Life in the Petri Dish

I really should be reading...

The deadliest period of essay writing/handing-in is approaching (Wagner's Valkyries in the background) along with the mighty-roughest of the seasons... so we are bracing ourselves, for winter IS coming, and it's bringing a fat lady who tends to sing and throw shit at a large fan (for kicks, the byotch). 

And being good ol' Jane Snows ourselves, we still know NOTHING! (literally, we-gon'-dieeeee).

We're having a lot of fun, but at times I do miss home... and my bed... and my shower... and my parents... and my dog, but I also miss my other friends from the induction. Sometimes we doze off during class thinking how cool it would have been to have everybody taking the exact same pathway... but then again I'm also enjoying reading other blogs, from other fantastic people, filled with other flamboyant adventures that are happening in a not-so-distant parallel reality. That really gets me smiling.

We've met the second year Mundus students by now, and they're a treat! There's lots of Colombian girls (which is a pleasure indeed, for they're lovely and I can tease them in Spanish!) as well as girls from Eastern Europe, Western Europe, Europe and more Europe and Russia, which is Europe but also Asia, and that must be weird for their national psyches.

There's been a little bit of soap opera drama going on (I won't be specific about it, c'mon!), so it would seem that I take it everywhere I go. Sometimes I feel like I'm part of a reality show called "Filthy Flipping Fife Park" where I'm just a wallflower, again, the foreigner (as usual) since I don't officially live/belong there... but almost everyday I grab my tiny foldable bike and head over to either of my mates' humble abodes in order to attend/participate in the cooking of various collective meals (today, for instance, we had curry rice... and some decent steak with greens n' veggies in coconut sauce since two of my mates are grass eaters, and naan bread and cheese bits and hot chamomile tea with honey, and biscuits for dessert). We're easing each other's loads by sharing food, and doing our laundry together... and massaging each other's feet with emphatic dynamism (wtf, I'm sleepy and it's starting to show).

Finding out that you can actually use your own brain and hand power to fix your own bike is AMAZING! I've never felt so self-sufficient in my life! I have to thank my dear friend Jan, who is used to breaking stuff in order to make it work... better/again (depending). She could have been Mexican in another life, I'm telling you.

Guys, by the by, I have an announcement to make: I'm in a brand new relationship... WITH THE LIBRARY (I think we're getting pretty serious, since we're seeing each other 24/7). I haven't read this much since I studied History back in UNAM (hahaha), so I guess I should be potentially getting less dumb than before (unless I keep tripping + hitting my head with every rock in this darned medioeval city). I think we're doing fine in class: we tend to participate a lot and we're sort of working hard (nah, we ARE, fo' sure!). So I guess it's just a matter of writing the good stuff according to the sacred structure of this specific academic institution (GAWD that scares the living shite outta me!). British referencing/citation methods are fascist as! Anyways, first we'll be afraid, we'll be petrified, but in the end we'll survive ;)

Living in such a smallsie teensie-weensie townsie gets you meeting a lot of people all the time. Plus it feels funny to be able to talk to virtually anybody using the lamest of excuses in doing so: last time, I shit you not, I used this exact pickup line "So... is this water?" to what the other cute party-guy replied with a "Yes, and it's fizzy!" K-CHIIIIIIIIIING!!!! Conversation starter or what? Getting lazier by the minute never felt so grand.

As for our social engagement  performance: There have been a couple of parties to which we've gone... involving plastic palm trees, shaving cream, some partial nakedness in the rain, and the forcing our dearest Taiwanese friends to shake their booties to Katy Perry and Rihanna (we struggled heftily, but in the end we endured and CONQUERED!). 

On the academic part of the adventure: I had the most HORRIDLY PATHETIC class presentation the other day (being sleepy and wanting to pee at the same time don't usually work out for me when it comes to mustering the most extreme concentration powers) so I muttered shit words with no sense whatsoever to a class that stared at me with a "are you kidding me?" sort of look. Everybody probably thought I was retarded. But after having a big laugh about it later on I now find that I still have a lot to learn: karma's a bitch, but now I'm humbler... in a way (and I'm drinking coffee now).

But on the good side we're looking at awesome stuff like Che Guevara beyond the cliché, Joyce, Conrad + Coppola mashup creations and analyzing everything with fair enough texts that deal with psychoanalysis, post-modern philosophy and other truly interesting stuff. I'm happy about that, since I'm sort of being able to link the whole of my previous education to this Euro-centric postgraduate system nicely. Right on! So far so good... but let's wait til we get some results first, right?

:) to be continued...