ritas kleine welt

last week, i attended a block seminar in the institute for eastern europe studies. our group consisted largely of students from the german department, a handful of students of eastern europe studies -- and me as the representative for the english department. the seminar was great; i learned a lot -- and in nine out of ten cases i had not a single clue what the others were talking about. talk of the whooshing sound of a topic going right over your head. they were a nice but scary bunch of phd-students. bouncing off cultural theories off each other as if they hadn't done anything else during the last ten years of their lives. scaaaaary!!!

we only got to meet a couple of times during my last visit to wales one year ago. but we clicked instantly and had a couple of animated conversations. this is how i will remember duncan tanner:

you are sorely missed!

i have finally started outlining my thesis. most of you are probably now asking, 'what the hell has she been doing the past year?' well, it's easily explained. although i have all these crazy and wild ideas flying through my head, i hate pinning them down. i hate being nailed onto the concrete word. i don't want to be pinned down. of course, resistance is futile. who ever was awarded a title for being silly? (apart from chaplin! but he was a genius in his own field. i'm not even going there.)

so. outline. because, lets face it, if i don't start conquering my demons pretty soon, there's hell to pay. probably even quite literally.

you wanna see how i drive myself mental? it really doesn't take that much. i simply start rambling until my train of thought starts going round and round and round and round...

for about a month now, i have been learning welsh. rydw i'n dysgu yr iaith gymraeg, to be precise. and, my duw!, it's difficult. it's one thing to wrap your heas (pen) around all those different forms of 'bod'. and just when you thought you managed, out jumps a variant for forming questions. or another special rule when aswering a question that begins with 'pwy' (who). and that is not yet including the two different versions (or at least the two i have found out about so far) of saying, 'no.' but on the upside, i've found a couple of words that made me smile a lot. like the translation of 'shop assistant'. if it's a woman, it literally translates to 'working woman' -- gweithwraig. how sweet is that! (still don't know what a male shop assistant is called in welsh, though. maybe they don't exist...)

next, i shall find out the real difference between the use of 'nabod' and 'gwybod'. in english they both mean 'to know' -- but in german they are 'kennen' and 'wissen'. so there's a slight difference. till then, i'll keep on trying to wrap my head around all the evil mutations. 'benyw' mutates to 'yr fenyw' -- but 'llaw' stays the same when attaching the definite article. randwm!

from jan morris, the matter of wales: 'in the course of the year 1902 the caban at one blaenau ffestiniog quarry, for example, which met over jam-jars of tea by candle-light in a damp tunnel, organized a mental arithmetic contest, a singing contest, a discussion on the recent education act, a lecture on the subject 'how much greater is a man than a sheep', a spelling bee, a contest to create welsh words, a discourse on vanity, a debate on 'whether a wife is a choice or a necessity', a quiz on the bible, a debate on whether ministers should be appointed for life, a contest to interpret a set poem and several competitions concerning the writing and memorizing of verse.' (267) (though if truth be said, this book isn't worth much because it reads a bit too much like, 'cymru am bydd!' and 'death to the english!')

i love my field of research!

my first week back from the yookay and it was pretty much a story of success, though not fortune and riches. how could it? i'm making a living in accademia where the money well has usually run dry three semesters ago. but! andrea and i have struggled, read and tied knots into our two brains -- and won in the end. we've read an entire book by foucault and still managed to talk intelligently about it -- and then denounce a great deal of his ideas as pure crap. (there just went my last 5%-likelihood of ever attaining something akin to a carreer in university circles.)

andrea, maria and i are on a brave journey and we are passing through darkness and into the light. in other words, we are reading the order of things by michel foucault. the book holds loads of puzzles and has lead to many moments of wonderment in the past month. but we are not faint of heart, but drudge ahead with full speed.

my Doktorpapa and boss has returned from his trip to ireland. funny how everyone in our institute makes it their top priority to meet him as quickly as possible. he has returned from the island of green grass and mist sporting a fancy beard! it is most astonishing, really. it's like an entirely new side to him that we haven't seen before. although we should have, judging from his pitch black humour and the occassional outburst of anarchy. (which always lasts only for an average .5 seconds, but still!)

my work matters.
i may not know how to get from point A to point B -- but i will get there eventually.
i make the right choices
i read the right books.
i read books in the full nowledge that i won't use them -- but will still use them indirectly in the end by not using them.
i am thankful for criticism, but in the end, it is i who makes the ultimate choice.
even if nobody else ares for my work, i still do.
i start small, but i may achieve something big by taking small steps.
and i will take even smaller steps because they help me to make the gigant leap that is expected of me.
every book read is one down off the list, and there are another thousand to go.i may not know...

it's been a month now that i have been sharing the snug little office with dietmar. what can i say, i miss it already just by thinking of the day in september that i have to move out again. but i received permission to return for an hour or two each week so that i can hold my office hour.

today was my last day as working person at the copy-shop. from now on, i shall only return in the role as 'the paying customer'. ironically, as i am now just about to start my second work contract with the uni, i received today the invitation for the interview with the crack of dawn.

so, please, for next thursday, keep all your digits crossed for this lowly wee one that she will return from the interview in one piece.

ps. i now have officially arrived in the 21st century. for about an hour now, i have been the owner of a new mobile phone -- including camera and mp3-player.

pps. i still feel that this glorified potato peeler is way too much for just calling someone, but at least it's got the added bonus of being pretty.

after just about 48 hours back in wales, it seems i'm picking up the local accent again. but that's not the most important news of the week. dear gentle reader, after more than two years of separation, bedlam celebrated its long awaited reunification. members included rhiannon, jim, lucy, stiw and ce moi. and what can i say? it was more than just great! it was the perfect ending to a perfect day.

the past two evenings i have süent correcting term papers. it is quite a dull work and i find myself always swinging back and forth between, 'in dubio pro reo!' or, 'WTF?!?' at least the students were so friendly to provide the occassional diversion/entertainment in the form of misspelled words or simple creativity in aiming pretty hard -- but shooting way beyond the goal.

in one of the questions, i asked the students to name three rebellions/riots in 19th century wales. one student was very creativly rummaging through her brain and trying to remember really, really hard. well... according to her the Rebeccas were a train company ('Rebecca Rail') that was not, as commonly assumed, against the building of toll gates. instead, they asked to mind the gap ('against tall gaps'). and the Merthyr Rising was not at all about the promotion of male suffrage, but wanted to introduce the absentee ballot ('mail suffrage').

if this keeps up, i shall have a broad collection of 'best of Kulturstudienklausur' by sunday evening.

ps. another goodie: england is a celtic nation, every celt a catholic and welsh slavery was abolished in 1833.