Wednesday, May 18, 2005

I can't believe it is only a week til EUROVISION! And I will be in Europe! Sadly not in Kiev, I did consider it but by that stage it was already sold out and anyway, stuff. Sadly I will not be in Melbourne to inflict a poorly attended party on you this year (unless Alice gets her shit together in my absence). However, you can still get the full Eurovision experience from your home by regularly checking out Troubled-Divas site. His first post on the semi-final is here. In many ways this is the preferable way to experience Eurovision, as you don't have to sit through hideously boring incomprehensiable ballads, etc. Plus you get the bitchy comments thrown in for free.
In other news an Italian friend of mine had never heard of Eurovision, scary.

Sunday, May 15, 2005

'The oppressed must not, in seeking to regain their humanity (which is a way to create it), become in turn oppressors, but rather restorers of the humanity of both' - Paulo Freire

The other night I went to one part of a discussion series called something like 'Theatre of Hope' and the guests on that particular night were a dancer from Iran and a choreographer from Palestine. The difference between them was quite marked. The choreographer delivered a highly charged political speech about the problems of his people especially that of living in ghettos under Israeli rule.
The dancer wasn't even able to speak about what she might be hoping for.
In question time a few people asked questions (framed very cautiously of course, everyone very careful to remain, for want of a better term, politically correct) about the nature of living in an extremely repressive society. She only answered that 'perhaps she wanted to see things in their best light, because she had to live with them'. In other words for her to critique the situation, even to herself, would make the situation unbearable.
Afterwards I was walking to the train with a friend who is herself Iranian and I expressed my reluctance to accept this form of thinking. And she replied that when you are from Iran you never know who is watching you, even in a small university theatre in Germany.

[Update: If you want to check out some info on the Iranian dance production go here.]

Saturday, May 14, 2005

I am feeling very virtuous today, even though I have achieved only one of my many goals. Namely going to the supermarket. It is still for me a bit of a mission heading into the supermarket. First I have to sort out my bottles and work out which I can take back for money. And then once I get there I have to feed them all into a machine which prints out a reciept which I cash at the register. Then I have to wander the asiles looking out for which brands I have already tried and know to be either good or shit. And then I have to lament over the poor selection of juice. When you actually get to the register is the actual nerve racking bit. They don't put your groceries in bags here, you have to either bring them yourself or buy them, and either way you have to pack them yourself. Now I totally agree with this but it is scary when you have the stern Frau whizzing your stuff over the scanner and shoving it into the loading area while you struggle to pack it all into your bag and pay at the same time. So far I have not one time been able to keep up with the pace and always there is someone elses groceries raining down on you and both them and the checkout frau are giving you greasys as if it is all a cunning plan to end up with an extra onion or something.
Anyway clearly I survived to tell the tale and I now have food at hoe which is a small miracle. And juice! They don't believe in juice here like we do.

Things I didn't achieve:
Haircut
Purchase of new bike lock (cos someone lost mine)
Purchase of TV remote control (So I can watch my housmates tv by putting in the code which he hasn't for more than 2 months)
Emailing people who, probably and I would almost say definitely, don't love me anymore
Reading of book which it took me almost two weeks to work out how to borrow for the library
Beating the shit out of this computer because it is so slow

Monday, May 09, 2005

Oh yeah, and comment you bastards! I don't want no more emails professing shyness in cyberspace. Just to clear things up, you know who reads my blog? No one, only me and a few people whom I suspect have too much time on their hands in paid employment. Do It!

Sunday, May 08, 2005

Must type quickly cos am in danger of burning the toast.
Have been having visitors over the past couple of weeks (see photos below), first my dad on his way to Romania and then last week Nick visited me from Delft (in the Netherlands) were he is on exchange also. We were meant to go to Vienna this weekend but ended up not being able to get there due to poor planning and organisation. Today was VE day although here it is just the end of WW2, I don't think they take much notice of what happened in the Pacific. Anyway, a friend and I went out to check out the celebrations, a little late in the day but never mind, and then we went to Alexander Platz (where the huge TV tower is) to have a look at the Nazi rally. We couldn't really see anything except hundreds of riot police, fully kitted up. I don't think anything much happened in the end as they disbanded while we were there but according to the TV in the train there were 7000 riot police in Berlin. They don't really do horses here as much but they have tank things and the like which probably do a better job. I totally forgot my camera so there are no photos which is a shit. At one point my friend and I were peering over the shoulders of the police and we turned around and we were completely surrounded by a phalanx of scary masked and armoured folk, but the most exciting thing we saw was some drunk punk being escorted off the railway premises.

Nick trying to eat a currywurst Posted by Hello

Dad on top of the Reichstag Posted by Hello
God! Maybe I am missing Australia more than I thought, I was just getting all nostalgic for big brother reading some pop culturey blogs. This is beside the fact that I don't think I watched more than one episode last year.

Sunday, May 01, 2005

Was reading Doug's blog actually and found myself a little annoyed by his analysis of feminism, then I was catching up on some Australian news when I found this by Helen Razer.
Now it is hardly relevent but Helen Razer ( I always think of her with two names) used to be my all time favourite person of all time. Actually I think she was someone else's all time favorite person of all time also, and that caused her to retire from the more public sphere. But never mind this garble, read the article.
Uggh. I have just been reading up on all the blogs I have neglected over the summer and am feeling rather bloated and ashamed. It seems it is no good just to hammer out any old shit, but the trend is actually to write well and on interesting topics. Gah!