Gandhi Jayanti

In today's news

1. A 90 year old Dalit man was set on fire for trying to enter a temple. Also in Utter Pradesh. The gift that keeps on giving.

2. People are still yammering on about the Oregon shooter, and prayers, and whether guns were allowed on campus or not - will not one acknowledge that barely a fraction of mass shootings in the US have been carried out by women, and not a single one on school campuses. White men with guns are the problem. Stop the guns. Or just preemptively lock up white men.

3. Meryl Streep is not a feminist- she is a humanist. She is an idiot. And there ends my love for her.

4. Bon Jovi, despite repeated appeals, will go ahead with his show in Tel Aviv. So there go any feelings for him as well.

5. The ILO has been fucking around with me for days, proposing a work contract, and then taking away the work contract. If the International Labour Organization will not treat potential consultants like they have the right to an opinion who will? (No one. Young, brown, third world consultants have no right to expect any better.)

6. #Joaquin is coming for us on the East Coast- or so I am told. But I have seen enough spurious storm warnings in the United States to know that this could also be nothing. It will rain, and Americans will cry about how infrastructure might fail, and will stockpile food as if the world is coming to an end. Everything is always more potentially apocalyptic here. 

7. It is Gandhi Jayanti. And Modi's face is everywhere. It feels like the cruellest irony. This life is not to be borne. Not today.

As you can tell I am angry. I suppose that is not in the spirit of Gandhi Jayanti either.

Procrastination

I have a deadline coming up. So have been doing a vast amount of cooking.

In the last few weeks I have made

1. Paneer from scratch, several times
2. Paneer paranthas
3. Quiche with paneer in it, and a base made from scratch
4. Fancy khichdi with many bits and bobs
5. Less fancy khichi
6. Sambarshadam
7. Chow mein like the LSR cafe
8. Lobia
9. Black dal
10. Orange dal
11. Mattar paranthas
12. Aloo paranthas
13. Aloo-gobhi-mattar paranthas
14. Gobhi paranthas
15. Puliyogare
16. Baked french fries
17. Hasselback potatoes
18. Potatoes Dauphinoise
19. Lamb meatballs
20. Chicken meatballs
21. Beef meatballs
22. Cashew celery soup
23. Endless salads. Admittedly J makes most of the salad dressing. But I find all the other bits and bobs to go on.

Of all of this I have only one picture- of the quiche- but here it is. It was better than my photography skills.

Now I am tired. I have run out of things to cook before this paper. Must write the paper in a rush of activity and can then return to my customary sloth.
Sloathe

I keep falling asleep in different parts of the house over this horrible document that needs editing. The dog is tired of being startled awake whenever J comes upon us. J is tired of having to wake me up so that I can get this done and we can have our life of leisure and poverty back. I am tired of falling asleep in the cold and waking up covered in dog hair while being told off by an irate American.

This is my study break

Because Robyn is awesome, and makes life worth living.

Friday evening party anthem

I realise it is a bit of a cop out to just keep posting poetry that might reflect some of the things I have been thinking of late.
As I type this I am sitting on what must be the world's third most comfy couch. Against my left elbow a little beagle is curled up, and making wheezy sleep sounds. I have Chopin playing on the stereo, and while it gets dark earlier each day, inside the house it just gets cosier as the year turns towards winter.
I have about a week's worth of work to do and two days in which to do it. The couch is my home, the dog my only friend, and eventually tears will replace the music. Until Tuesday when regular work, the 8 hours a day sort, will begin again. I cannot wait.

Argh

I am going to keep a log of the first thing that makes me mad enough to climb the walls each day.

Today it was the news that the ILO might be signing a partnership agreement with Monsanto. I understand that no company is free of some questionable practice but nothing about Monsanto is acceptable. If ever the term evil corporation was to be assigned to an entity (other than the American government I suppose) this would be it no?

And all I have in response is some inarticulate snarling.

Argh

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2013/03/201332813553729250.html

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.

9-5 jobs.

9-5 jobs often stretch to 9-6 and 9-7.
they can make furtively checking your facebook at work the thrill by which you mark your days.
they can turn you into the kind of person that 'does' lunches on weekdays with friends because you might not have life outside of office to fit all of them into, while also managing some sleep and laundry time.
they can make you focus on things like cornering the last heater in the office, or being taken out for lunch by your boss that you forget that you started out trying to save the world. now all your are trying to do is submit your leave applications on time so that you can spend the weekend in italy.
this blog post about 9-5 jobs is so depressing. i shall leave. besides if i don't go to bed by 1.am i will not be able to get to work by 9.