so it's almost the end of 2008, and it's the time of the year where newspapers get kinda lazy. there's not much news to report (well apart from the disastrous situation in Gaza which has suffered from its own lack of coverage for a long time) so they do 'best of' and 'worst of' lists and tell you what to look out for in 2009. as for me, 2 days ( Read more... )

i just spend about 10 days in new york (with a few days in Philly and DC). going with a couple of friends who had never been before, it was quite nice to do the usual sights with them such as the Statue of Liberty and the Empire State Museum. Security to all this places are really tough. No belts, no jackets and all bags have to be scanned. The ( Read more... )

if you have an advent calendar, today would be the first day that you would be able to pull of the tag to see what's behind or perhaps you have one with comes with a bit of candy or chocolate for each day till christmas. if you're incredibly lucky or rich or both, you can have an advent calendar from Harrods which costs 30,000 pounds and comes with ( Read more... )

i handed in a massive chapter yesterday- all 14,000 words of it. definitely the longest chapter in my thesis and the hardest to write. the concept/ definition/ formulation of the theory took me more than 2 weeks to wrap my head around. i hope i haven't mangled it beyond all recognition but it means 5 chapters down- only 1 more to go!! woo hoo ( Read more... )

On the train ride home, she had to close her eyes and pretend to be asleep. Her traveling companions would not stop making, what she felt were, inane and trivial comments and for a moment she felt completely overwhelmed. She thought back to lunch, which occurred a mere 2 hours ago, as a brief period that felt completely out of joint with the rest ( Read more... )

On the train, she frets. Perhaps it would have been better to have left it- to let the last memory be the one that took place in what seemed so long ago. She began to fidget and wonder if she could avoid being the proverbial cat. Then she gave a little giggle and laughed quietly to herself. These were the events stories were made of! These were ( Read more... )

when she saw his announcement that he was coming to town, she smiled. She remembered the last time she'd see him. 3am in the morning in a city they had spent half the night trying to understand. Wandering around, filled with the confidence that comes with conquering a major hurdle, with the excitement of being immersed in a different culture, with ( Read more... )

so i'm off to london again tomorrow. the nation's capital twice in 2 weeks. cosmic_mud has promised me japanese food for dinner so that thought makes me happy. and i'm keen to try out this new bakery cafe called Konditor and Cook which according to Ms. Lawson herself is a place which makes fabulous cakes if you had the time, energy and inclination ( Read more... )

it's been a crazy few days. it all started (innocently enough) on friday night with CK and MW when we went to see Martha Wainwright perform at the arts centre (she's great! very entertaining. her mom plays the piano and her cousins sing backup, a real family do!) when the concert ended, the 3 of us realised the next bus was 30 minutes away and it ( Read more... )

i was sitting on the bus back from campus the other day with my flatmate CK. It was the third week of school and as befitting our post-grad student status- the very first time we had been back on campus since school officially started. together we were dazed and confused at the shock of the number of students and the slow slow pace at which they ( Read more... )