Morning. This time it was not my alarm clock that woke me up reminding of yet another day of lectures. I heard a knock on my bedroom door and it was Sebastian, the old friend from Berlin, who came to visit New England. He brought Andreas, a friend of his, and so the two spent the weekend in Boston, but today left for New Hampshire, Maine and then Canada. So I went to Brandeis to hand in my Master’s paper draft. Enough of Turkish-Armenian dialogue for the moment, although I am aware of the fact that I still have a month to submit the final version and in May get a certificate in a black gown graduation ceremony. I don’t really care about that since I will stay here for at least five more years. It is ironic, since I was never sure and still am not sure whether I do want to get a Ph.D. Or, to put it better, I don’t know whether I really want to remain in the academia. Studying was never enough for me, but here it is pretty much all I do. And only read about the world everyday in “The New York Times”. Today in the post box I found an interesting offer from TIME Magazine – an annual subscription for only fifteen dollars. Not even mentioning that I get “National Geographic”, watch BBC and CBS news and yesterday became a member of American Anthropological Association, which means I will get some more magazines to read. Never thought of it before, but living here is like being in the center of the world. All events and names and places which were so distant before are circling around. But the world is big... In small Lithuania it was much easier to contribute to the matters of the state and society. Looking through the headlines… five African peacekeepers killed in Darfur… Britain and Argentina mark the anniversary of Falkland war… wild magnolias are getting extinct… I guess today I will read… Have two books on corporate social responsibility and some texts on oil politics in Nigeria and Ecuador. Sounds familiar? The last few weeks I was only learning about participatory approaches in development and so asking the Heller students for help. John (my roommate from Ghana) gave me kilos of papers… Now it turns to business strategies and so my other roommate knows more about it. Anthropology seems all over the place. But no deep interest in anything somehow… I even stopped writing here because I feel I don’t have anything more to say. It is a feeling that destroys me. Nothing seems to be that inspiring. Maybe I just need holidays and that is what we have now. Ten days - no classes. It all started Thursday night when with Ahmet and Sezer and Seyit (I almost know more Turks than Germans now) we went to the opening of the Turkish Film Festival at Boston Museum of Fine Arts.



“Ice Cream, Ice Cream”: Mediterranean coast, grapes and watermelons, gangs of kids and top-less Europeans on the beach, but it was all about an old ice-cream man, who was trying to stay in business by competing with sellers of mass-produced ice-cream. In the reception afterwards we got baklavas and wine. Friday we celebrated the first part of Simon’s birthday, Saturday watched “Escape from New York” and Sunday the Germans cooked dinner as the starter for a long evening with rum and Turkish delights. But I don’t know what to do today… Maybe get a ticket to New York? But it might be worse than here. I need something very different. And I want to go home. Less than two months left. Some days ago I even spoke with my grandfather about the coming spring… and with Goda, who told me she had been in the opening of an exhibition with some of my dad’s paintings. Why am I writing all this? Time for lunch. Some Greek salad…

More than a week ago I went to see a real Turkish action movie at my faculty here in Salzburg. Something like Turkish version of "Rambo", but even cheaper and dumber, and at the same time more ideologically oriented. And shockingly popular... What was unusual about it, that this time Americans were the very bad guys, and the Turks and most of Iraqis - brave and honorable heroes. Some nice excercise to my brain it was:-)

Later Turkish consul, present at this video screaning, had to answer some tough questions, some not even connected to the movie directly. But what left me confused, was the harsh disagreements between Turkish students, who were trying to talk about national minorities in Turkey and their present status.

Big country with big problems, I guess...

Linksmo Velykų užbaigimo, Ieva!:)