and am luvin it.

i love our class, there is not one person i despise or cannot stand, and none so far who cannot stand me, the tutors are very much into what they're doin so it's good fun, the subjects are obviously interesting since they representative of our intended prospective field of studies and career, and people have a good attitude possibly also because they've chosen to be where they are and it really depends on them to go where they wanna go.

today i got more familiar to three other really cool people, an english guy with an irish name and irish parents, a welsh girl whose parents are english, and a welsh guy who is well, just welsh :P and he actually speaks welsh and told me how to pronounce my area correctly :)) i also now know that ashley is a name for a boy as well for a girl. i mention this because it is funny to me that they consider themselves e.g. english, while their parents are irish, if they have been born and brought up in england. i must say though that i agree with that idea because e.g. there are people born and raised in switzerland, germany, the US, hardly speak any greek at all, been to greece maybe a couple times to visit the grandmother or sth, and they consider themselves greeks, (i think to say greek americans is quite fine though), and that is freakin to me, i cannot see them as greeks at all. i certainly do not consider myself in any way scottish, just because my great grandmother was one, but i do consider i have some kind of a scottish "heritage" as in passed down through our family traditions and values, which i am proud of, but not because it has anything to do with scottland, but because it has everything to do with our family.

anyway back to my day, getting to know people around here comes natural, as they are very keen on making small talk and getting along, they dont look at you strangely if you chat them up in the bus or in the cafeteria (note to self: to chat somebody up means to flirt/hit on/pick up in this country, so have to find an alternative, hm) there are people around to have stimulating conversation with, people with open minds, or at least susceptible to having their views expanded.

unfortunately classroom overcrowdedness remains a day to day fact and problem, always going round begging for some extra chairs, trying to move into bigger rooms though so that should be solved soon, having people take notes on their lap is really not very comfortable even less when you're sitting for two full hours and no desk to lean your elbows or anything.

i asked around about the nhs, it IS a free thing for all, which i think is great, they say it's actually not bad at all, quite good, i cannot jusdge as i havent used its services yet, been coughin my lungs out for two days, hope this too, shall pass, hope not lung cancer already, not quite ready to die yet, if it really has to be sth more than just a cold, can it please be a bad bout of asthma, and i dont care if it keeps me caughin till december, at least i'm gonna have some great abs till then, already sore from all that caughing.

i am in fact intimidated by the english language right now, and the prospect of writing papers in english, havent used proper (written) english for years and years, hope it all starts falling into place soon, feel a lil lost without my dixxies, witout my writer's handbooks, english usage books, thesaurus, etc, the kind of stuff that has given me so much confidence, just by occupying the top shelf. indeed i have over the last years much more often used the duden (the big yellow german dixxy) than the oxford.

Eve Ensler, the American playwright, performer, feminist and activist best known for "The Vagina Monologues", wrote the following about Sarah Palin.


Drill, Drill, Drill
I am having Sarah Palin nightmares. I dreamt last night that she
was a member of a club where they rode snowmobiles and wore the
claws of drowned and starved polar bears around their necks. I have
a particular thing for Polar Bears. Maybe it's their snowy whiteness
or their bigness or the fact that they live in the arctic or that I
have never seen one in person or touched one. Maybe it is the fact
that they live so comfortably on ice. Whatever it is, I need the
polar bears.

I don't like raging at women. I am a Feminist and have spent my life
trying to build community, help empower women and stop violence
against them. It is hard to write about Sarah Palin. This is why the
Sarah Palin choice was all the more insidious and cynical. The people
who made this choice count on the goodness and solidarity of
Feminists.


But everything Sarah Palin believes in and practices is antithetical
to Feminism which for me is part of one story -- connected to saving
the earth, ending racism, empowering women, giving young girls
options, opening our minds, deepening tolerance, and ending violence
and war.

I believe that the McCain/Palin ticket is one of the most dangerous
choices of my lifetime, and should this country chose those
candidates the fall-out may be so great, the destruction so vast in
so many areas that America may never recover. But what is equally
disturbing is the impact that duo would have on the rest of the
world. Unfortunately, this is not a joke. In my lifetime I have
seen the clownish, the inept, the bizarre be elected to the
presidency with regularity.

Sarah Palin does not believe in evolution. I take this as a metaphor.
In her world and the world of Fundamentalists nothing changes or gets
better or evolves. She does not believe in global warming. The
melting of the arctic, the storms that are destroying our cities, the
pollution and rise of cancers, are all part of God's plan. She is
fighting to take the polar bears off the endangered species list. The
earth, in Palin's view, is here to be taken and plundered. The wolves
and the bears are here to be shot and plundered. The oil is here to
be taken and plundered. Iraq is here to be taken and plundered. As
she said herself of the Iraqi war, "It was a task from God."

Sarah Palin does not believe in abortion. She does not believe women
who are raped and incested and ripped open against their will should
have a right to determine whether they have their rapist's baby or
not.

She obviously does not believe in sex education or birth control. I
imagine her daughter was practicing abstinence and we know how many
babies that makes.

Sarah Palin does not much believe in thinking. From what I gather she
has tried to ban books from the library, has a tendency to dispense
with people who think independently. She cannot tolerate an
environment of ambiguity and difference. This is a woman who could
and might very well be the next president of the United States. She
would govern one of the most diverse populations on the earth.

Sarah believes in guns. She has her own custom Austrian hunting
rifle. She has been known to kill 40 caribou at a clip. She has shot
hundreds of wolves from the air.


Sarah believes in God. That is of course her right, her private
right. But when God and Guns come together in the public sector, when
war is declared in God's name, when the rights of women are denied in
his name, that is the end of separation of church and state and the
undoing of everything America has ever tried to be.

I write to my sisters. I write because I believe we hold this
election in our hands. This vote is a vote that will determine the
future not just of the U.S., but of the planet. It will determine
whether we create policies to save the earth or make it forever
uninhabitable for humans. It will determine whether we move towards
dialogue and diplomacy in the world or whether we escalate violence
through invasion, undermining and attack. It will determine whether
we go for oil, strip mining, coal burning or invest our money in
alternatives that will free us from dependency and destruction. It
will determine if money gets spent on education and healthcare or
whether we build more and more methods of killing. It will determine
whether America is a free open tolerant society or a closed place of
fear, fundamentalism and aggression.

If the Polar Bears don't move you to go and do everything in your
power to get Obama elected then consider the chant that filled the
hall after Palin spoke at the RNC, "Drill Drill Drill." I think of
teeth when I think of drills. I think of rape. I think of
destruction. I think of domination. I think of military exercises
that force mindless repetition, emptying the brain of analysis,
doubt, ambiguity or dissent. I think of pain.

Do we want a future of drilling? More holes in the ozone, in the
floor of the sea, more holes in our thinking, in the trust between
nations and peoples, more holes in the fabric of this precious thing
we call life?


Eve Ensler
September 5, 2008

the three blind men and the elephant

There were 3 blind men, who had not seen since birth, and were given the gift from a mahut of going to "see" his elephant. But, because the elephant wasn't used to being handled by strangers, each blind man had to go in individually.

So, the first man went in and grabbed the elephant by an ear. "OH, he said, the elephant is powerful! He is like a great leaf of the forest, strong and large and flat! How great is the elephant!" and, after a while, he left.

The next man came it, and happened to grab a tusk. "OH, he said, the elephat is powerful! He is like a staff of great power. He must have the magic of the ages! How wise and wonderful is the elephant!" and, after a while, he left.

The third, and last man, came to see the elephant. He walked straight into the side of the elephant who was now lying down. "OH, like a great wall is the elephant," said the blind man. He must be able to stop any charge, to control any flood, to push any object. His skin is rough and hairy and deeply wrinkled. The elephant is short and round. How like a large stone is the elephant!" He, too, left.

The three blind men met together outside the mahut's elephant enclosure and began to discuss the elephant. Of course, the discussion led to an argument. The argument led to a fight. Each was SURE of what he had "seen", and felt, and heard while he was in with the elephant. After the fight had come to blows, and words had been spoken that could never be taken back, the three old friends parted.

You see, my darling, God is like the elephant and we are like the blind men. Who is to say which of us is wrong, and which is right And, will we not have our eyes cleared by The Lord on the day of reckoning What if one of us has the tusk, and one the tail, and one the ear, and we are fighting over nothing?

Just a thought...

wandering the streets

was wandering the streets of roath, cardiff tonight
missing my people, worrying

havent talked with my best friend in ages, must be at least 2 weeks...

i miss her

txt her this afternoon to check on her she replied that yes, she's alive and if she weren't i'd know apla den einai poly kala.egw eimai se periodo prosarmoghs. easy on the booze mou kanei...

nai dioti edw to triptyxo einai vroxh-xydia-xenyxtia... tespa

reading this i just fell all my love for her flooding me

i love her so much i couldnt bear losing her she's so important to me