rain, rain, go away...

on sunday, I sprang forward into 'british summertime.' as I've already bemoaned to others, london didn't get the memo that sunshine/warmth/flip flops & tank tops go along with this time change. no, instead, the chilly, grey, dank rain has returned. I'm trying to stay positive about this change in weather; after all, it can't last forever. I can wear my super cute yellow galoshes a bit more. I can splash about in puddles, if I so choose...and if it ever rains that much in one go. and maybe this is just a big flashing neon sign to me to get on with my damn papers.

mean people

this blog is about mean people. really, it's about one specific mean person: the girl who stole my wallet from my purse in starbucks yesterday. within moments of realizing that my wallet was gone, ie the moment that I actually began to listen to my instincts, I was reminded of several things, including:

1. there are mean people in the world that will, in fact, turn their meanness onto me.
2. I should trust my instincts more often. we all should.
3. people who steal wallets can also look like yuppies. just because she looked like she could afford her dye job doesn't mean that she is paying for it with her own money.
4. calling the police is necessary, even if there is no way that they will get your wallet back. you can't seem to get access to any library without a crime report number. (that is, unless you find a nice membership person, like the one who has let me back in to senate house.)

now, for the list of things that I hope happen to this awful, awful person.

1. I hope that she is in a relationship with a dreadful boyfriend who doesn't love her and is sleeping with her best friend.
2. I hope that she gets ingrown toenails on both of her big toes.
3. I hope that her flat burns down, with only my somewhat melted library and bank cards remaining after the blaze.
4. I hope that she her hair turns green permanently.
5. I hope that someone picks her wallet from her purse.

while none of these things may happen (seriously crossing my fingers on the ingrown toenails bit), they do help remind me that karma is a bitch. I'm not sure what I did to get this dose of bad karma, but I'm hoping that it has put me back in balance. that, or that I've done nothing and a really great thing is about to happen.

I hope that this finds all of my friends and family well. and all of you mean people out there, shape up, would you?

love to all.

'yea! you ended genocide!'

yes folks, I've ended genocide, class at least. (the title was a text sent by kate this afternoon.)

classes have finished for yet another term. now, only four papers (only, I say. I must be mad.) and a dissertation need to be written and, soon, I'll have my ma degree, I'll be ending my time in london, and starting...shite, who knows. slippery slope thinking there. but yay, classes are over!

weird, huh?

now, must collect some books before the library closes for five days for easter. (everything is a five-day holiday in the u.k.) after all, there are papers to write.

hope this finds you all well. love to all and the very warmest of secular easter wishes.

hotel rwanda

finally saw this film last night. if you have any interest in what it is that I'm fascinated by, get to the cinema asap. (though it's probably out on dvd soon in the states, I would imagine.) while I was not affected like many audience members, the effect the movie left on me was great: it reassured me of what I want to do in my life. and that's not something you get from every film.

HUGE favor...please!

okay, so I've sent frantic emails to a handful of people, but, in case that shouldn't work out, I'm turning to the rest of my reading constituency.

the favor: tape 'sometimes in april' off of hbo. first being aired tonight at 8pm eastern. (further times can be found at http://www.hbo.com/apps/schedule/ScheduleServlet?CHANNEL=All+Channels&ACTION_SEARCH=SEARCH&KEY=TITLE&VALUE=sometimes+in+april)

reasons I would very much like someone to record this film:
1. it's about the 1994 genocide in rwanda, my project of all projects
2. I'm writing a paper about the cinematic imaginary of genocide and this would be a key element of that.
3. I wasn't able to see it earlier this week at human rights watch's film festival.

some sort of repayment would be involved. please let me know if you can do this for the girl in london.

thanks all.

mmm...

first of all, the weather in london has been GLORIOUS for the last three days. really, it's been quite amazing. right now, bbc's weather website's synopsis of conditions for the day reads 'warm sunshine in the south.' that's right...warm, glorious sunshine. it's been amazing. ah.

post-week o' vaginas has left me on a bit of a event low. (you know, when you're used to running around and multitasking in every breathe you take.) this isn't necessarily bad; it's just left me in a bit of a I-don't-want-to-work-on-my-papers state. (the sun is also helping that quite well.) in coping with this lack of motivation, I have been running, reading 'east of eden' (a major obstacle to accomplishing any work), and cleaning my kitchen. (it's so sparkly clean!) but now I'm forcing myself to sit down, find relevant paper material, and read. blah.

one semi-sad thing of the day was making the decision to not register for the stockholm marathon. well, that's not exactly true. today is the last day to register; registration is full. and though my knees are giving me trouble, if registration hadn't already closed, I think I would have probably committed myself to running this race, much to the dismay of my knees. (bad news bears when it comes to these joints.) so, I'm going to try and appease myself by running a couple of half-marathons and focusing on training for a marathon this autumn. *unless something comes along that I can't resist*

now, I should tear myself away from my procrastinating and get to work on the paper world. plans for the weekend look to be fun and, hopefully, the weather will continue it's wonderfulness. ah, hello spring!

hope that this finds you all well and enjoying some sort of spring weather. loves to all.

dissertation woes

and it's not even formulated yet. that's my biggest woe.

you probably could see this from my last entry, but the lack of topic is causing more instability in my thinking than I would like. funny how that happens when I don't feel totally centered or in my element.

here's to working a bit more towards that center.

loves to all.

hint, hint

http://travel2.nytimes.com/2005/03/13/travel/13going.html?oref=login

learn it, live it, love it.

afterglow

the title would be more appropriate if I had written this post on saturday, the day immediately following women's awareness week and all of the business that it entailed. but, being that I didn't leave my flat until 7:00pm and was manicly working on piecing together a dissertation topic yesterday for tuesday (still pieces, please note), this is the most immediate time to write my bit on last week.

in a word: busy. in a sense: hopeful. at least, I think so. I don't know that I can give any real perspective on what we tried to do through the events of last week (objective: to raise awareness about violence agst. women), but, in my immersion, it at least seems possible that some people were made more aware. logistically speaking, everything went off smashingly, though it would have been nice to have more people at a couple of the events. a good variety of topics and events made the five days well-balanced and made me realize yet again how much I enjoy organizing things like this. now, how to make that happen in a non-education setting...that's the trick in the next six months.

last week, I had my tarot cards read (one of the activities at one of our events). I don't know how much of a 'believer' I'd say that I am of the whole enterprise, but there are certain things that are reemphasized, underlined, bolded in these sorts of things. according to my tarot cards, and which I am pretty much am in agreement with, my present situation is one of limbo. the pictoral representation: a ship on a choppy sea with grey clouds. I have been thinking a great deal of where I'm going to be in the next year, what I'm going to do in that time, and what happens after. there are so many different variables that play into all of this and, specifically quite recently, I find myself thinking about what is going to happen with myself. I don't think I've ever really been at a point in my life when I at least didn't have some vague outline for the near and far future. this may only add to the choppiness of the sea, I suppose.

I have only ten days of term left, which means that I have five actual classes. already?!? after three weeks of easter break (seriously, three weeks. that's more than vassar's two weeks of spring break.), there are course essays (a whopping 80 pages) and then the dissertation. breaking my time in london in these terms makes this all seem to short, like I'm really not spending any time here in relative terms. listen to me, I'm not even to the quarter century mark and I'm fretting over how quickly time goes. on the brighter side, I'm quite excited for some tenative travel plans to rome and the upcoming summer of visitors.

now, I must run, cross my fingers that gsmiths has the books that I'm looking for, and take care of some vday wrapup business. I haven't heard from some people in quite some time (um, hip?), partially because of my own slagging off of email. nevertheless, hope that this finds all of you well. my love to all.

the vaginas are here.

for the past two weeks, I've been walking around campus wearing a shirt with the words 'the vaginas are coming.' I'm not the only one...it's one of our novel ways to get people at this college in the know about the events of the week. with three days done (and the busiest three days, at that), I've just realized that in all of my attempts to make more people aware about the prevalence of violence against women, that some of the men that I personally know do not have any inclination to make themselves aware of these issues. I often think that once those around me -- my family members, friends, classmates, flatmates -- see how much time and energy I put into an issue, how important a cause is that I will put it before me (as has been the case in the last several weeks; don't even ask about my dietary or sleeping habits. you'll only be disappointed.) that they might take some time to read some of the literature or attend an event.

I've just left the union after nine hours of setting up, putting on, and cleaning up an event geared to allow people to learn about a variety of issues. not just violence against women, but other issues surrounding women, how they are treated as a whole in society, their bodies, et cetera. afterwards, I sat down with a male friend to discuss an idea that he has about putting together a forum to discuss u.s. foreign policy towards the middle east. only at the end of the conversation did I realize that he and one of his friends have absolutely no idea what the entire week is about, what it's mission is, though it's been posted on countless posters and flyers and the fact that I sat there telling them a bit about it. there was little one point where the tone was aggressive and even questioning the relavance of these issues being put on in such a manner.

this is the case of someone that I've known for six months. but this made me wonder, what do some of the closest males in my life, those who have had significant impacts on me, think of these issues? do they know that one in five women will be the victim of rape or attempted rape in her lifetime? more importantly, do they care? when I think of these issues, I always put it into the context that I have five sisters. if more men -- those specifically who think that we (feminists, the goldsmiths women's society, vday organizers, whatever group is classified under this broad umbrella) are overreacting when we talk about these stats -- put these issues into the context of five women in their lives (their mothers, their sisters, their partners, their daughters, their friends, et cetera), would they then realize the importance of these issues? do the men that I hold dear in my life realize the importanc of these issues? it's almost at this point of contemplation that I feel a small wave of despair come over me. if these people close to me aren't aware of the issues that women face in our own small communities and around the world, where has my mission began? and has it failed before it's really even began? large questions and hopefully not too pessimistic, but this week of staging events has made me conscious of the fact that, as flabbergasted as I may at the statistic that a woman in the U.S. is raped every 90 seconds, other people may not have that same reaction.

this is not to leave the sentiment that this week has been disappointing; not at all. (I'll summarize at the end of it all, when I have more energy and time.) it's more of an open question/reflection to all of you, but specifically the men.

love to all. and a happy belated international women's day!

chicago folk: see 'the vagina monologues'!

I just realized that some of you might be interested in seeing the play that I'm a part of, even if you can't see me performing. so here are links for those of you in the chicagoland area to get out and see the show. most dates have past, but there are a couple coming up VERY SOON.

one is on march 5th at 8pm...www.POWWOWCHicago.org

one is on march 6th at 7pm

there are shows in elgin on the 3rd, 4th, and 5th

there are shows at lake forest college on the 17th and 19th

if you go to this website, you can get all of the details there:
http://events.vday.org/2005/World/Chicago

funds from these shows go to domestic violence shelters in the chicagoland area. and I promise to do my monologue (upon return) for anyone who attends a vday performance! (is that even an incentive? maybe, maybe not. but it's all I've got all of the way over here!)

www.vday.org

a vagina cake

yes, that has been the source of my headache today. (the kind of headache that doesn't seem to have any one location.) I need to make a vagina cake because the girl who was going to do it now can't due to presenting a paper at a conference in the states. I don't know why this is causing such a fuss in my head, but it is. suggestions abound, perhaps I'm just exhausted. that's what working on the vaginas does, I guess.

in other news: today was the perfect day to wear my galoshes. it was cold, it was rainy, and there were bits of snow. however, I missed this wonderful opportunity to wear the bright yellow psuedo wellies because I didn't look outside my window. tomorrow: galoshes, whether they are needed or not.

off to have a double vodka with my co-event coordinator and then home for dinner, desparate housewives, and reading for class tomorrow. I will be catching up on emails soon, so be on the lookout.

hope you are all having wonderful, non-grey days. love to all.

'winter tucks her children in, her fragile china dolls'

ah, I'm back! back to the world of no immediate, pressing paper deadlines. I say immediate because, while there are no papers to be written until april, getting my first paper mark and thinking about what I'm going to do with myself after london only leads me to start thinking of dissertation and other course essays. oy. but for the next two weeks, I'm only *actively* thinking of women's awareness week events and 'the vagina monologues.' there is still plenty to be done, but the week is coming together and soon, I'll be sad that I'm not running around like a chicken with my head cut off.

now, a run down on the last week: the day after I temporarily swore of blogging IT ACTUALLY SNOWED IN LONDON! I say that that emphatically because I was shrieking and running outside to take pictures of the event. roll your eyes if you will, but I have been missing snow. it was nice to see a bit of the white stuff actually accumulating. since then, the snow has melted and there have been flakes in the air nearly every night. and while they liquefy when they touch the ground, it has been so lovely to walk about in it. ah, a bit of my soul restored.

other wonderful things of the week include a few visits with my wonderful friend tiffany and getting to catch up with my dublin marathon partner this weekend. I also must say that, with the paper stress and vagina stress building up last week, I have come to appreciate both em & kate so much more. I'm really quite lucky to have such great friends.

I've got a major headache (probably because I haven't had a chance to grab a bite since leaving my flat eight hours ago!), so I'm going to jet off. looking forward to a nice, long run in the morning (I'm about 80% certain that I'll run stockholm in june) and taking care of lots of details for the vaginas tomorrow. ah, lovely.

hope that this finds you all well. oh, and for those who are wondering why the hell I referenced china dolls in my heading...this song has been running in my head for days. just passing it on.

my love to all.

at the wedding celebration with my wonderful hostess of the weekend, kristel 

the night before the wedding celebration in sarah & kris's kitchen 

kate and I as soap opera starlets