Monday 17 June 2013

Side tracked

So it's been a little quiet on the blog front. I may have gotten slightly distracted by +Game of Thrones. Not so much the televisual series, which has come out as worryingly a) crap at representing homosexual relationships and b) seriously crap at representing what's on the page and ending the third series with, well.


The season closed with a whole lot of brown-skinned slaves being liberated by the white-skinned girl; the same white-skinned girl who'd been sold into sexual slavery, "civilised" her savage (brown) husband/rapist and, well, how does this image not make you just a little bit uncomfortable?

This isn't a reflection on Martin, by the by. He takes about slaves from all the corners of his imagined world; pale-skinned Westerosi to Summer Islanders with skin like onyx. The point is that anyone could be sold into slavery; it's not a condition that only affects people with brown skin.

Except HBO think it is, and I'm really quite pissed off with that. It's a dick move, playing to the audience who gets a little leery about white slaves because apparently that's more upsetting than - augh. Too much irritation.

So I've been losing myself in the books, which are normally the size of bricks. However, thanks to my mother and technology, I can carry the whole collection around on my kindle and add less than the weight of a strawberry to it. That's not a totally random analogy, by the by - the entire weight of the internet has been reckoned to come to about the same as a strawberry. Science, yo.

I've also been losing myself in translation work and travels in Paris, where I've been investigating things for my parents to do when they visit in two weeks time. Excitement. It was Father's day yesterday, and if you forgot ring your dad up now and tell him he's awesome because if you're anything like me telling your dad you love him would be weird. So tell him he's awesome and hope he understands.

Dad, if you're reading this, you're awesome.

M'colleague and I have almost finished with one of our tasks for next year; all that's left is to think up clues. I'm tempted to think of cryptic clues as well, because I happen to think they're cool. I've also started filling in application forms for internships for next year because being keen seems to be working for me so far. It's a stretch, I know, but I want to be interning somewhere - anywhere - other than Britain next summer. It's going to require a lot of work, I know, but I've got a feeling it'll be worth it. Chicago, D.C, New York or Paris. Or Berlin, if I can scrape together the few particles of German festering in my memory banks and force a sound out of them.

The students are leaving in droves to far off and exotic places, like Aberdeen, and today I got an email through from the Registry at uni - the countdown has begun. Before long I shall need to start sorting out my electives and courses for next year, and while I'm pumped, I'm not looking forward to the return to essays and lectures. We shall see.

I am looking forward to a return to the icy cold. This damp heat (22ºC and raining today folks) has absolutely laid me out, and I don't know whether it's a cold or hay fever but the entire liquid contents of my body are doing their best to escape via my nose. I'm starting to wonder if I'm asleep and dreaming; in real life, I'm hanging upside down, which is why fluid going into my mouth is seeming to exit almost immediately via my nose.

I'm going to try a cup of tea with lemon and honey. If that doesn't work it'll have to be two corks.

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