London's burning

So, Tottenham. Perhaps not up there on the most vital and important of world events in the last 48 hours, but the closest to my geographical vicinity.

The Clash song has been going round in my head all day, an annoying contrast to how I actually feel about the events of last night which is incredibly sad. People live in the same city as me, yet they live such confined, small and sad lives that they feel enough frustration and pain to destroy the businesses of their own community.

The police are, often, not that welcome, sometimes they behave in a way I'd rather they didn't, but then they are people, and people never reach perfection or total professionalism. It's easier to say that when I sit comfortably not being victimised, but then it's hard to see how rampant criminal behaviour really gets back at the police. The only people looters and rioters have damaged is an already embattled community dealing (as most of London is) with increasing joblessness, homelessness and hopelessness.

I'm sad because these looters, or so I have to believe, fail to value anyone or anything else because they have never been valued themselves. We have to experience respect to give it.

I am not one for universal sentiments and big gestures, but I do wish there was more fellow feeling, community spirit and sense of common purpose around. We are all suffering, and we are all making it that little bit worse for the people around us if we continue to live isolated and isolating lives.

My internal angst ridden 14 year old has taken control...forget inner child, I have a troubled inner teen.

I've had 2 hot chocolates since returning feeling spent and jaded from the London Book Fair.

Spending money to make money feels like it shouldn't apply to life generally, but it just sprang into my mind as I contemplated buying a Linkedin membership (more money disappearing nowhere). Large amounts of education are not enough, now I must buy into online job dating to get ahead - why is this??? Why isn't 1.5 (nearly there, just have to attempt not to fail my exams) degrees plus bloody tough to live through, also expensive, pressure and expectation heavy education enough???? Why is it that ALL I have to look forward to is UNPAID SLAVE LABOUR (Ok, so it's not exactly slave labour, I can after all leave, though to do what is unclear...) after all this effort AND actually accumulating quite a bit of varied work experience?

Young, pissed off and hanging from the very very end of my tether this evening.

This is not my life. Yet apparently it is...If anyone's planning a revolution please let me know - clearly my middle class, over-educated self will be first against the wall but I'm exhausted of the current system, and I've only been trapped in it for 3 years :(

April happened a little unexpectedly this year, not sure where the end of March went, but it didn't take me with it.

Made a cake today. That was productive. I seem to remember from watching that film Sylvia (when avoiding an essay, much as I am doing right now) that Plath also baked to procrastinate. Possibly not a woman I want to emulate entirely (though, Ted Hughes, I certainly wouldn't say no). Also not I felt a very excellent film. Though I admit it's been years since I last saw it.

I did watch Agora recently for the first time. Mixed feelings. Visually effective, and gripping-ish, but ultimately something of a let down. Left me feeling outraged on a feminist front and upset by fundamentalism in all its forms, no doubt its intent.

Sigh. Back to Sri Lanka it is...wonder if working the cricket into my essay will be relevant/worthwhile?

On a lighter note as the world falls down

...just understood the twitter egg. I'm not that bright :( 20 watts if I'm lucky (cue cheesy joke drum solo).

Suddenly aware of fragility of life

This weekend passed in a blur of failing to work because of looking obsessively at the news about Japan interspersed with random email exchanges with Japanese friends along the lines of たいへんですね。　めちゃこわい　：（ I lived noway near the area when I was in Japan, but friends have been very kind about my immediate barrage of panic stricken emails demanding to know of their whereabouts, health and safety. The low number of fatalities in Tokyo and the, so far, not as bad as it could have been news from the nuclear power plants (note how carefully I phrased that fate - I am NOT tempting you) is testament to the Japanese spirit and engineering/architecture. I just hope they can follow through with similar success on the recovery and clear up. The Japanese interest in the short lived beauty of cherry blossom makes sense when the island's history of vulnerability to such complete devestation comes into play.

Right. Now for something completely different. I have to get back to an essay on female circumcision. Amazingly I find myself either in a position of defending it or else condemning all cosmetic surgery including male circumcision. I think I prefer the latter position, but at the same time recognise that that's because of my upbringing in a secular but Christian morality influenced home - you are as you were made, deal with it.

Experimenting with stream of consciousness

Well, here she was. This was it, this was hers, all of it. What a lot of it there was, really, compared to what some people had anyway. That was the important thing, to know where she stood in relation to others. You had to know where you were in the scale, why you were there, where you were – whose fault it was that you weren’t higher, better, faster, stronger – in the scheme of things. In the scheme of things. In the scheme of things she wasn’t so badly off. That was what she felt, how she viewed her life.

She got out of the shower (a good place to think she always thought) and stood in front of the bathroom mirror, the sink, dripping, meeting her own eyes for a second through the mist and then blinking and reaching for her towel. She didn’t like to meet her own eyes in the mornings. In the mornings she found herself wondering, wondering what things might have been like, if she was different. If everything was different, if other people were. If somebody had seen her potential, had understood her properly and she had bloomed as she should. (She loved that word, bloomed. Though of course now she was rather too old for it.) The world was obstinate, it had never recognised her perfection, her abilities, her beauty even. At moments like this all that she had felt like nothing at all, especially when compared to what should be hers. What she deserved. Most of the time she could make it seem enough but sometimes, sometimes, she couldn’t help but feel the smallness of her life, feel it pressing in on her, and want to scream.

Her ambitions had never been high, she thought as she vigorously and pitilessly pulled a brush through her tangled hair. As the strands snapped and sprung up again from the brush she felt anger rise in her throat. She had never asked loudly, or for too much, though she knew herself to be extraordinary, yet she had never been allowed to have what was rightfully hers.

Where was her house, husband, dog, child? She slammed the door of her flat and scowled at her neighbour’s cat on the stairs. She knew she was being irrational, yet she let her thoughts run on. Let the bitterness build. Why was it that she achieved so little? She got what she had by working hard. She worked hard at everything, everyone saw that. Everyone at the office complimented her on her hard work. She was invaluable. Yet she knew that they didn’t see her true value, her true potential, because she could not reach it. Why did people who didn’t work as hard as her reach theirs? How could they do so much better than her? Why did the people she knew from college, those who not only didn’t work hard but barely seemed to think if they could avoid it, rise so high and do so well? Why did they have more of what she aimed for, sweated for, than she could ever hope to achieve now? Now that things had passed her by and it was getting too late to strive.

Sally, who she was on her way to meet, was one such; Sally had barely worked at all in college and yet gained higher marks than she had managed after three years of hard work and late nights. Not late nights at parties and socials like Sally had, late nights in the library, at the desk. Still, she’d never been one to hold grudges and when Sally had rung to arrange this lunch last week she’d been happy to accept. She had been.

Lately she’d let friendships slide. She was so tired of always being the one to do the asking, to chase for lunch dates, dinner, the cinema. People had slipped out of her life altogether and she didn’t seem to care. In a way it was a relief to no longer spend time with people whose lives had, for no good reason, worked out so much better than her own. Better than hers when, in a fair world, hers should have been better by far than theirs. It irked her and so as they left her behind she did nothing to stop them.

Even her work, what she prided herself on so much, had slipped recently. She couldn’t motivate herself the way she had in the past. She didn’t really understand why but her mind wasn’t as easy to control as it once had been. Now she lost herself in dreaming almost every day. Her mind wandered. She no longer lived in her own thoughts, instead she spent her time imagining how other people thought and lived. If a man looked at her she imagined how he saw her, how he felt about her, what he wanted to say to her and imagined why it was that he said nothing and looked away. If a woman stood near her in the supermarket then she imagined how that woman would smell her perfume wafting to her across the frozen peas, and how she would envy her that elegance of scent.

This was how she knew that the man who lived with his family across the road who said good morning to her sometimes was in love with her. He could never tell her, he couldn’t leave his children and she could not have forgiven him for doing so anyway. Anne who lived downstairs was always watching her; often she crept down to the bottom of the garden and looked up at her window, because in her own way Anne was in love with her too. She never actually saw Anne in the garden, but she knew that she was there, she was watching. Sometimes she stood in front of the window, flaunting herself entirely for the benefit of those watching, waiting eyes. The attention was something to cling to, although sometimes she peered out of her window and saw nothing but a mess of bushes and plants. Those were the days when it was hard to meet her own eyes in the mirror.

It had been a surprise to be rung, and at home no less, by Sally. She had answered the phone and met her own eyes in the mirror, feeling a sense of shock, almost violation as a voice said her name. Sally had mumbled something about being busy with her career and children as an excuse for not getting in contact any sooner. One of the children was ill apparently. Something trifling no doubt that Sally was blowing out of all proportion to make herself seem more important. She’d been sympathetic when Sally broke down in tears. She’d even agreed to this lunch to get her to calm down.

She hurried along the road, shocked at the brazen glance of a man in a car as he stared at her, wanted her. She turned sneeringly from his eyes to look beyond him.

So it was that she saw the child leaning, standing, not looking. She saw its danger, she realised, from the frightened eyes of the mother, that an expectation was directed at her. She felt the woman thinking about her, knew she was pinning her hopes on her. This was her moment, her purpose, here and now, her hope in the woman’s hope. She breathed in. She could show the world her exceptional nature, her amazing soul because that woman’s eyes flicked from the child to her face. She stepped out into the road, feeling, at last, full of purpose that would reap the proper reward.

There was a moment of suspension. The world held its breath as she stepped off the pavement and watched what would happen.

A breath was taken. The child ran to its mother in time and she, slower than she’d expected, did not move quickly enough, did not listen or see or hear what was around her. Her action had not achieved anything. Her potential had been wasted yet again. For a moment she paused and watched the mother scold the child. She knew that the woman was angry that it had stolen this moment from her, that it had denied her a purpose. She bit her lip and stopped moving.

For a moment, just one moment, all eyes were on her, all thoughts were of her. She felt them, felt them centre on her and felt their regard, finally. Finally they saw her and realised her. She shut her eyes and soaked it in. There were faces, there was movement, there was concern, and it was all directed towards her. She smiled. The world revolved around her for one more moment and lifted her into sound and speed and darkness.

Murakami and Libya

Oh dear - instead of working in the last 24 hours I read Norwegian Wood. Sexy, funny but ultimately incredibly sad (I was tearing up on the tube - NEVER good) and unputdownable - unless you find yourself with a spare few hours DO NOT start this book. At one point Watanabe (protagonist) calls Reiko a regular Sheherezade - the whole bloody book was like that! Annoyingly time consuming but enjoyable. My only slight issue with it was that it was a bit like A Single Man where EVERYONE wants to shag Colin Firth. Clearly he's lovely, but still, a little unbelievable.

I seem to be into my use of CAPITALS today.

Last night, in a short break from the world of Watanabe, I went to see a discussion panel on current events in the Middle East held by the SOAS History Soc. Speakers were: Sir Malcolm Rifkind, Amir Taheri and Abdul Bari Atwan and it was chaired by a somewhat harried looking Jonathan Lappage (or at least I assume it was him - he's the one who sent the email out....may not have been listening when he introduced himself :S).

Rifkind was SO LATE that I had to quickly text and rearrange my dinner date and there was much angry muttering. Come on, 20 minutes plus late, for an hour long discussion, seriously? There was a big lecture hall of people waiting for you. Already NOT A FAN. The words Tory scum lack of respect seemed to be circulating unsaid in the air...not without good cause.

So we kicked off with Abdul Bari Atwan - always excellent entertainment (though I admit I've only seen him in the flesh once before, also at SOAS :) ) who was, to be fair to Rifkind's later outburst, a little guilty of appealing to emotional sentiments and beliefs rather than fact based truths, but then, politics, come on, when's that ever been about facts? History (what we were supposedly there to discuss) has also always played fast and loose with empirical reality. Who's it for and why is something we can never forget to consider. His point though that what we had here was revolution, purely and simply, and one that had been built up from inside the country and driven by forces again, inside. He then launched into a bit of an attack on the west (to which, while I squirmed a bit, I did add my applause) as the heavy hand of outside, unwanted intervention that has left the Arab states in which it has involved itself (Iraq, Afghanistan) worse off in some ways. He also emphasised the important distinction to be drawn between Arab and Muslim. Arab doesn't mean fundamentalist Muslim just as Muslim doesn't mean fundamentalist. The west's fear of Islamic rule needs to be re-examined.

Amir Taheri began with a little quip that following Abdul Bari Atwan was a difficult, akin to following Elvis. I found his emphasis on democracy as a sort of learning process for a nation a little overstated. Why would having elections teach you anything about democracy? didn't work in Sri Lanka when the british introduced universal franchise in the hopes of educating the political elite about their responsibility to their populous. He, and Abdul Bari Atwan, had both also bought into the progressivist version of politics as the endless struggle toward liberal democracy. Id' prefer questioning of the western hegemonic discourse to take a few steps more. Not advocating any structure especially, but I'm not sure how the structured and divided identity groups of Libya will respond to a liberal doctrine that takes no account of, and indeed excludes, identity in the political realm. Still, ultimately very very interesting, with excellent points about how it was not helpful and indeed misleading to draw historical parallels.

Then came Rifkind. He SHOUTED everything into his microphone. Immediately on the defensive saying it wasn't the west's fault that dictatorships hadn't been overthrown before. Indeed he expressed surprise that it had taken so long (COME ON - Cold War interests, oil - the west had a vested and very real interest in keeping leaders who were predictable and not communist in place, people like Mubarak). He also refused to accept the role of the international community in domestic politics - clearly we're dealing with a die-hard realist of the old school here. He even claimed that the internal politics of a state never had anything to do with the foreign policy of other states.

This would have been a flawed but at least sustained tirade had he not then started harping on about how british foreign policy is ethical - HOW can it be both ethical and only driven by the concerns of realpolitik? Be mistaken, OK, at least then you can be argued with, but be hypocritical and your audience will spot this and will respond. SOASians were not impressed. Abdul Bari Atwan interjected a few choice responses and got applause every time, Rifkind's ever more desperate and increasingly illogical rejoinders drew muttering from the crowd.

I then, infuriatingly, had to leave, stayed for a few satisfying attacks from
Abdul Bari Atwan and Amir Taheri that exposed both the factual holes and hypocrisy of Rifkind's stance.

Lesson to be learned - Tories know your audience. DON'T try and tell SOAS that the west has, and always does its best, and that selling weapons to dictators is just realistic. And anyway, it's important to arm them against Iran. They ask for the weapons, they must be entitled to them, right? Surely they could only want them for self defence, right?

Of course Rifkind. Off you go and sit in your club and think you know what's best for everyone else. After all you are louder than them, that must mean your opinion is more valid. Might is right. Have we really come back to this in british politics?

Fun filled Friday, of a sort.

So, just went to an exciting World Book Night event at my local book shop - quite fun and ran off with lots of free books (yay!). I swapped A Prayer for Owen Meany (Irving), All She was Worth (Miyabe) and The Kitchen God's Wife (Tan) for Kate Atkinson's Will There Ever Be Good News and One Day by David Nicholls. Oh, and free wine. Quite chuffed, lots of book shelfspace for all my new books on Africa plus a nice new book to read, if I ever have time for fiction again...Maybe in June.

Since then have been tidying. Friday nights are WILD here.

I just googled myself - yes I am officially THAT SAD and have recently found myself gazing at my reflection in water...still, if I'm immortalised as a deliciously scented flower it won't be all bad :) Though currently I am remembered for pointing inappropriately at my students...

http://www.independent.co.uk/student/career-planning/getting-job/teach-english-and-see-the-world-but-choose-your-tefl-placement-with-care-1963843.html

http://www.onlinetefl.com/tefl-chalkboard/news/teaching-english-in-japan-made-tefl-graduate-more-professional.html

Still, all publicity is at least, well, publicity. Yay for having friends who publish stories about me :D

Procrastinating

So, blog creation - that's procrastination gold!!

Spending a day on my own absorbing the fact of a new nephew and watching the news...obsessively checking the news...