Rant

Today at the ILO we have been asked to wear red, or pin red ribbons to our lapels. We have been given flyers to remind us that at lunch time people will be forming a human ribbon, holding hands to raise awareness about living with AIDS. 

Holding hands to make a chain and ribbon together for AIDS seems just a step away from dancing around a fire and mumbling incantations over huge pots of frothing potions. Which as we know is a remedy against AIDS that has failed in Africa. They're both based on superstition, led by quacks and equally distant from a real solution. Just in case my red pants make a difference though I have worn them today. I wonder how many people I have saved with the good points they are ratcheting up with the universe on this most special of days as decreed by the UN. 

I do think though that holding hands will achieve nothing more than spreading colds and flus faster. If holding hands had helped the 60' would have ended differently. 

Ennui

Today I went to the store, bought myself a big box of sushi and ate it by myself in the cafeteria. The fish felt weird but good. I read the bridge column while I ate. Then I thought a little about the eyebrows of the new intern, they are very Tom Selleck and so I heart him already. After this I went back to work and promised myself a cup of tea in a couple of hours.

in the summertime

things to do while spending the summer in switzerland, generally understood to be among the most lovely places to spend a summer.

1. write 60 page long papers over 2 weeks. field e mails from anxious professors over missed deadlines. this only makes the situation more enjoyable.

2. decide to work part time at what must surely be the most boring job in the world, paying bills for serbian policemen who are being sponsored by the swedish national police board to learn 'strategic management'. try to figure out what strategic management might entail- not that it matters though because all your time will be spent dealing with cantankerous accountants, one of which has a single gropey hand (the right one).

3. develop a repetitive stress injury from using the computer too much, because staying in and furiously banging away at your keyboard is what summer is all about.

4. stop signing in on skype. your friends want to meet and go to one of the concerts being held in parks around town, but you cannot keep saying no because it makes you look un-fun, and forces you to acknowledge how slowly you are progressing at your writing. avoid them instead.

5. develop a bizarre obsession with daily talk show hosts and their work, craig ferguson for example. you must choose a show that has been on for at least 5 years, if you choose the late late show, which has been on for 8 years. 8 years x 40 minutes a day gives you plenty of time-wasting fodder on youtube.

6. eat vast quantities of biscuits. in the little time that you do have to spare you must concentrate on sending yourself into one sugar coma after another.

7. get yourself an earworm. here. this will do for now.

future tense

it is quite possible that in the next 2 weeks i will relocate to mumbai and start working there.
if so i close up my life in geneva a year and a half sooner than i planned.
oh no. but also. what fun mumbai might be.

26 January 2011

Today I ate sushi for the first time. At a proper restaurant in Geneva. We st at a large oval shaped counter. And along the top of the counter the restaurant had a sushi train. With little saucers of sushi, which we picked off. After a couple of drinks the train became hypnotic. We spent a lot of time watching the train, and talking about what might next appear on it. it was fun, as often things we wanted would go off, and then we had to wait, other times new and exciting stuff would appear, and we could be the first to get them off- racing people to the saucers of their choice.

This evening was another milestone because it was the first time ever (in Geneva) that I went to a restaurant and didn't look for the cheapest thing on the menu. I sat down, and took the fun option, didn't stress about the discounts, and didn't think twice about how much dinner would add up to. It was nice. Really really nice.

The weather cooperated as well. Geneva is very lovely on evenings when you can discuss interesting work, buy a skirt, eat out with good company, walk home without it raining and giggle about boys. Life should have more evenings like this.

(Today's alternate post- which I did not write, included a rant about Montek Singh Alhuwalia's Padma Vibhushan, the PDS, the drudgery of a steady 9-5 job, and worries about weight. All that was wiped out by the lovely evening that followed. I shall think about the PDS tomorrow. And I'm sure there will be many a future occasion to fume at Montek Singh.)