Change of Story

"Wanna get like this? Start training!"

Changed my thesis. Now it's a study of Soviet poster art. FUCK YES.

Making It Happen

So I won't hire anyone as it turns out I'm going to probably get my summer job back, except this time I'll be

working from home.

It's the 90s and ABOUT DAMN TIME.

I'm hyped to make luchini again.

I've finally sorted my thesis--a book of poems in Russian.

And my environmental rhetoric research projects--the usefulness of and assumptions apparent in conservation programs for inner-city and low-income youth. My client is going to be the Pittsburgh Urban Forest. I'm going to interview leadership at SCA and Grow Pittsburgh to gather a scope of how these programs are conceived, by whom, and with what mission. In order to gain a general knowledge of conservation in Western Pennsylvania, to see where conservation efforts are directed in the region, and to subsequently determine what the greater conservation issues are in this area, I will seek information from the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy. 

I wrote like that because that's my homework for tomorrow. Being excited about my work makes life far more meaningful. From here motivation is born.

SUMMER

(This is where I go, rather WENT, to school, School of Slavonic and East European Studies @ UCL--7th best university in the world!!)

Just tamed my Russian Oral Exam. No cavities, haha!

---

Tipsy Gypsy, well, I would be if I were to attend that Russian Film Lecture that 2 of my teachers are putting on today because I have not eaten in 24 hours and almost all SSEES talks have "wine to follow". But here's the gypsy reality that's my life in London:

I'm making about 40 pounds this week participating in psychology experiments for my school.

HOLLER AT THAT DOLLAR

Also, moving to California in a year's time.

Queen Mary

Respect:


Eley Kishimoto Fall/Winter '09
I want to make (really tight) jeans out of this. I'm backpacking to Amsterdam and around France for a few weeks and for my birthday. My lady love is coming to visit and chill. There's always more Russian to be learned.

I live here:

And I dig this:

2+2=4

So Vladimir Putin and Dmitri Medvedev had a late night one night, and they fell asleep in the Kremlin. The next day they woke up and Medvedev goes,

"Vladimir Vladimirovich, I want to make sure of something."

And Putin says, "What? Tell me, Dima."

And Medvedev asks, "2 plus 2, that equals 4, right?"

To which Putin responds, "Right, Dima. 3 for me, and 1 for you."

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!

I am a woman.

And as such, I bloom, wilt, curl into a shell, then burst forth again, like the seasons.

I just figured out this paper, 1 of 2. I'm quoting Mikhail Gorbachev himself and using his words against him. So naughty.

Last night I designed a gown, it's really sexy. I can't wait to get back to my studio in Pittsburgh and go nuts this summer. Living with Drew!

Also, t-shirts:

SKINNY WITCH (Halloween)

THEY'RE REAL (across the chest, w/ glasses)

and

NO HARD FILLINGS (pie)

CAN YOUR URETHRA DO THIS? (baby) haha, maternity line

Russia's Next Top American Model

is smarter than a 5th grader. Pilot?
This is my sole inspiration as I research the tits off Russia-Ukraine relations. 10 pages starts... NOW!

Holy Hella

"In short, he was also good. And they looked very good together. Their dance was imbued with something lasting and unforgettable."

-Vasilii Shukshin, Snowball Berry Red

A wave just swept over me. I can't stop reading this.

Words, to your mother.

Epic moment this (late) morning: I was struck with what I like to call "the beat". Words came to me before I'd even gotten out of bed and I began writing a story that I cannot wait to finish. Such an exhilarating feeling.

Then I thought I lost my keys, credit card, licence, and student ID, but I just found them, at 7:30 p.m., in my kitchen. I sketched into the building, the intrepid that I am, while a boy was leaving. He gave me weird eyes.

London lost an estimated 700 million GBP from yesterday's complete infrastructural failure. And the transport chief says, "We did the best we could." Weak.
Just watched Elem Klimov's Добро пожаловать, или Посторонним вход воспрещён (Dobro pozhalovat, ili Postoronnim vkhod Vaspryecyhon) which is a Krushev-era Russian film about kids at summer camp and it was hi-larious. In one scene the boys dove into a poison ivy grove so that they would not have to see their parents at visitor's week. Adorable! I could watch Russian films all day long.

Portobello, Hello! BYOB Orchestra, and Tamed!

Saturday Lydia and I went to Portobello Market and looked at clothing which I could not justify buying then continued down a narrow cobbled lane to the produce stalls where we found an abundance of 1 quid bowls of fruit, vegetables, and 3-for-a-quid brie!! It was so rewarding. I came away with 2 bunches of bananas, a bowl of apples, a bag of mushrooms, and a brie wheel for 3.30 GBP. And we saw George Orwell's house!

We came upon an antique bookseller and I saw something that I want more than anything in the world--a 2nd edition copy from 1926 of The Sun Also Rises. It's hard to summate how important that book is to me; it's shaped my world view and I have written a lot of criticism about it. I could never run out of things to say about it. The copy the guy was selling was 40 quid (yoikes!) and came into existence when an error was discovered on pg. 118 of the first printed edition ("stoppped"). So to cancel out the anguish of not being able to buy it I got a bratwurst instead and then on Monday I bought:
I cannot wait to get into Jonathan Safran Foer's Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, which is about a young boy who loses his dad in the 9/11 terror attacks then searches the 5 boroughs for the lock to which a key his dad left him fits. I've read page 1 and I had to shut it fast or else I would not have gotten anything else done. It's gripping. Introducing Wittgenstein is a sort of graphic novel biography of the linguist-philosopher and I could probably read it in one sitting. But first I have to read Solzehnitsyn's One Day In The Life of Ivan Denisovich, which is about political prisoners in the gulag, for my Making of Modern Russian Culture class. I'm excited about that one. I love the oppressed!

Saturday evening was a lot of fun. Johnny came in from Oxford and we went to this really cozy pub in Soho, The French House. The people were really nice and chatty and warm and for a while we couldn't even get a seat until this couple got up and offered us their table. We stayed there until they closed then went to Shoreditch where we found another corner in another pub, and we sat in this 1.5-person chair propped against a bathroom door, which was weird to some people but not so much to us. Engrossing conversation about Heidegger, set theory, and quantum physics ensued. Got back late, apples, slept late, all in all a great time.

I'm GOING TO KILL the construction workers who seem to be doing more damage than creation to the building adjacent to mine. I've learned to sleep through the morning ruckus, but now I have to circumvent the entrance to my flat by about 100 metres because there is a moat coalescing. Blergh. And this one dude, he's from Ghana, now thinks we are best freaking friends when really I was just being polite and rarely have the time to chat in the mornings when I'm trying to make it to class, which means trying to make it to the Tube, on time. Ack!

Best thing EVER happened in Soviet & Russian Foreign Policy today. This one girl, who is either Russian or Ukrainian and kind of a brat, would not stop whispering to her friend and the professor had already asked her nicely to stfu. So then this kid raises his hand and I thought he was going to ask a question about Crimea, but instead he turns to her and says in a loud, stern voice:

"Stop talking. You're being rude and I don't think you get it. If you can't be quiet then don't come at all. He's lecturing and you're disturbing the entire class and insulting everyone in it."

My jaw dropped.

So then the girl looks completely injured and tries to defend herself feebly to the very professor whom she had previously disrespected, then other students chimed in telling the girl she really just needed to stop talking, and it was GREAT. I have never seen someone get tamed so hard in my life. And the best part was that everyone was on the kid's side because the girl was really being a brat. At one point she even tried to tell on him, she said, "Ever since I put down my bag, he's been rude to me. There are ways to be nice about it."

And he said something to the effect of, "There are also ways to shut up."

Then Dr. Titov returned to the lecture, but not before saying, "Kind of resembles Russia-Ukraine relations."

BURN.

Last night we saw the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment at Queen Elizabeth Hall. It was awesome. We sat on the stage behind the orchestra and they played Handel's Arrival of the Queen of Sheba, a Vivaldi concerto in D, and a cantata with a real-life soprano in a hideous dress. And they used baroque instruments! It was only 4 quid, super lax (you could BYOB and come and go) and there was a bar for students and the announcer was an offhand comedian and the whole thing was refreshing. Makes me want to dust off my violin and go at it.

Rave Till You're Blind

Yo yo yo yo yo! Life is awesome for the following reasons:

1.Finished this book.

About 10 pages in and I stopped agreeing with Satter for the remainder of the book. His anecdotes are imitable, his suspicion, blinding, and his thesis, inconclusive. He purports from the beginning that administrative ineptitude, corruption, and a resulting moral vacuum in Russia's "soul" (bullshit) are responsible for her inevitable rule by dictator. We belabored this same argument in Soviet Union in WW2 and it still nags me, begging the questions 'Is Russia really doomed?' and 'Are we as doomed as Russia?'


2.Started this book.

After seeing the movie and reading the script, I bought this and 2 other of Irvine Welsh's novels, Glue and Porno, the follow-up to Trainspotting. I'm on page 43 and the plot is up and hoppin' already. The phonetic Scottish slang dialect doesn't even faze me anymore. I love books!!!!


3.Got these shoes.
From Beacon's online. New guilty guilty guilty pleasure since I went to Brooklyn and shopped there 2 days later. I'm gonna whip them out for fall like whoa.


4.No longer jealous of Balenciaga.

Just when you thought Balenciaga could go no more angular, they etched from a block of vinyl these cage-like "dresses" that the ugly-no-not-model-ugly-just-straight-up-UGGZ wearer seems rightfully displeased to sport.

Unless she's wondering where her period went.

Those satiny, exposed framework pantsuits of last spring were pretty groundbreaking for a house that traditionally favors more sensual, form-following lines.

This, however, simply gross.


5.Maybe Satter was right after all.

Read about the Moscow rave that left 61 people blind!