bud when she was a kid but instead he gives her all these dying mooncalf looks. Idiot. Anyway the next day we (Mrs C, the two Miss Cs and me) began the Great Cake Experiment. Well Mrs C ran the operation with the rest of us as her minions though I must say I was the most alert, being used to Mrs-C-minionship. Our main obstacle was the lack of a sieve - but we resourcefully unearthed three tea-strainers and for about 40 minutes a patient tap-tap-tapping prevailed. We were happy to leave Mrs C out of this drudgery although she did return from watching wedding videos to stir the flour in occasionally. It was all we asked for. The result as you can see were some very glossy and smart cupcakes. Mrs C Snr did worry that her flouncy style of rose were too large but they turned out as beautiful as the rest. The dark chocolate and cream ganache topped cakes were extremely rich but, balanced with ice-cream, deliciously so. I didn't mean to write so much about cakes but it's done now and if anyone's mouth is watering come to BB's walima.. you might just get lucky.

Somehow the London atmosphere or perhaps all this whooshing through subways left me even spacier than usual. Case in point: after being dazzled by the above shop and Pout, Mrs C took me to Urban Outfitters where I bought a dinky little table for my halls. On paying Mrs became enamoured of two lip glosses temptingly stacked on the pay counter. The first did smell deliciously cinnamony - but there is an embargo on new lip gunks and goos since the long-suffering Mr C bought the whole set of juicy tubes and firmly said "that will suffice." To her credit she did resolutely put it down saying £9 was too much and gave me the other yearned for 'Fat Lips' tube to buy instead. I innocently went to pay for table and tube- but when the assistant put the gloss at £12 I thought, as any right-minded person would, No Way, and told her to take it off. That was the first of a series of mistakes that built up sadly to make me known as an utter disgrace throughout Urban Outfitters. The last one was leaving my debit card in their machine and having to be chased after by the mean assistant...

Anyway on a happier note this is pretty much what my gorgeous cake stand looks like:
Only I don't have a small top one and mine is more beautiful.
I'm going to the kitchen now to admire it so more.

Ghurabaa

2005-09-07T13:51:00.000+01:00

It's extraordinarily quiet at work today so I thought I'd take the (sweet sweet) time to explain our Vision. I say our but it is really MD's original Vision which I and BSE are helping colour and solidify. I'm tempted to introduce in the manner of Harry Zidler- all Spectacular Spectacular! Because insh'allah it will be...
But the basic premise is a not-so-humble cafe. A place for the Muslim professionals and discerning students to either converge and chill, while perusing the cafe library, holding their all-important isoc meetings if need be, or delighting in some of the more unusual aspects of the cafe. And there will of course be a hijab+men-free zone.

But all that isn't the exciting part of the plan... Last night's sugar-rose rolling experiments with Boroapu (will insert pic of my beautiful effort) inspired me to include an exquisite cake boutique, presided over by Atia naturally. Atia is building her skills in baking sugarcraft as we speak and will be ready to supply us with unsurpassed cupcakes and cookies, as well as managing a magnificent wedding-cake operative, insha'allah. Those London hotshot hotels think they're so brilliant icing cookies to look like the latest catwalk fashions... all it is is a colourful stripe of icing. Huh- these people rip you off because we don't realise how easy it is.
Every week seems to bring fresh inspiration. Last week Giddy, Nuss and I discovered a cafe that somehow brought ultra-cool and comfortable together to make it the perfect chill-out (with free wifi to boot and an impressive array of innocent smoothies) Nuss also described some magical-sounding beauty parlour caves she discovered in Covent Garden, and I am taking a trip down to London to scope them out for potential. I'll post pics of my findings so y'all can give feedback.

There must be a theatrical stage. I am continually lamenting that people don't know how to build as they used to- that we spend huge amounts these days with far uglier results. These bare, plastic , conference style rooms don't suit my constitution. Give me a theatre and I'm gazing about me- a lecture room and I'm asleep. Fortunately I have my dear aspiring architect Fle to execute and elaborate my plans... let it be Morrocan, Chinese, Roman, French, or anything, just let it be beautiful!

This place will be my ultimate interior design project in which my motto shall be realised: Don't buy it, make it. That goes for Venetian masks, cake stands and parasols, especially parasols. Inshallah I'll be able to call them all projects for an art course and learn to do them as I study. Apart from art+interior design study I will need to do carpentry and possibly plastering courses. I want to join the Craftsmen's guild. That would be way cool. People think I'd get no money but insha'allah I have every possiblity of minting it if I'm any good. Much better than being a writer which I know are ten-a-penny (still love you tab).. I wouldn't have the patience or the drive to get noticed writing. But people get so impressed by visual stuff because their mass produced wallpaper is so tragic. [cuts out long rant about how people make things ugly for no reason- like insist on stupid pointless souvenirs as if they do anything for memories of a place]

The cow wants a rooftop gym as far as I recall, though tell me if I'm wrong BSE... and all in all the place is sounding more like a club (think White's not Ibiza). Not exclusive to rich socialite people- just those who appreciate the place's wondrous nature enough to be a subscribed member. Uni isocs, for example, might find it an advantage to be subsribed so they could get deals on holding events. You might say this is all jumping the gun but I'm just expounding (i found the word I think) the Dream.

Once Mariam's a moneyed dentist and businesswoman and I've learned how to make everything necessary, and MD does whatever she needs to- we're (inshallah, inshallah, inshallah) in business!! I'm thinking ten years, which will let the plan mature as well. Feedbackand ideas most welcome :)

Work perks

2005-08-25T01:54:00.000+01:00

Well not a perk but my manger's good deediness is making me a much happier worker. In fact I didn't go online all day I was that appreciative! He's just very neatly sorting out a prayer room and asking concernedly about our rquirements for ramadan - any special mats for prayer or need for privacy etc, plus allowing 20mins for praying maghrib and food which isn't bad seeing as my break allowance would usually only be 15 minutes. And all that after a very slight mention on my part- all the follow-up was all this dude. It may not make up for the fact that it's bank work but the whole Coop ethical policy and general goodness about this stuff helps somewhat. At least it's not evil like Barclays which made Mrs Heaton picket outside due to it's apartheid ways back in the day.

Panorama and the MCB

2005-08-22T01:46:00.000+01:00

I'm far too lazy to do a breakdown of exactly how maddening THIS http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/panorama/4171950.stm was. Full of spooky music and sinister mug shots of MCB leaders this John Ware guy was ramming secular arrogance down our throats. Trying to convince us that every Muslim organisation in the world is extremist, fundo and The Enemy in fact- case in point Jamaate-islaami and Maulana Mawdudi "In Mawdudi's ideal Islamic state, private and public life would be inseparable. In this respect it would bear "A kind of resemblance to the fascist and communist states" "

I've never seen anyone so ready to take things out of context or sceptical of allowing religion to involve actual guidelines for life (preposterous I know!) Why he thought himself capable of exploring Muslim attitudes when he is so far from grasping their values Allah only knows. But that programme got me fighting mad- my battle cry was "Pull off his wig!"
A personal remark I know, but it made me laugh which was better then threateningly slamming an Appletizer bottle into my palm, which hurt.

I did a high flown comment- anonymously because I didn't want the sweet harmony lovin gal on the lincolnshire page to be shown up in her true colours as a ranter (when she wakes up from apathy) Plus I felt like being melodramatic but it's a bit embarassing.

My comment :
What an ill-judged and horribly unfair programme... Why seek to further strain relations between British Muslims and the wider community- through attacking those who are struggling to build bridges between the two no less! Debate has only been provoked by this sensationalist journalism because it has hurt and angered the moderate Muslim community by insinuating our views and our faith are fundamentally sinister. It is irresponsible and cruel, and I was totally shocked to see such unethical and pointedly biased reporting from the BBC

I think I was most mad because between awwing over the sweet brs or clapping for dudes like br Inayat I had to watch them be skewered by that rude man's edit button and leading Q's. Ugh.

The Real Jughead

2005-08-15T23:35:00.000+01:00

Meet Jughead Jones:
(From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

Forsythe Pendleton "Jughead" Jones is a fictional character in Archie Comics, first appearing in December, 1941. Though his full name is given as Forsythe Pendleton Jones, he rarely uses it and is better known by his nickname Jughead Jones, or simply as Jughead to his friends. He is the son of Timothy and Gladys Jones. He has a white sheepdog named Hot Dog, and is occasionally portrayed as having a younger sister Forsythia "Jellybean" Jones.

Jughead, who is almost always seen wearing his crown-shaped gray felt hat with has two pins on it, is Archie's best friend and the 'weird one' of Archie's social circle. Though he's only regularly pursued by Big Ethel, Jughead does his best to avoid girls- unless a free meal is involved. Except for hassling Reggie Mantle, eating is Jughead's number one hobby. Though he sports a pot belly after particularly large meals, Jughead remains as skinny as a twig. As a consequence of his eating habits, Jughead is also a preferred customer of most of Riverdale's food establishments, especially Pop Tate's Choklit Shoppe, and a very respected food critic.

One of the common misconceptions about Jughead is that he is a misogynist. This is not so. In several stories in some of the Jughead digest magazines, there are quite a few girls who are after Jughead (and not just Big Ethel), probably attracted by his aloof and uninterested attitude towards them. In the early 1990's, Jughead had three girlfriends: Debi, Joani, and January McAndrews; the latter is Archie's descendant in the future. In another story, he describes that the reason why he does not chase after girls is because of a childhood heartbreak, sustained before he moved to Riverdale.

It has been revealed several times over the years that Jughead has an IQ which is well above average. In one particular Little Archie story it was revealed that he was the second best student in the school, Dilton Doiley being the first. His intelligence is displayed by his sharp wit, the occasional deep insight - and the odd chance he gets to upstage or outsmart Reggie Mantle.

In one of the Archies television programs (a live action one), Archie and Reggie attempt to find out Jughead's real first name. They go to the school office and a woman there tells them that Jughead's real first name is Steve. Only after they leave the office it is revealed that the woman is in fact Jughead's aunt and that she had just lied to Archie and Reggie as a favor to Jughead to help him cover up the fact that his first name is Forsythe.

Jughead's intelligence is highlighted because I too was the second best in primary school (out of, I must admit, 9 pupils) but my sadly lackadaisical attitude has ensured that I never achieved a Diltonesque status.. However I've never had a Reggie Mantle to pit my skills against and use as proof of my brainpower.