I’m moving this blog… this post is just to keep notes for myself on progress:
April 2006
You can see the new blog here. It’ll look very much the same for a while.

The hardwork is done now I just have to figure out the little bits that need switching.

Just got back from visiting family down in Pennsylvania. Christmas was good. I’m heading into Providence now to move benches back into the meeting house and then take the GREs this afternoon.

I took the train up to Boston. I really like the MBTA commuter rail. It’s quite quintessentially American; these huge carriages pulled by this huge diesel locomotive for no more than an hour carrying not quite a full load for dirt cheap. It has it’s charm. Once in Boston Nia and I went to see Bodyworks 2 at the science museum then hung out there for a bit before meeting her dad and his partner at the airport. They drove us back into Cambridge where we found a table which we took back to her flat. Hung out with Nia and Breezy in their flat and then went to bed. Woke up this morning and headed back home on the T to South Station. Got on the commuter rail coming home. Ran into Dan in the Providence Train station, that was a pleasant surprise. Perhaps we’ll do something later this evening. I’ve got to get out and bike or something, I’m just sitting at home snacking on food all day long.

SantaCon was on Saturday. It was a hoot. A bit different this year as we spent more time just standing around and less time in pubs which I think was a bit of a bad idea but that’s ok it was still SantaCon and still a load of fun. Our party consisted of: Anna, Josh, Noah, Nils, Aimee, Alex, Richard and me.

I flew home on Monday. I tried dressing all smart and it worked pretty well. I was treated quite nicely at the airports, shown an express baggage check-in line at heathrow.

Yesterday I went into Brown to do some Hittite work in the library. Then I ran into Allen at the Brown bookstore. Then I met up with Mike and Bill, we worked on Mike’s present for Kim. Today I’m heading back into the library to do more work and then I have an eye exam and then I’m taking the train to Boston to see Nia.

This is where I’ve been spending most of my time recently, the soas library. I just finished writing a paper on the interaction between Mesopotamian cities and their rural surroundings.

I ran the pub quiz last night, it was holiday themed and great fun.

I think I’m coming down with something, my throat hurts and I feel tired.

Nils, Noah, Aimee and her friend are all coming tomorrow to stay over for SantaCon on Saturday!

Worked really hard this week on an essay and my dissertation. So I thought I’d have a good proper weekend. Yesterday I went to see Ed’s end of term movie down in Soho in the morning. Then the lot of us (Ed, Lucy, Fergus, James) went around London for a bit and got some food. Then we headed down to New Cross to goto a party at the squat of Rubbish and Nasty, where there was some live “Wrong Music” which was actually quite good. After that I left and headed to Kensington to see Anna play with the University of London Symphony Orchestra, after that we all went out for a drink.

Today I got up and cycled to Quaker meeting. Had a nice meeting and lunch afterwards and we sang Christmas carols with all the kids. Then on the way home I got in an accident and broke my glasses, bent the front fork of my bike and roughed up my face a bit. So that’s a bummer, I’m going to call the bike shop tomorrow and see if they can bend the fork back (It’s not too bad). Tonight I’m going to see a movie with our neighbors and maybe try out a new pub around the corner. And then next week it’s back to work. My applications for grad-school are starting to materialize which is nice.

This is part of my bike ride to and from SOAS.

And here’s my bike.

I spent today in the library collecting various translations and transliterations for Old Babylonian and Hittite documents. I also started and nearly finished one Old Babylonian slave contract.

This is our local cat. We think he lives across the street but he comes over every once in a while. He’s incredibly nice and quiet as a mouse. Last night we all went down to the pub quiz but unfortunately came in fourth, one place away from winning a bottle of wine. Oh well next time.

I was browsing the linguistics section of the SOAS library and this book popped out at me. Turns out I don’t really understand it that well. I like the title and cover art though. I’ll probably read another more basic book and work my way up to the eden that is “infinite syntax!”.

I went up to Peter’s on Wednesday. I brought my bike along with me but by the time I’d gotten off the bus in Oxford and cycled to Woodstock it was too dark to continue on, so Peter and his dad came and picked me up. I had a really nice time up there, it was good to get out of London for a bit. The cycle ride home on Friday was beautiful. I left his house at about ten and cycled down through the Cotswolds to Oxford. I got lots of beautiful views of valleys, misty fields and grazing sheep. It was about twenty-one miles and it took me an hour and a half.

This weekend has been rather tame. I went to the pub on Saturday night with Anna. Other than that I’ve just been working and relaxing at home. I’ve decided to enact a new daily regime. I’m going to do a minimum of two hours of academic work a day, thirty minutes of playing an instrument and try and be in bed around 11:30 and wake up around 8. So today I woke up at 8 and listened to BBC radio four for a bit, then did some translation and made my self a nice breakfast. Now I’m going to head into SOAS and work the rest of the day in the Library.

Life’s been very busy recently. We won the pub quiz on Wednesday. I got hired to work at Ziyaret Tepe as Registrar for future excavations starting this summer. The job includes a stipend apparently. I’m well chuffed about it.

Saturday I joined Peter and his family and friends at the Climate March. Afterwards we all went to this little pub near Trafalgar Square I like called the Lamb and Flag. They went back to Oxford and I went home. In the evening I went with Anna and her friend up to Alexandra Palace and saw some great fireworks.

Yesterday I got up in the morning and got dressed up really smart and headed out on my bike down to St. James Park. Once there I met up with some like minded people and we set up a sort of Faux-test posing as Citizens helping the police enforce the new serious organised crime and police act. This act prevents people from demonstrating within a one mile radius around parliament. We stood right on the one mile border and made sure that everyday civilians entering the zone were free of subversive thoughts. The police came a lot and we assured them that we were only there helping them out and that they should keep an eye out for people with red stickers as we had deemed them subversive. All in all it was a great time, we stayed at St. James park for a while then retired to the pub only to come back out in force in Trafalgar square.

After I biked home I made a huge curryish pasta dish for Emily and me and then I headed out again on my bike over to Sam’s in West Hampstead. I stayed a while at his watching fireworks and talking with people and then before it got to be too late biked back home across North London.

Update: SpaceHijacker write-up.

This afternoon our friends from Stanley Road dropped by unexpected. Josh, Anna and Lili came over with a scooter they had found in their shed. We then went over to Lordship Lane park and played some catch and spent a long time just hanging out in the playground watching the sunset. The weather was perfect just warm enough to enjoy being outside and a bright clear sky. After the park we walked back and Josh and Anna joined us for dinner.

Friday after my lecture met up with Josh and Sam at SOAS and we biked down to Waterloo bridge to meet up with Critical Mass. It was amazing. We biked all over central London. The guys from my bike shop rode up at one point and we chatted for a while, it was the first time they were doing it as well. After two hours we decided to break off from the group and head north to home. Definitely something I’m going to do every month.

Yesterday our neighbors on Stanley road and we went down to the BM. I gave a tour of the Ancient Near East section that lasted an hour and a half. We had a nice lunch/tea in gallery cafe and saw the special exhibition on Power & Taboo. Then Peter, Esther and I headed up north to meet Esther’s friend for some Ethiopian food at Fassika in Finsbury Park. The Owner kept giving us free things to try so we ended only spending 20 quid for four people including drinks.

Yesterday I was reading lifehacker and I came across a post with a video by some famous juggling guru. I watched the short video and was suitably inspired. So I collected some juggling materials and began. An hour or so later I was doing quite well; this morning even better. These three rogues pictured above helped me learn, and for that I’m indebted to them. I’ve tried to learn to juggle in the past but I’ve always given up. I think this time two factors changed that. One: the video was quite easy to understand and well made. And two: I practiced over my quite high bed. Everytime I dropped a fruit it was within easy reach and I could start again. Previous attempts had left me searching for balls that had rolled under pieces of furniture.

Last tuesday I biked into school and then headed down to the Tate Modern to meet Julie and her friend Marina we went to see the slides. They were quite cool. I didn’t have enough time to wait around for a ticket for the big ones but to be sure I’ll be back. Other news… we didn’t win the pub quiz this week. I did some fun research into sheep, goats and salt in ancient mesopotamia on wednesday.

Today I went to the Anarchist Book Fair with Georgia and Monica. It was actually really interesting. It’s more of a convention than a book fair. I went to a discussion group on residents groups, and later with Georgia and Monica to a forum on Ideology, Religion and the State in regards to Anarchism.

Now I’m by no means an Anarchist but I was very happy to be there and participating in the discussions. In the residents group meeting one of the speakers expressed frustration when members of the community come to complain about (for instance) an abandoned car on their road. He felt like he was selling out his ideals by calling the council to get it removed. Another participant told how her residents group in Glasgow was accused of “diluting anarchist ideals” by trying to move to a commitee structure when their meetings got to large to facilitate efficiently. I talked with Georgia a lot about Anarchism etc… In some ways I think the well meaning (and great) people there are working under sort of a misnomer. I think they’d do better to call themselves ultra-left. Attaching themself to anarchism in some ways hinders their range of action.

Also a side note, the only stereotypical punks I saw there weren’t looking at books for sale, weren’t in workshops, weren’t participating in forums. They were huddled around the one stall that sold black t-shirts and buttons. It points once again the book Nation Of Rebels. Anyway I very much enjoyed it, and would gladly go back again. There certainly is a lot going on there and some really great people trying to figure out what to do.

Biking is fun. I biked to and from Soas on Friday. On the way back I made a wrong turn and ended up riding Seven Sisters road between Holloway road and Finsbury Park. That was nuts! Tons of Busses, cars, other cyclists and pedestrians. I think when I’m feeling bored I might take that detour but for the most part I’ll stick with the quiter route.

This is my first time commuting by bike along with other bikers. Leaving SOAS I found my self queing at a red light behind two other bikes and in front of other bikes in the bike lane. That was pretty nice, you feel more like part of the traffic as opposed to an unwanted presence on the road. I’ve decided to go to the critical mass rides in London. Why not, I have a sweet bike and I like biking. I did Critical Mass once in Providence. It was a great deal of fun but very small, that was also the day I made it from home into the city in a little over twenty minutes; I was in a hurry.

I’ve just made myself a pot of Assam tea which I’m going to drink with loads of milk and sugar. I just started a loaf of brown bread (see above). I taught or stanley road co-patriots about the joys of baking this weekend. I also put my bike in for service (new wheels and two more brake levers for heavy traffic manevuers). I think I may keep this bike for a long time now. Depending on where I am next year I’ll get it shipped.

This week has been busy, lots of translating and reading of articles. Last weekend we went over to our friends at Stanley road for a house warming on Friday and a Cluedo evening on Sunday. This afternoon Peter and I went to the John Soane museum for a quick spell.

Tonight Esther, Peter and I did our pub quiz duties and won again(!) fifty quid this time. On the way home I bought a beautiful bike. I’m going to start commuting to SOAS via the bicycle.

Monday night I was sitting in the kitchen with Peter checking my e-mail when I got an message from Nils. He was stranded at Stansted for the night so I invited him over he arrived a few hours later. The next day we walked around London for a bit and met a friend of his at LSE. Then he headed back to Stansted for his flight. It was a very nice short visit, his travels sound really cool. Later that day I had my first class, Akkadian Texts II which went pretty well actually. We’re reading Old Babylonian Legal texts. Today I had Archaeology, after which I walked down to the Tate Modern to see some more of the galleries. The walk along the Thames was quite nice. I took a bit of a nap at one point.

After the Tate I walked back and met Esther in the SOAS Bar as we geared up for the Pub Quiz. Peter soon met us and our team was complete. We named ourselves “Coffe Milk (Smooth As Silk)”. And some how we managed to win, pocketed a nice sixty five quid. We’ll be sure to be there again next week.

Today I decided to make some pita bread. The first batch were a bit bready, so the second batch I made sure to roll out thin. They came out quite nice, and took all of ten minutes from start to eat.

I’ve been playing with this panorama program the best I’ve gotten so far is this one of my room.