But no... CERN has come and gone and nothing. Not even some sort of vaguely ominous clouds, or dramatic music, or anything like that.
Go figure.
Between my Burmese class and my Paleontology class, I've been kept fairly busy. Actually, in the course of doing research for my paper, I've found theres quite a bit of overlap between Burma and the Indian subcontinent... over in Nagaland, Assam, Manipur, the Chittagong Hill Tracts. That part of the world. Especially when you get into the British Colonial period. Burmese expansion into the west is largely what provoked the Anglo-Burmese Wars! Of course, by 1824 the British Empire controlled all of Burma...
But I'm kind of burned out on that for the moment, as fun as it is to talk about head hunters and dacoity.
I've also been thinking I want to get some sort of crazy new animal, especially if it was something that I could freely allow to roam around my room. Ever heard of giant coconut crabs (Birgus latro)? Biggest land arthropod in the world, weighing some 10 pounds or so and with a leg span of three feet! They live pretty much all through the Pacific and Indian Ocean, from about say... Tahiti all the way west to Madagascar, and on most of the islands. Its pretty much a scaled up hermit crab. They also apparently have a thing about stealing silverware. How lulzy is that? It seems that the Okinawans even keep them as pets, which sounds about right for the Japanese.
I SO want to get one.
I also caught a frog the other day. In a shoe box, in fact. Named him 'hoppy' in honor of the episode of Monk that was on that day. Turns out the flooding is really great for wildlife. Worms, water bugs, frogs, shrews, turtles, all sorts of stuff.
Also looks like Uzbek journalista and activist Umida Niazova was in the news again, being honored with an award from Human Rights Watch International for her work. It seems that what I've heard about reporters who become stories having a hard time getting out of the spotlight is true. Then again, her whole trial was a political thing, really. I've found myself reading alot more Uzbek and Welsh news media lately, especially when I'm waiting around between classes.
Of course, BBC (or, the Beeb, as those in the know call it) is fun in general. I'm absolutely in love with the show Primeval, which some of my friends in other parts of the Anglophone world had known about for years anyway. I WISH we had dinosaurs and other prehistoric creatures roaming about through the streets... how awesome would that be to bring, say, a family of Australopithecines to my Paleontology class? I work under the assumption A. boisei would help me study for class.
Not going to Chicago World Music fest this year... Really, its alot of things. I don't have the money, most of my time is getting wasted on other things, and to be honest I disdain being associated with a crowd of uncouth pseudo-intellectual yuppies who don't appreciate the fine art of the maqam. I know for a fact I can't make tonight's show featuring Mamek Khadem and Gaida Hinnawi, which was pretty much the only thing I even wanted to bother seeing in the first place, and I suspect I won't go see Gaida Hinnawi's performance tomorrow with Amir el Saffar.
EDIT: Screw wallowing in self-pity. Screw all ther drama and feeling sorry for oneself and the pathetic whining. Yeah, it sucks that I didn't get to go to Chicago World Music Festival this year. Alot, but I can't sit around crying over the past. It's done and gone, so no more. There will be other shows, other artists, other places to go and things to do. Gaida Hinnawi has an upcoming show at the Arab American National Museum and Mamek Khadem... well, there aren't really any good venues for Persian art/culture here in the Midwest, beyond maybe the Iran House of Greater Chicagoland. But whatever. Live and learn.
And yes, the new episode of Primeval did rock, thank you very much!
